Metropolitan Epifaniy, Primate of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, commented on the current status of the UOC in unity with the Moscow Patriarchate.
“They remain an integral part of the Russian Orthodox Church in the status of the Moscow Patriarchate,” Epifaniy said in an interview with NV.
According to the Primate, the May Council of the UOC (MP), at which changes were allegedly made to the Statute to exclude any references to the Russian Orthodox Church, has not yet been published or forwarded to the parishes as guidance.
“Then the question arises – according to which Statute have you been living for so many months? Now they pretend that they are not subject to the law on renaming, as if they don’t have a decision-making center in the aggressor country, but this is not the case… They are losing people, their faithful, their parishes, while failing to understand that this is an irreversible process – they want to have the situation frozen,” said the Head of the OCU.
According to Metropolitan Epifaniy, if the UOC(MP) were a Ukrainian church, it would condemn the annexation of its parishes in Donbas and Crimea by the Russian Orthodox Church.
“But we see no reaction of condemnation, and neither do we see condemnation of hierarchs with the Moscow Patriarchate, open collaborators who took part in the celebrations in the Kremlin on the occasion of the occupation of Ukrainian lands. This means that they were and remain representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine, masquerading as the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate,” the Head of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine emphasized.
