UOC KP calls to prepare for the Unification Council

Eustratiy Zoria and head of the UOC KP Filaret

The UOC KP appealed to the hierarchs of the UAOC and the UOC involved in the process of unification with a call to start a run-up to an emergency unification Council. This is stated in the official address of the press center of the Kiev Patriarchate, published on October 12, 2018.

According to the document, the task of this Council is to approve the decision on church unity, elect the head of the united local autocephalous UOC, who will receive the patriarchal and synodal Tomos on autocephaly of the UOC on its behalf.

"We expect that, taking into account all the circumstances – long history, fruitful activity, a large amount of the episcopate, clergy and believers, monasteries and theological schools, other factors – the patriarchal and synodal Tomos will also provide for a pan-Orthodox approval of the Patriarch’s rank to the Primate of the Local Ukrainian Orthodox Church," says the statement of the press center of the Kiev Patriarchate.

The appeal notes that the process of unification of Ukrainian Orthodoxy should take place voluntarily, peacefully and without coercion.

“Those hierarchs, clergy and laity who choose, despite all the circumstances, to be subordinated to the Moscow Patriarchate in the future, have the right to do so. The Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine will equally coexist with all other Churches and religious organizations, as guaranteed by the Constitution and the laws of our state and international law,” noted the UOC KP.

However, as it was stated earlier by Filaret, those Ukrainian eparchies who will not join the SLC will not have the right to be called the Ukrainian Church.

As reported by the UOJ, on October 11, 2018, the Synod of the Church of Constantinople, following extensive deliberations, decreed to renew the decision to proceed to the granting of Autocephaly to the Church of Ukraine. Also, the Synod canonically reinstated heads of the UAOC Makariy and the UOC KP Filaret, as well as announced the reestablishment of its Stavropegion in Kiev. The hierarchs of the Church of Constantinople called on all parties to avoid “appropriation of churches, monasteries and other properties, as well as every other act of violence and retaliation”.

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