| Polish Church Publishes Official Statement: Forbids Clergy from Communion with Constantinople’s Ukrainian Schismatics Source: OrthoChristian orthodox.pl The Church also calls for a pan-Orthodox gathering to address the Ukrainian issue. Warsaw, November 16, 2018 The official site of the Polish Orthodox Church has published its Council of Bishops’ communiqué from its Wednesday session, confirming earlier reports that they refused to recognize Constantinople’s rehabilitation of the two groups of Ukrainian schismatics. “The Holy Bishops’ Council forbids the priests of the Polish Orthodox Church from having liturgical and prayerful contact with the ‘clergy’ of the so-called Kiev Patriarchate and the so-called ‘Autocephalous Orthodox Church,’ which have committed much evil in the past,” the statement reads. According to the Polish hierarchs, persons deprived of episcopal and clerical ordination cannot be leaders in establishing peace in the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. “Only the observance of the dogmatic and canonical norms of the Church and the preservation of the centuries-old tradition will protect Orthodoxy from severe ecclesiastical consequences on an international scale. The Polish Orthodox Church prays fervently for the unity of the holy Orthodox Church and for peace for the Ukrainian Orthodox Church,” the message further reads. The portions of the communiqué concerning Ukraine read in full: I. The holy Council of Bishops has received disturbing news from Church life in Ukraine, which often affects the life of Orthodoxy in Poland. Considering the above, as well as the general Orthodox concern of the Orthodox Local Churches resulting from the instability of Church life in Ukraine, which has a devastating impact on the whole life of the Church in Orthodoxy in general, the holy Bishops’ Council, in the interest of the good of the holy Orthodox Church, upholds the position expressed in the Council’s resolution of May 9, 2018 , No. 340, and reiterates its call to make a decision to gather all the primates of the Orthodox Churches together in the spirit of evangelical love, humility, and understanding, while maintaining dogmatic and canonical doctrine, with mutual respect leading to a peaceful solution to the issue of divided Orthodoxy on Ukrainian soil. |
| Patriarch Neophyte of Bulgaria expressed his concerns over violations of Orthodox believers' rights in Ukraine. " We are seriously concerned with the numerous documented violations of the rights of the believers belonging to the only canonical Church in Ukraine. First of all, we refer to seizures of UOC churches by force, " the patriarch said in his letter to Ukrainian president Pyotr Poroshenko, the UOC press service reported on Wednesday. The primate pointed to the attempts to take the Pochayev Lavra and the Kiev Caves Lavra from the canonical Church and to give them to the self-proclaimed Kiev Patriarchate. " The realization of such a scenario would not only destabilize the social situation in Ukraine, but also would make it impossible for Orthodox hierarchs, clerics and believers from other countries to visit the mentioned Lavras as we do not have Eucharistic and prayerful communion with schismatic odies, " the letter reads. Patriarch Neophyte asked Poroshenko " to take all necessary measures to protect the rights of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, securing its churches from being captured, and from other forms of forceful and informational pressure. " Interfax-Religion 16 декабря 2015 г. Смотри также Комментарии Editor 31 декабря 2015, 12:00 Roman, Please read more about the history of the Ukrainian Church. Your comments are wrong-headed and this thinking can only cause more trouble. The Russian Church saved Ukrainian Christians in the past from Uniate aggression, and the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church (MP) is by far the largest and most popular Church there. The others are psuedo churches. The " Kiev Patriarchate " is a false church created for political reasons. The Church is beyond politics. And please note--the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church is self-governing. Stop spreading dangerous misconceptions. Roman Serbyb 29 декабря 2015, 19:00 When the " good intentions " of Christian love and unity, preached by Moscow Patriarchate, become accompanied by " good deeds " of helping the Ukrainian Orthodox population to unite into one Ukrainian Orthodox Patriarchate, only then can the Russian Orthodox Church become proud of its attitude and behavior towards its Ukrainian Orthodox brothers in Christ. |
| Archive Пн The Synod of the Byelorussian Orthodox Church makes an appeal over the Ukrainian authorities’ actions against the Ukrainian Orthodox Church 5 July 2023 year 10:33 On July 4, 2023, the Synod of the Byelorussian Orthodox Church issued an appeal over the continued actions of the Ukrainian authorities against the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. The Appeal reads: With deep sorrow, the Synod of the Byelorussian Orthodox Church has taken reports on the developments taking place in the Kiev Pechersk Lavra. Despite the protests of dozens of thousands of civil believers and the international community’s disapproval, the Ukrainian authorities have continued perfidiously encroaching upon the great shrine for all the Orthodox believers without stopping the godless attempts to ravage the cradle of the Orthodox faith of the Eastern Slavic nations. For several months, the abbot of the Kiev Pechersk Lavra, the Most Rev. Metropolitan Pavel (Lebed’) has been under arrest on far-fetched accusations. The Lavra clergy are deprived of the opportunity to celebrate the Divine Liturgy and other services and its novices and numerous faithful to worship freely in the cathedral churches of the monastery. The clergy and laity of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church are regularly subjected to lawless actions aggravating the situation. At the end of June 2023, a vast publicity in the mass media was gained by reports that the Kiev city authorities, using a plausible pretext of ‘saving’ cultural conserves from missile blows, plan to remove from the Kiev Pechersk Lavra the most venerated shrines of the Orthodox Church - holy relics and old icons with the aim to give them ‘into the charge’ of museums in Italy, France, German and the Vatican. In doing so, the leaders of the country and the Ukrainian capital city do not consider the opinion of Orthodox believers while their concern for the earlier ‘inventory’ of the Lavra’s shrines was lulled by false promises to ensure that the religious, historic and cultural valuables of the Ukrainian people will never leave the territory of Ukraine. |
