Epiphany: In Ukraine, thousands of communities are set to pass to OCU

Metropolitan Epiphany Dumenko of Kiev and All Ukraine

Thousands of communities in Ukraine are determined to voluntarily join the OCU, assured head of the new church structure Epiphany Dumenko in an interview with the first Ukrainian information channel 5 Channel.

At the same time, he complained that representatives of the canonical Church allegedly “try through the courts” to intimidate those who want to come under the jurisdiction of the church structure headed by him.

“As far as I know, there are thousands of communities in Ukraine that are positively tuned about transition to the OCU. There are fluctuations like 50% by 50%, 70% by 30% in communities,” said the “primate” of the new religious organization.

The “metropolitan of Kiev” promised to take all possible measures in order for believers to “voluntarily get ripe” to accept the decision desirable for the activists of the OCU.

“We will do everything to ensure that these sentiments do not abate but grow, on the contrary. And in the future, this or that community will get mature and voluntarily decide by its majority of votes to join our Local Orthodox Church,” Epiphany concluded.

On April 25, 2019, one of the UOC religious communities (a community of the church in honor of the holy Archangels Michael and Gabriel in the village of Staraya Zhadova, Storozhynets District, Chernovtsy Region, where the OCU Primate comes from) addressed Epiphany Dumenko with an open letter. The fellow villagers accompanied the letter to the head of the new church structure with a hashtag #Epiphaniy_aren’t_you_shameful?

“For three months the whole community has been collecting funds for Easter baskets for children from low-income families, children of the ATO warriors, single pensioners, soldiers who are fighting in the front line. We managed to collect, bit by bit, the amount of 72 992 UAH. We are making an appeal to you now: what faith, what conscience allows supporters of your church (OCU or “holy church of Ukraine”) to steal a holiday from people? <...> It was only later that we learned that Olga Poliak, your follower, “Epiphany’s godmother”, as everyone in the village calls her, a former cashier of our parish (since 2014 she has maintained the funds of our religious community) appropriated all the money of our parish and stole all the constituent documents to the temple ... It is not a secret to anyone in the village. Moreover, she speaks about it openly. And it is precisely on this matter that criminal proceedings were opened,” the villagers wrote to the head of the new church structure.

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