Moscow, December 28, 2023
The Kherson Diocese, divided by the Dnieper River. Photo: Wikipedia
Gathered under the chairmanship of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill yesterday, the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church resolved to establish a new diocese for parishes on the left bank of the Dnieper River in the Ukrainian Orthodox Church’s Kherson Diocese.
The Synodal report states that, “In response to the appeal of the majority of the clergy of the left-bank parishes of the Kherson Diocese, as well as all the residents of the St. Nicholas Convent of the Skadovsk District of the Kherson Diocese,” the Synod decided to form the new Skadovsk Diocese and separate it from the Kherson Diocese.
The report details that earlier this month, 75% of the Kherson Diocese clergy who serve in deaneries on the left bank of the Dnieper, all the inhabitants of the St. Nicholas Convent, and 18 clerics of the right-bank portion of the diocese who have been temporarily evacuated from its territory appealed to the Patriarch to be received under his omophorion.
The appeal states that left-bank parishes receive help from the regional administration and the Patriarchal Humanitarian Mission, but the clergy feel they have been neglected by the ruling hierarch of the Kherson Diocese, which “has created many problems and shortcomings in the life of the Russian-controlled part of the Kherson Diocese.”
“Frankly, there is growing embarrassment on the part of believers about this situation.”
In conclusion, the appealing clergy write:
The saints of our Kherson land were members of the Russian Orthodox Church, and we were baptized in It with Holy Baptism. Having accepted the spiritual legacy of St. Innocent (Borisov), St. Barsanuphius of Kherson, the holy righteous warrior naval commander Theodore Ushakov, and other Heavenly patrons of the Kherson region, while carrying out our obedience in the bosom of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church for many years, we have always understood and realized that both canonically and spiritually we are part of that large and strong family in which the earthly and the Heavenly have united—the Russian Orthodox Church.
The Synodal report adds that Decree No. 362 of Patriarch St. Tikhon from November 7/20, 1920, which states that the diocesan council or the clergy and laity of a diocese deprived of a bishop due to the movement of the front line or a change in the state border, turn to the nearest or most convenient diocesan bishop, can be taken as a precedent for how to respond to the Kherson Diocese’s present situation.
Finally, the Synod resolved: “If the external situation changes, to consider the possible restoration of the Kherson Diocese within the current borders.”
The Russian Church earlier received the three Crimean dioceses, the Rovenky Diocese, and the Berdyansk Diocese of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church at the request of their hierarchs and clergy.
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