| Ukrainian Ministry of Culture sets Holy Friday as Last Day for Church to Rename Itself Source: OrthoChristian Photo: foma.ru Kiev, February 22, 2019 – The Ministry of Culture of Ukraine has set April 26, Great and Holy Friday, as the deadline for the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) to rename itself, reports the Ukrainian site Strana . According to bill No. 5309 passed by the Rada and signed into law by President Poroshenko in December, all religious organizations having governing bodies in an aggressor country must include the name of their parent organization in their titles. Russia is officially considered an aggressor country by the Ukrainian state. The law is widely acknowledged as a thinly-veiled attack on the canonical Church, facilitating the seizure of its parishes and monasteries. Philaret Denisenko, the “honorary Patriarch” of the Ukrainian schismatic church has openly stated how the law will be used to take the Kiev Caves and Pochaev Lavras away from the UOC. According to the legislators’ logic, the UOC must rename itself to “the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine.” However, Church representatives have continually pointed out that, although the Ukrainian Church is an autonomous body within the Russian Orthodox Church, there is no legal relationship between the two outlined in the Ukrainian Church’s ruling documents. Therefore, the Church has said that it will not change its name . “To day, there are no legal grounds for the UOC changing its name or the Ministry of Culture doing it. It’s said that for religious organizations that don’t reregister or submit documents for changing their name, their statutes will lose force in terms of the name of the religious organization. But it doesn’t forbid its activity, it’s not liquidated, it doesn’t disappear, it will continue to exist,” the head of the Synodal Legal Department Fr. Alexander Bakhov said at a press conference yesterday. However, the Ministry of Culture counters that because Ukrainian hierarchs participate in the Bishops’ Councils of the Russian Orthodox Church and implement the decisions of these councils, the UOC is therefore legally part of the Russian Church, reports Ukrainian News , which has published the relevant text from the Ministry of Culture. |
| Plans to Forcibly Change Name of Ukrainian Orthodox Church Lay Groundwork for Stealing Churches—UOC Speaker Source: OrthoChristian Photo: livejournal.com The latest development in the ecclesiastical crisis in Ukraine brought on by the nation’s two schismatic bodies and the government and radicals who support them is that the canonical Ukrainian Church is being forced to defends its right to the name “Ukrainian Orthodox Church.” Church representatives are warning that the state wants to “deprive” it of this name because it is in canonical unity with the Moscow Patriarchate, reports the site of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church . “According to our country’s legislation, it is impossible to duplicate the legal name or to change it,” Archpriest Nikolai Danilevich, the Deputy Head of the Ukrainian Department for External Church Relations (DECR) explained. “It is impossible to change the name of our Church by force. No matter what laws they adopt, they will have no force, because any appellate court … will overturn such a decision. Therefore, these attempts to take our name from us are raiding, pure and simple,” Fr. Nikolai said. Thus, Fr. Nikolai responded to the Evstraty Zorya, the speaker of the schismatic “Kiev Patriarchate,” who proposed to rename the Ukrainian Church as the “Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine.” The same call has been made by Ukrainian nationalists many times. “We all know what raiding is,” Fr. Nikolai said. “It is, firstly, the seizure of property, secondly the change of name, and the replacement of leadership is third. What Philaret and everyone around him now wants to do, they already tried to accomplish in 1992.” “It was a scam of Philaret and the government then when they held the so-called ‘Unification Council’ and liquidated the already-existing charter of the ‘Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church’ and created the ‘Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Kiev Patriarchate,’” the DECR speaker said, recalling the history of the schisms in Ukraine. “If they could change its name to the ‘Ukrainian Orthodox Church,’ they would have already done it then. But they couldn’t do it because, I repeat, it’s impossible to duplicate titles, because the Ukrainian Orthodox Church was, is, and will be. What they want to do, what they are declaring now, is an old scheme—it will be another scam of Philaret with the support of the current political authorities, if they go for it,” Fr. Nikolai explained. |
