Moscow, March 13, 2024
St. Alexander Nevsky Cathedral in Melitopol, Zaporozhye Diocese. Photo: tripadvisor.com
During its session yesterday, Tuesday, March 12, the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church resolved to assume temporary administrative authority over the portions of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church’s Zaporozhye Diocese that have been cut off from their ruling hierarch by the war.
The diocese is ruled by His Eminence Metropolitan Luke, one of the most authoritative hierarchs of the Ukrainian Church.
The Synodal report notes that His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow has received repeated appeals from clergy, monastics, and laity from various districts and the cities of Melitopol and Energodar in the Zaporozhye Province “with requests to resolve the Church situation in these territories.”
Further:
The above-mentioned appeals report that Metropolitan Luke of Zaporozhye and Melitopol, enjoying the unwavering respect of the clergy and laity and striving to maintain remote contact with parishes and monasteries located in the given territories, is nevertheless separated from these territories by the front line, which has long deprived him of the opportunity to visit them with archpastoral visits, to celebrate ordinations, consecrate churches, distribute antimens signed by him, as well as directly distribute Holy Chrism.
It’s also impossible to legally register churches and monasteries, the Synodal report notes.
The Russian hierarchs refer to a decree from Patriarch St. Tikhon of 1920 that can be taken as a precedent for resolving such situations when the front line of a war or change of a state border cuts clergy and laity off from their hierarch. In such cases they should “turn to the nearest or most convenient diocesan bishop.”
Thus, due to the situation in the Zaporozhye Diocese and the Ukrainian Synod’s “lack of opportunity for the unimpeded resolution of this situation,” the Russian Synod resolved to place the temporary management of parishes and monasteries in the relevant districts and cities under the Bishop of the Berdyansk Diocese.
The parishes and monasteries of these areas are assigned to the Berdyansk Diocese for the purposes of legal registration.
The Synod prescribes that during the Divine services, Pat. Kirill is to be commemorated, followed by Met. Luke of Zaporozhye of the UOC, followed by His Grace Bishop Theodore of Berdyansk.
If the external situation changes, the Synod will reexamine the status and management of the relevant parishes and monasteries.
This decision concerning portions of the Zaporozhye Diocese differs from previous decisions in that the Russian Synod continues to recognize the authority of the Ukrainian hierarch and specifies that the given territories are being placed under the “temporary” administration of the Bishop of Berdyansk.
Conversely, the Russian Synod resolved in December to establish a new diocese to take in parishes and monasteries from certain areas within the Ukrainian Orthodox Church’s Kherson Diocese, and several whole Ukrainian dioceses were earlier taken into the Russian Church.
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