Metropolitan Dymytriy (Rudiuk) of Lviv and Sokal with the Orthodox Church of Ukraine said internally displaced persons from the occupied areas of Donbas choose OCU churches after they move to Lviv region.
Only those who precisely seek to emphasize their affiliation with the ROC go to churches run by Moscow Patriarchate.
“We have repeatedly stated that our church is open to all. For example, plenty of people have now moved from Donbas to Lviv. What temples do you think they go to? They come here, to the OCU temples. Because the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate isn’t so great in Lviv,” the Metropolitan of the OCU said in an interview with Novaya Gazeta.
He added that only those who precisely intend to express their affiliation with the Russian Church go to an ROC Cathedral. “The rest of the families who moved from the east of Ukraine come and address us in Russian, take part in worship services and understand everything,” said Metropolitan Dymytriy.
“The language factor must be taken into account, but it is not as acute as is believed in Russia. Where our Russian-speaking population predominates, the language of worship may remain the same as before. In Lviv, in general in Galicia, it is a tradition. Since the level of religiosity here has always been high, the language of the so-called “Kyiv-Galician derivative” – Church Slavonic with Ukrainian pronunciation – has been preserved. And here such practice is still widespread,” the metropolitan emphasized.
“It is interesting that even in Soviet times, the Moscow Patriarchate in Ukraine issued special prayer books, where prayers would be printed in a civil font in the Church Slavonic language, but with Ukrainian pronunciation rules. Probably, it would be good if parishes conducted surveys among their faitful, including on language preferences.”
“In general, the language issue in Ukraine has been very artificially inflated. It is believed that Ukrainization is discrimination against those who don’t want it. But I’m just not seeing it! For most of my life, on the contrary, I’ve been feeling oppressed as a Ukrainian speaker,” the OCU hierarch said.
Earlier, Metropolitan Dymytriy said he did not see the point in the very existence of the ROC if it remained silent about the war between Russia and Ukraine.