| Michael Prokurat, Alexander Golitzin, Michael D. Peterson Скачать epub pdf UKRAINIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH (UOC) UKRAINIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH (UOC). His Beatitude, Metropolitan Volodymyr (Sabodan) of Kiev, primate of the autonomous Ukrainian Orthodox Church, is the only recognized head of the Ukrainian Church by the Ecumenical Patriarchate and world Orthodoxy (qq.v.). The UOC synod of bishops includes thirty hierarchs and governs fifty-five hundred parishes, twenty-five dioceses, thirty-seven monasteries, seminaries in Odessa, Lutsk, and Kiev, and schools in Chernigov and Pochayev, as well as the Ecclesiastical Academy. Most of Ukraine’s thirty-five million Orthodox believers remain faithful to this Church, autonomous under Moscow, which has canonically controlled ecclesiastical activity in the Ukraine for three centuries. In December 1993 Metropolitan Volodymyr gave the following interview in New York, which briefly describes the present situation: “The Local Council of the Russian Orthodox Church, which elected Metropolitan Aleksy of Leningrad to be primate and Patriach of the Russian Orthodox Church, as well as the two Councils of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox which followed it, gave the Church, which had previously been known as the Patriarchal Exarchate of Kiev and All Ukraine, a new title-the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. It has been granted full independence and freedom for self-government. In other words, it has all the rights and opportunities which an autonomous church possesses. His Holiness, Patriarch Aleksy, does not interfere in our affairs and we have our own Holy Synod which resolves all ongoing problems of Church life at its meetings. We have the opportunity to govern ourselves, however, we are not an autocephalous (q.v.) Church but an autonomous Church which has certain abilities and possibilities. Today there is the issue, which some believers especially in the western regions of Ukraine hold, that the Church should have full independence and self-government in the status of a local Church. In eastern Ukraine and other regions there are other points of view. The people there do not want that kind of full independence. The issue is being studied. We have appealed to His Holiness, Patriarch Aleksy, requesting that he raise this issue with all the primates of the local autocephalous Churches and that if this is the will of the episcopate, clergy, monastics, and faithful, then the issue of full independence which results in an autocephalous local Church will have to be resolved.” (“Orthodox Church in America News,” Alex Liberovsky, Interviewer, December, 1993, page 6.) |
| Accept The site uses cookies to help show you the most up-to-date information. By continuing to use the site, you consent to the use of your Metadata and cookies. Cookie policy Archbishop Theodosius of Sebastia: We protest against the persecution of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and condemn violence against it DECR Communication Service, 02.01.2024. Archbishop Theodosius of Sebastia (Patriarchate of Jerusalem) announced that he had joined the international human rights organisation " The Church against Xenophobia and Religious Discrimination " . It was established in December by a number of hierarchs and clergymen of the local Orthodox Churches together with the non-governmental organisations Public Advocacy, VSI Zmogaus teisiu apsauga and European institute for religion and law, which have consultative status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations. According to the press service of the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in Jerusalem, expressing his gratitude for the invitation to join this association, Vladyka Theodosius stressed that while praying for peace in Palestine, it is necessary to pay attention to Ukraine, where there are serious violations of human rights, including the believers of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church, headed by Metropolitan Onuphry. The hierarch stated that the Ukrainian state authorities are carrying out unjustified, inadmissible systematic persecution of the hierarchs of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, as a result of which a number of bishops have been harassed on false accusations. The main danger is that the Ukrainian authorities are planning to adopt a bill to restrict and, in the future, ban the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. All measures being implemented, including the confiscation of churches and church property, attacks on the institutions and lands of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, and violent actions directed against Orthodox Christians in Ukraine, are serious violations of human rights. " From Jerusalem, from the Holy Land, we call on all Christian Churches of the world, religious and human rights organisations and all high-ranking persons to oppose the arbitrary actions of the Kiev authorities, which can be seen as a persecution of the Church, " Archbishop Theodosius stressed. – “No one should be persecuted because of their religious affiliation! The Ukrainian Orthodox Church, its bishops, priests and people are being persecuted because of their adherence to the ancient Church, which is the oldest Church in Ukraine and is canonical and legitimate " . |
| Photo by the Press Service of the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia On 29 th May 2022, the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church held its session at the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow under the chairmanship of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia. MINUTES NO. 56 GAVE CONSIDERATION to the Council of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church held in Kiev. Background information: On 27 th May 2022, the Council of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church was convened in Kiev, adopting additions and amendments to the Statute on the Governance of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, as well as a number of other decisions in view of the ongoing hostilities in Ukraine, mounting pressure on the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, continued seizures of its churches, and numerous facts of discrimination against its believers and violations of their rights. RESOLVED: 1. To express full support and understanding to the archpastors, pastors, monastics and laypeople of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, subjected to unprecedented pressure from representatives of the schismatic bodies, local authorities, mass media, extremist organizations and nationalist-minded part of the public. 