OCU priest Father Andriy Dudchenko, who joined the Ukrainian Church at the Unification Cathedral in 2018, said that for him, a canonical alternative to the Moscow Patriarchate in Ukraine, which would not be subordinate to Russia, has always been desirable.
“For me, personally, the emergence of a certain canonical alternative, if one may say so, to the Moscow Patriarchate in Ukraine has long been desirable. What do I mean? I mean the Orthodox Church, which would not be subordinated to Moscow, but would be recognized in the Orthodox world,” the priest said in an interview with the Spiritual Front of Ukraine.
He added that, once it became possible, with the support of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, he joined the OCU in 2018
“That is, we brought this day as close as we could. We are here, I mean our like-minded friends from the former Moscow Patriarchate, who were there personally and their friends, and so on,” Father Andriy said.
In addition, he recalled how in 2004-2005 he sent letters to the Phanar with a request to resolve the issue of the split in Ukraine.
“I wrote my letter to the Phanar, to Patriarch Bartholomew, in the winter of 2004-2005, immediately after the Orange Revolution, with a request to help us resolve the issue of having an Orthodox Church in Ukraine, recognized by Ecumenical Orthodoxy, but independent of the Moscow Patriarchate.”
