HEAD OF RELIGIOUS AFFAIRS DEPT. OF UKRAINE ANNOUNCES THOUSANDS OF PEACEFUL TRANSFERS OF PARISHES FROM UPTsMP TO PTsU
The director of the Department for Affairs of Religions and Nationalities of Ukraine, Andrei Yurash, announced thousands of peaceful transfers of parishes from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, which united and received recognition by the patriarchate of Constantinople at a council in Kiev on 15 December. Andrei Yurash declared this on 19 December in a broadcast on Ukrainian channel 112.
The official said that on just that day, representatives of parishes from six oblasts of Ukraine had phoned the department and expressed a desire to change jurisdiction.
"There will be peaceful transfers, and there will be thousands," Andrei Yurash said. "They are assembling a diocesan meeting in one of the southern oblasts and there are impediments."
On the same day, Metropolitan Epifany, the primate of the PTsU, ruled out the likelihood of violent seizures of churches of the UPTsMP and recalled his readiness to receive into the jurisdiction of the PTsU bishops and priests without prior conditions. (tr. by PDS, posted 20 December 2018)
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