Moscow, December 20, 2018
Photo: RIA-Novosti Representatives of Ukraine’s new nationalist church tried to order a copy of the episcopal staff of the first Metropolitan of Kiev and All Russia St. Peter from a company in Moscow.
The order was in preparation for the upcoming enthronement of “Metropolitan” Epiphany, the primate of Ukraine’s new schismatic structure, but the company refused to fill the order, Fr. Tikhon Scripchenko, the head of the Ukrainain Orthodox Church’s Svyatogorsk Lavra’s press service reported on his Facebook page.
The company was contacted by representatives of Alexander Drabinko, the former Metropolitan of Pereyaslav-Khmelnitsky, who abandoned the Orthodox Church to unite himself to the new schismatic body.
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St. Peter received the crozier from the hands of Patriarch Athanasius of Constantinople in 1308, having been newly-elevated to the rank of Metropolitan. Interestingly, it was St. Peter who moved his throne from Kiev to Vladimir and later to Moscow—a decision which Ukrainian nationalist-schismatics today decry.
After St. Peter’s repose, his staff was kept at Holy Dormition Cathedral in Moscow, which was built with his blessing. It then became a tradition to hand the staff to every new metropolitan or patriarch of Moscow at his enthronement. Since 1924, the staff has been kept in the Kremlin Museum, but the tradition has continued.
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