Ministry of Culture official promises UOC will lose its status after Tomos
Director of the Department for Religious Affairs and Nationalities of the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine Andrei Yurash
While UOC believers are protesting against granting the Tomos, the director of the Department for Religious Affairs and Nationalities of the Ministry of Culture predicts future changes after the creation of the Single Local Church.
After the bestowal of the Tomos, the SLC will be called the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, the official said in an interview with "Glavkom". And there will be no names of the UOC KP and the UOC MP (as a number of politicians and media outlets call the Ukrainian Orthodox Church).
Moreover, according to Yurash, the status of the UOC will change: the Church will either become an exarchate or be reformatted into a separate metropolis, the “Russian Church in Ukraine”.
The official also expects that at least half of the eparchies of the UOC "in the near future will also be transferred to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (SLC – Ed.)".
Meanwhile, the Tomos granting is being postponed. Religious scholar Dmitry Gorevoy believes that the document can only be issued after a new church structure is created at the “unification Council” in Kiev and its head elected.
Read also
Annual academic conference opens at Kyiv Theological Academy and Seminary
The fifteenth annual conference was dedicated to the anniversaries of Prince Vasyl-Kostiantyn Ostrožský and Metropolitan Rafail (Zaborovský).
Feminists attack Roman Catholic churches in Latin America
During protest actions, members of radical groups attacked cathedrals in several Latin American countries, assaulted police officers, and threw paint at believers.
UOC hierarch takes part in German bishops’ conference
Bishop Veniamin of Boyarka took part in the OBKD assembly in Düsseldorf.
Ivano-Frankivsk scraps school project planned on demolished UOC church site
The authorities in Ivano-Frankivsk have dropped plans to build the school for whose construction a UOC church was demolished.
Shostatsky to UOC: If you are so righteous – do not cling to your churches
The OCU metropolitan called on UOC faithful and clergy to pray rather than defend their churches from seizures.
Archbishop John: The Church is not a special group – it is open to everyone
The Primate of the Orthodox Church of Albania explained why the Church cannot shut itself off from people and what danger arises when believers begin to feel that it is “ours.”