Kiev, January 15, 2021
Photo: spzh.news
Mimicking Patriarch Bartholomew’s recent inflammatory declaration, “Metropolitan” Epiphany Dumenko of the schismatic “Orthodox Church of Ukraine” (OCU) said in a recent interview that Ukraine is the canonical territory of his organization, and therefore they only temporarily tolerate the existence of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
Dumenko’s statements are nothing but arrogance and lies, the Deputy Head of the Ukrainian Church’s Department for External Church Relations commented.
Pat. Bartholomew wrote the same thing to a Ukrainian newspaper in October, stating the only “temporarily tolerates” the Ukrainian Church under His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry of Kiev and All Ukraine. Undaunted, the Ukrainian Holy Synod reminded Pat. Bartholomew that he has no canonical grounds to talk about the status of Met. Onuphry and the UOC.
The schismatic head is certain that the canonical UOC “is here temporarily” and that the Patriarchate of Constantinople has already determined its status. The Patriarchate reportedly has plans to officially declare the OCU the only canonical Church in Ukraine and to suspend the bishops of the canonical UOC, of which there are more than 100.
Dumenko also expressed hope that Pat. Bartholomew will visit Ukraine this summer as planned, and will meet with representatives of the OCU. His visit is to take place “at both the state and church level,” Dumenko said, and it shows, he believes, that “Ukraine is the canonical territory of the OCU. Because, at the invitation of the President, the Ecumenical Patriarch will arrive on the territory of the recognized OCU.”
Dumenko did not clarify how a presidential invitation proves matters of ecclesiastical jurisdiction. Recall that the OCU is recognized only by the Patriarchate of Constantinople and three Orthodox primates, whereas the canonical UOC is recognized as a legitimate Orthodox Church by the entire Orthodox world.
As for the canonical UOC, according to the schismatic head: “Their status has already been determined by the Ecumenical Patriarch. We are tolerating them until a certain time, but the time will come when they join the recognized autocephalous Orthodox Church, and we will constitute the one, recognized Orthodox Church of Ukraine.”
In the same interview, Dumenko also made the bizarre claim that his organization wins almost all of the court cases concerning parishes that it violently and illegally seized from the Orthodox Church. He claims that all the seizures were, in fact, “legal.”
Despite Dumenko’s contention, Simeon Shostatsky, another “hierarch” of the OCU, openly acknowledged in June 2019 that, in fact, the OCU illegally takes churches from the canonical UOC.
Moreover, the false metropolitan Epiphany also predicts a second wave of “transitions” from the UOC to the OCU, which, together with the upcoming visit of Pat. Bartholomew, is a signal that the persecution of the canonical UOC will very likely intensify in the coming months.
In response to his interview, Archpriest Nikolai Danilevich of the Ukrainian Church’s Department for External Church Relations said that Dumenko distorts the truth of the situation and characterized his statements as “manipulations, double standards, arrogance, and lies.”
Everything is exactly the opposite, according to Fr. Nikolai, as it is the OCU and its predecessors that have been non-canonically operating as schismatics on the territory of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
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