Met. Simeon: The majority of Vinnitsa eparchy doesn’t support OCU
Former Metropolitan of the UOC Simeon Shostatsky
Former UOC Metropolitan Simeon believes that in the future the process of joining hierarchs, priests and believers to the OCU will be difficult. He stated this on the “Hromadske TV”.
“At present, the majority in the Vinnitsa eparchy, apparently, does not support the idea of an autocephalous church. But no longer an idea, we already have an Orthodox Church in Ukraine, which I joined,” said the “hierarch”.
He explained: “I think that in the future the process of joining the hierarchs, priests and believers of this church, which appeared today in Ukraine, will continue. No one says now that this process is simple. It will continue for a long time, there are different forecasts as to how much it will take,” added Simeon.
As reported, Metropolitan Simeon is one of the two bishops of the UOC (along with Metropolitan Alexander Drabinko), who was present at the “Unification Council”. Their participation was commented by the head of the Synodal Information and Education Department of the UOC Archbishop Clement. According to him, these hierarchs no longer have any relation to the UOC: “We only state that they have gone into schism, and we will inform the Local Churches that they no longer appear in the diptych of canonical bishops of Ukraine,” Vladyka Clement emphasized. On December 17, the UOC Holy Synod banned Metropolitan Simeon from priesthood.
Read also
Court releases Metropolitan Arseniy to house arrest
Bishop Arseniy was freed from pretrial detention after a year and ten months behind bars.
Phanar hierarch: Kyiv Lavra is transformed into a center of sad conflicts
Metropolitan Emmanuel of Chalcedon stated that ecclesiastical freedom "many times emerges through blood itself."
National Memory Institute: Lavra is sacred center for Catholics and Protestants
The head of the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory, Oleksandr Alferov, said the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra is a shared shrine for Catholics, Protestants, and Orthodox Christians.
Dumenko calls reopening of Near Caves a step toward victory over Russia
The head of the OCU commented on the reopening of the Lavra’s Near Caves, which the authorities shut down back in August 2023 without explaining why.
TRC staff abducts rector of UOC’s Alexander Nevsky Church in the capital
In Kyiv, the TRC detained Archpriest Yaroslav Kruhlenko.
In Podgorica, multi-thousand procession held on city's patron saint day
Thousands of believers walked in a procession through the capital of Montenegro, honoring the memory of Saint Simeon the Myrrh-Streaming.