Dumenko assures Patriarch Bartholomew of his desire for unity and dialogue with UOC

During a recent meeting with Patriarch Bartholomew at Phanar, the head of the OCU Epiphany Dumenko expressed his readiness to work to strengthen church unity and constructive dialogue with the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

According to the press service of the OCU, in his address to Patriarch Bartholomew, Dumenko emphasized: «We testify again and again that we seek to establish church unity in Ukraine and are sincerely open to a constructive dialogue on the basis of the Tomos of autocephaly.»

According to Dumenko, the purpose of his visit with his colleagues to Istanbul was «to testify to our spiritual and prayerful unity and ask the Lord in this sacred center of Orthodoxy on the great feast of Epiphany for the victory of truth and the establishment of a just peace for Ukraine.»

Earlier, Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople addressed the head of the OCU with an instruction to actively seek ways to bring the UOC hierarchs closer together through dialogue and the search for common ground to achieve unity. Seven years after the granting of the Tomos of autocephaly, the Patriarch emphasized the importance of efforts to achieve peace, condemned state interference in church affairs, and called for a rethinking of positions for the sake of general reconciliation.