On Monday, April 3, Metropolitan of Khmelnytskyi and Starokostyantynivka with the UOC (MP) Antoniy (Fialko), commenting on the shameful incident involving the assault on a Ukrainian soldier in his temple expressed his readiness to join to the OCU.
The bishop said this in a comment to TSN.
Anthoniy declared that he was ready to become part of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, while all his priests had “disappeared.”
“They were thinking of get with OCU, asking them to do this together somehow… I’m ready, I’ll switch, take my stuff and all, but they (MP priests – Ed.) are silent, they just fled, I’m now looking for them, so let’s decide this with you. I am the only one left, a hostage,” adds the metropolitan.
The Synod of the UOC (MP) dismissed him from his post.
“The Holy Synod released His Holiness Metropolitan Antoniy of Khmelnytskyi and Starokostyantynivka from managing the Khmelnytskyi Diocese and dismissed him to rest,” the UOC (MP) said in a statement. Archbishop Viktor Kotsaba of Baryshiv was appointed as the new head of the Khmelnytskyi Diocese.
Metropolitan Antoniy (Fialko) is one of the oldest bishops of the Moscow Patriarchate in Ukraine. What is interesting is that he stood at the origins of the creation of the UAOC. In 1991, he was ordained a bishop of Khmelnytskyi and Kamianets-Podilskyi by the nephew of Simon Petliura, Patriarch Mstyslav of the UAOC. However, the following year, in 1992, for some reason, he decided to leave the Ukrainian Church and returned to the Moscow Patriarchate. On the sidelines, he promised that he would come to the Unification Cathedral in 2018, where the OCU was created, but he never appeared in Sofia of Kyiv.
