Kiev, February 20, 2019
Despite the ongoing persecution and propaganda against the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church that has only increasing since December 15’s “unification council” and the granting of a tomos of autocephaly to schismatics by Constantinople on January 6, its dioceses are remaining faithful to it. A number of them have already openly expressed their support for the Church’s canonical status as a self-governing autonomous body and for their primate His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry of Kiev and All Ukraine, and now the Kiev Diocese has joined them.
The clergy and ruling hierarchs of the Borodyanka, Obukhov, Vishnev, Boyarka, Makarov, and Vasilkov vicariates of the Kiev Diocese of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church recently met under the chairmanship of the Secretary of the Kiev Diocese Bishop Dionysiy of Pereyaslav-and Khmelnitsky, who told the gathered clergy about the situation with the parishes in the canonical Church and about the legal means of settling the situation, reports the Kiev Metropolia.
The participants in the meetings heard and supported the resolutions of the Bishops’ Council of November 13, in which they rejected the Patriarchate of Constantinople’s careless actions in Ukraine and called on Patriarch Bartholomew to enter into a pan-Orthodox dialogue on the issue.
The representatives of the various vicariates also confirmed their desire to remain within the bosom of the canonical Church and their support for Met. Onuphry.
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The same support for the canonical Church and Met. Onuphry has also been expressed by the Dioceses of Odessa, Gorlovka, Khmelnitsky, Volyn, Dzhankoi, Mogilev-Podolsky, Uman, Ovruch, Berdyansk, Nikolaev,Nizhyn, Nova Kakhovka, Izium, Crimea, Chernigov and Novgorod-Siversk, Kirovograd, Zhytomyr, Lugansk, Mukachevo, Alexandria, Sumy, Romny, Konotop-Glukhov, Zaporozhye, Kharkov, Voznesensk, Tulchin, Rivne, Kherson, Severodonetsk, Odessa, Dnipropetrovsk, Krivoy Rog, Kamenka, Zaporozhye, Poltava, Vinnitsa, and Khust, and the clergy of the Brovary Region outside Kiev and of the Tatarbunary Region in Odessa.
Of those, the Severodonetsk, Voznesensk, Tulchin, Rivne, Zhytomyr, Nizhyn, Kamenka, Konotop-Glukhov, Simferopol, Mogilev-Podolsky, and Tulchin Dioceses affirmed their loyalty to the Ukrainian Church for a second time following December 15’s scandalous “unification council.”
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