MEETING OF NEW CARPATHIAN DIOCESE OF UAPTs HELD IN
UZHGOROD
Press
Service of UAPTs Carpathian diocese, 11 June 2015
On 10 June, the first session of the diocesan
assembly of the diocese was held in Uzhgorod under the
chairmanship of the ruling administrator of the new Carpathian
diocese of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church,
Archimandrite Viktor Bed, with the blessing of His Beatitude
Makary, Metropolitan of Kiev and all-Ukraine and the primate of
the UAPTs.
The agenda for the diocesan meeting contained the
following topics:
1. On the results of the work of the Bishops'
Council of UAPTs of 3 June 2015
2. On the results of the work of the Local Sobor of
UAPTs of 4-5 June 2015
3. On parishes and clergy composing the Carpathian
diocese of UAPTs
4. On adoption of the charter of the consistory
(diocesan administration) of the Carpathian diocese of UAPTs
5. On election of the ruling bishop of the
Carpathian diocese of UAPTs
6. On confirmation of the decision about the election of the ruling bishop of the Carpathian diocese of UAPTs
7. On election of the diocesan council of the Carpathian diocese of UAPTs
8. Miscellaneous.
Appropriate decisions on all issues on the agenda are adopted on the basis of results of the work of diocesan meetings of the Carpathian diocese of the UAPTs.
In accordance with the ancient Ukrainian church traditions which are enshrined in the charter of the UAPTs, the selection of the ruling bishops of the diocese is carried out by the faithful and clergy of the respective diocese. Therefore, in accordance with these regulations, representatives of the parishes and clergy that are members of the Carpathian diocese of the UAPTs held an election of their ruling bishop. On the basis of the results of voting (under the chairmanship of Archpriest Alexander Smolin), on an alternative basis, by an absolute majority of votes, as the ruling bishop of the Carpathian diocese of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church with its center of diocesan administration in the city of Uzhgorod, Archimandrite Viktor Bed was elected.
Five persons were elected to compose the diocesan council of the Carpathian diocese of the UAPTs: Archimandrite Viktor Bed (chairman), Archimandrite Diodor Muratov, Archpriest Alexander Smolin, and laymen Sergei Vasilevich Urst and Orest Petrovich Didukh. In the future, in the event of necessity, the composition of the diocesan council will be expanded on the basis of the representation of parishes.
The conditions as of 10 June:
In 2015, the Carpathian diocese of UAPTs comprised 12 parishes and 11 clergy who previously had belonged to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow patriarchate, in particular the Mukachevo and Khust dioceses of UPTsMP.
The participants in the diocesan assembly of the Carpathian diocese of the UAPTs included authorized representatives of parishes and initiative groups from 8 districts and cities of the Transcarpathian province: the cities of Uzhgorod and Mukachevo, and the districts of Uzgorod, Mukachevo, Perechni, Vinogradov, Tiachev, and Volobets.
The Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church, as
the ancient Ukrainian church that was revived on 5 May 1920 in the
Ukrainian People's Republic and subsequently was subjected to
repressions, persecutions and prohibition on the part of the
former totalitarian communist soviet regime of the USSR and the
Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (the episcopate and the
overwhelming majority of clergy of the UAPTs were physically
destroyed by the communist stalinist regime), is the spiritual
descendant of the apostolic Christianization of
Scythia-Rus-Ukraine by the apostle of the Ukraine, Andrew the
First-Called (mid-first century), and of the original Ukrainian
Church founded in 862 under the blessed prince of Kiev Askold of
the dynasty of the Kievan Prince Kyi and the holy prelate Foti,
Patriarch of Constantinople (under the name of the Russian
Church), and it is in prayer unity with the ecumenical
patriarchate and supports the union of all Orthodox churches on
the territory of our state in a united local Ukrainian church.
During liturgies in the UAPTs, the names of Ecumenical Patriarch
Bartholomew and the first hierarch of the Mother-Church in Ukraine
are elevated first, and then His Beatitude Makary, metropolitan of
Kiev and all-Ukraine and primate of the Ukrainian Autocephalous
Orthodox Church. The episcopate of the Ukrainian Autocephalous
Orthodox Church has canonical episcopal succession which was
restored in 1942, with the blessing of the ecumenical
patriarchate, as an episcopate of the canonical Polish Orthodox
Church and maintained through the UAPTs in the diaspora, which
belongs to the ecumenical patriarchate. (tr. by PDS, posted 15
June 2015)
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