RUSSIA RELIGION NEWS


Moscow-oriented Ukrainian church calls out Ukrainian president

UPTsMP CRITICIZES POROSHENKO FOR CALL TO CREATE INDEPENDENT CHURCH

RIA Novosti, 22 April 2018

 

The Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (UPTsMP) considers that the appeal of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to the patriarch of Constantinople for the creation in the country of a united local autocephalous church exceeds his authority and is interference in church affairs.

 

On Thursday, the Verkhovna Rada supported Poroshenko's appeal to the patriarch of Constantinople for the creation in the country of a united local autocephalous church. The president said the decision of the Constantinople synod on this matter may be made before 28 July.

 

The statement of the Department for External Church Relations of the UPTsMP, published Saturday evening, says that according to the Ukrainian constitution, the church is separated from the state, and thus matters of church life are decided by the church independently.

 

"The Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which has canonical ties with ecumenical Orthodoxy, has not sent to Patriarch Bartholomew a request to grant autocephaly to the Orthodox church in Ukraine and it has not authorized either the president or deputies of the Ukrainian Supreme Soviet to do this. Because of this, the aforementioned initiatives exceed their authority and also interfere in church affairs," the statement says.

 

The UPTsMP noted that autocephaly is granted to a church and not to a state, and therefore "to initiate or to request this status should be done by the church and not by the state."

 

"It causes concern that the granting of autocephaly to the Orthodox church in Ukraine is viewed as a matter not only of religion but also of geopolitics. We are convinced that the sphere of religious life should not become an object of political manipulation. Ecclesiastical and political affairs should not be mixed, to say nothing of geopolitical affairs," the statement notes.

 

There now function in Ukraine a canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UPTsMP), which is a self-governing church within the Moscow patriarchate, and also church structures that are not recognized by world Orthodoxy—the "Kiev patriarchate" (UPTsKP) and the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (UAPTs). The UPTsMP has frequently reported previously incidents of harassment of priests and seizures of Orthodox church buildings. (tr. by PDS, posted 22 April 2018)

 
Background article:

Ukrainian legislature moves closer to ecclesiastical independence
April 19, 2018


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