2. To call upon the plenitude of the Russian Orthodox Church to ardently pray that God strengthen our brothers and sisters in Ukraine and grant unto them wisdom and help in heroically bearing their day-to-day Christian witness. 3. To state that the status of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church is determined by the Charter given by His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Russia on 27 th October 1990. 4. To note that the additions and amendments to the Statute on the Governance of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church adopted by the Council of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church need to be examined under the established procedure in terms of their compliance with the aforementioned Charter and the Statute of the Russian Orthodox Church, according to which such additions and amendments are to be submitted for approval to the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia. |
| Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church Calls Upon Verkhovna Rada Not to Divide Ukrainian Believers Into ‘Us and Them’ Source: DECR Photo: news.church.ua The Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, at its session held in the Kiev Lavra of the Caves on 25 September 2018 under the chairmanship of His Beatitude Metropolitan Onufry of Kiev and All Ukraine, called for the rejection of the unconstitutional bills which are currently being considered by the Verkhovna Rada (Minute No. 18). The Synod calls upon all those involved in the implementation of the bills Nos. 4128 (on the change of subordination of religious communities), 4511 (on the special status of religious organizations) and 5309 (on the change of the names of religious organizations) to reject these legislative initiatives as anti-church and anti-constitutional. The abovementioned legislative initiatives “are aimed at the judicial liquidation of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church through the means of its hostile takeover by changing its name, unlawfully interfering in its governing bodies and seizing its property (shrines, church buildings and monasteries).” As is noted in the documents adopted at the results of the session, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church is a religious institution which is registered and acts in compliance with the laws of Ukraine, and any coercion to change its name is illegal and regarded as an interference in the internal affairs of the Church. The Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church also warned all those involved in the implementation of the unconstitutional bills that their adoption would artificially divide people and make millions of the Ukrainian citizens aliens in their own country, and called upon them to reject these anti-church initiatives, Patriarchia.ru reports, citing the website of the Synodal Department for Church’s Relations with Society and Mass Media. Code for blog Since you are here… …we do have a small request. More and more people visit Orthodoxy and the World website. However, resources for editorial are scarce. In comparison to some mass media, we do not make paid subscription. It is our deepest belief that preaching Christ for money is wrong. |
| The statement was adopted at the session of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church on 26 February 2019. It is with deep concern that the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church notes a dramatic aggravation of the situation of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. The granting of the “tomos of autocephaly” by the Patriarchate of Constantinople to the so-called “Orthodox church of Ukraine,” created artificially by a merger of two schismatic organizations, deepened the division between Orthodox Christians in Ukraine and worsened ever more considerably the inter-confessional relations. Causing particular concern is a gross interference of the state authorities of Ukraine in the internal church life, as well as politicians’ attempts to use the Church in their opportunistic interests. By doing so they violate the fundamental human rights and freedoms secured, for instance, by the Constitution of Ukraine. The discriminatory bills were adopted by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine and took effect, aimed at depriving the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of its name and at legalizing the practice of seizing its church buildings and monasteries. Believers of the canonical Church were denied other rights as well: its clergymen were deprived of an opportunity to take proper pastoral care of military and law enforcement personnel and prisoners. It is becoming ever more obvious that the goal of representatives of the incumbent state authorities is to liquidate the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. Local authorities and law enforcement agencies were given recommendations to exert maximum effort to assist in transferring communities of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church to the schism. Threats are being made to take away from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church its largest monasteries and historical shrines – the Kiev Caves and Pochaev Lavras. In most cases, seizures of church buildings take place in spite of religious communities’ decisions to remain in the canonical Church. A religious community’s decision is being replaced by a vote of a public gathering of the citizens who by no means always are members of a parish of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. Minutes of such gatherings receive immediate approval from the authorities, and after that a church building is seized with the assistance of security and law enforcement units. |
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