Warsaw, January 28, 2022
The OCU "hierarch" vested and prayed in a Catholic church during his visit. Photo: Facebook
The hierarchs of the Polish Orthodox Church are displeased that a “hierarch” of the schismatic “Orthodox Church of Ukraine” is visiting their canonical territory.
Thus, the Polish hierarchs have appealed to the Patriarchate of Constantinople, which created the OCU together with the Ukrainian and American governments, for an explanation.
According to canon law and the norms of inter-Orthodox relations, a hierarch must seek permission to visit the canonical territory of another hierarch. Moreover, the Polish Church firmly rejects the OCU, recognizing only the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church under His Beatitude Metroplitan Onuphry of Kiev and All Ukraine.
The controversy over the visit of “Metropolitan” Alexander Drabinko, a former canonical hierarch who abandoned the Orthodox Church to join the OCU, was reported to the Ukrainian outlet Religious Truth by sources in the OCU.
According to the outlet, Drabinko went to Poland on a “private visit” on January 24 and 25 to present facsimile editions of the Peresopnitsky and Mazepinsky Gospels to the National Library of Poland as the founder of the Foundation in Memory of His Beatitude Metropolitan Vladimir (the former primate of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church with whom Drabinko was close), and to meet with academics and diplomats. He was reportedly invited from the Polish side.
The OCU source stated that the Polish Church has no reason to be concerned, because Drabinko didn’t “conduct or participate in worship services, and therefore didn’t need permission” to visit Poland.
“The Metropolitan arrived as a private person… Obviously, the Polish Church isn’t familiar with Church law,” the source concluded.
However, Drabinko himself shows on his Facebook page that his visit was longer (as of yesterday, he was still in Poland) and that he, in fact, visited as a cleric and did participate in services.
In a number of posts, it can be seen that he gave interviews and visited various institutions and public figures in episcopal dress. Most notably, on Tuesday, Drabinko visited a Catholic school and parish in Łódź, where he vested and offered prayers.
Yesterday, Drabinko shared a post from the Ukrainian Consulate in Kraków, which he visited on Wednesday. The Consulate notes that he had also visited in December, and that he discussed “providing for the spiritual, cultural and educational needs of the large Ukrainian community in Poland” with the Consul General.
As the Union of Orthodox Journalists comments, “The desire of OCU representatives to provide for spiritual needs in the canonical territory of the Polish Orthodox Church may be cause for concern.”
OCU “hierarchs,” including the primate, “Metropolitan” Epiphany Dumenko, have concelebrated with Latin and Uniate Catholics many times.
In April 2019, OrthoChristian reported that the OCU had opened a parish in Slovenia, on the canonical territory of the Serbian Orthodox Church. The schismatic priest also concelebrated with the local Catholic priest.
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