Kiev, July 24, 2018
Photo: spzh.news Orthodox faithful in Ukraine are gearing up to celebrate the 1,030th anniversary of the Baptism of Rus’ on July 15/28, the day of the holy Equal-to-the-Apostles St. Vladimir the Great.
The Ukrainian Orthodox Church announced its schedule of celebrations earlier in the month, which will include services on Vladimir Hill and at the Kiev Caves Lavra, with a cross procession moving between the two locations. Tens of thousands of faithful are expected to take part in the services and holy march.
There are also two schismatic “Orthodox” bodies operating in Ukraine which will have their own celebrations. According to the Union of Orthodox Journalists, these schismatics have launched a campaign to deceive canonical believers and draw them to their illegitimate celebrations.
A poster has been spreading around the internet featuring His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry of Kiev and All Ukraine, the primate of the canonical Ukrainian Church, leading a previous year’s procession, but with the date and location of the so-called “Kiev Patriarchate’s” “procession.”
The deceptive poster is being spread by the same people who earlier created a fake social media page supposedly representing His Eminence Metropolitan Vissarion of Ovruch and Korosten. The hierarch referred to the mischievous schismatics as “enemies of the holy Church of Christ.”
Such fake information about the canonical Ukrainian Church, including about the supposed recognition of a united autocephalous Ukrainian Church, has become commonplace in Ukraine recently, especially since President Petro Poroshenko, the Ukrainian parliament, and the Ukrainian schismatics appealed to the Ecumenical Patriarchate for a tomos of autocephaly.
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