Intelligentsia: What they call “OCU” cannot be called Ukrainian Church

Participants of the forum in support of the UOC KP. Photo: Kiev Patriarchate website

Representatives of the Ukrainian intelligentsia who took part in the forum "For the Ukrainian Orthodox Church!" For the Kiev Patriarchate! For Ukraine!” reminded the public that it’s impossible to even call the OCU Ukrainian Church. The text of their appeal “to the believing Ukrainian people” was published on the official website of the UOC KP.

The document also underlined that not only the "pro-Moscow ‘fifth column’" acts against the UOC KP, but also "our own ‘fellow countrymen’ – short-sighted public and political figures of even national-patriotic and democratic movement."

“Today, because of the power manipulations in the church life and the latest atheistic experiments on the UOC of the Kiev Patriarchate, the autocephalous movement in Ukraine has been virtually destroyed. The newly-established church called Orthodox Church in Ukraine is even deprived of the right to be called the UKRAINIAN Church! We are forced to close the church gates to the Ukrainians of the Diaspora and abandon our sacred heritage of Rus-Ukraine!” noted the drafters of the appeal.

They also added that the "atrocities in the Ukrainian church life" could not be eliminated, although former President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko “was shown ‘political doors’ by 73% of voters". However, the Ukrainian intelligentsia is not angry with the destroyers of autocephaly.

“Watching the 'wicked great-grandchildren' (Taras Shevchenko) mocking at the Ukrainian Church and the Kiev Patriarchate, we can only recall the words of Christ:“ Father, forgive them because they don’t know what they are doing! ” (Luke 23: 34),” said its representatives in the text of their appeal.

According to the forum participants, the media has launched a whole campaign against the head of the UOC KP, Filaret Denisenko, “who is perhaps the only one who has raised his voice in defense of the Native Church and the Kiev Patriarchate.”

Representatives of the intelligentsia are outraged that “in spite of all church canons” in Ukraine they must recognize the right of the church court of Phanar and the need to buy Holy Myrrh from the Constantinople Patriarchate.

“Let alone the foreign Statute for the OCU imposed on us, the right to open foreign Stavropegia (!!!) on the Ukrainian canonical territory. It is not by chance that the Ukrainians already compare the autocephaly of the hyped ‘Tomos’ with the false status of the Ukrainian SSR as an ‘independent state’,” reads the text of the appeal to the Ukrainians.

The UOC KP itself is named in the document as the “spiritual basis of the Ukrainian Statehood and a talisman against the new spiritual enslavement of the Ukrainians".

“Let's unite around the Holy Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kiev Patriarchate! Let us remember that only the Kiev Patriarchate can be the embodiment of the eternal dream of our ancestors, as well as present and future generations, to secure for Ukrainians ‘who live in Ukraine and outside Ukraine’ (Taras Shevchenko) a real UKRAINIAN CHURCH!" urged the forum participants “For the Kiev Patriarchate! For Ukraine!”

Earlier, “Patriarch of Kiev and All Rus-Ukraine” Filaret said that the UOC KP had been allegedly created according to God's will. “I am sure that the Kiev Patriarchate was created by the will of God. And if it is the will of God, no force will destroy the Kiev Patriarchate, because God stands behind it,” he stressed.

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