ON EVE OF UNIFICATION OF UPTsKP AND UAPTs, UPTsMP
PROPOSES TO RESTORE DIALOGUE
Religiia
v Ukraine, 5 June 2015
With the blessing of the head of the Ukrainian
Orthodox Church of the Moscow patriarchate [UPTsMP],
Metropolitan of Kiev and all-Ukraine Onufrey, and at the
invitation of the leadership of the UAPTs, on 4 June 2015 a
delegation of the UPTs consisting of Bishop of Borodiansk
Varsonofey, assistant of the Kiev metropolitanate, and the
deputy chairman of the Department of External Church
Relations, Archpriest Nikolai Danilevich, attended the local
sobor of the UAPTs in the capacity of observers. The sobor is
being held in Kiev in the premises of the Ukrainian House,
Religiia v Ukraine reports, with reference to the website of
the UPTs.
In his speech, Vladyka Varsonofey, on
instructions from the primate of the Ukrainian Orthodox
church, said in particular:
"The founder of the church, our Lord Jesus
Christ, in his high priestly prayer asked God the Father that
'all may be one' (Jn. 17.20). At the present time, it is upon
us that the responsibility lies for the fate of Christ's
church in Ukraine. We all want unity, but each of us has his
own vision of the means to achieve it.
"As is known, the late memorable Metropolitan
Mefody was a convinced supporter of the restoration of unity
among Orthodox Christians in Ukraine specifically on the basis
of canon law of the Orthodox Church. We consider that today it
is necessary to listen to his lifelong desire.
"Therefore, on the instructions of the primate of
the Ukrainian Orthodox church, His Beatitude Metropolitan of
Kiev and all-Ukraine Onufrey, I am delivering to you the
suggestion for the restoration of dialogue among our churches.
We propose continuing to meet with one another without paying
attention to attempts to divide us or to the informational
propaganda whose goal is to make children of the same parents
enemies, and to recall that we are children of the one God and
of one motherland—Ukraine."
Bishop Varsonofey also expressed confidence that
unity can come only when questions that divide will be
discussed in an ecclesiastical, and not a political, spirit.
"The UPTs bishop noted with pleasure that there is not on the
part of the UAPTs the aggressive attitude toward our church
that has been observed on the part of others," the UPTs
website notes. Therefore "we consider that an ecclesiastical
spirit and a fraternal and gracious attitude toward one
another may be the evangelical rock on which a firm and
unshakeable building of a united church of Christ in Ukraine
can be erected," bishop Varsonofey emphasized.
We recall that yesterday the UAPTs elected as its head Metropolitan Makary, who has proclaimed a course toward unification with the UPTsKP. (tr. by PDS, posted 7 June 2015)
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