Epiphany: Greek Church de-facto recognized OCU
Epiphany is peering into the future of the OCU. Photo: OCU
On July 28, 2019, at the “divine services” in honor of the Day of the Baptism of Rus, Epiphany Dumenko declared “de facto recognition” of the OCU by the Greek Orthodox Church.
“Basically, we are working to ensure that the autocephaly of our Church be recognized by representatives of other Local Orthodox Churches,” said Dumenko after a “prayer service” on the Vladimir Hill. “And today the Orthodox Church of Greece took part in the concelebration of the Divine Liturgy. Also, our bishop the day before yesterday and yesterday served with representatives of the Greek Church in Thessaloniki. This testifies to the fact the Hellas Church actually recognizes the autocephaly of our Ukrainian Orthodox Church (OCU – Ed.).”
Before the procession, at the end of the "liturgy" in St. Sophia of Kiev, Epiphany also said that "our brothers from the Greek Orthodox Church took part in the service. We are gradually, step by step, gaining recognition of our autocephalous status from other Orthodox Churches.”
As the UOJ was found out, it is about Metropolitan Ioannis of Langadas, the ruling bishop of the Langadas Metropolis of the Church of Greece, which belongs to the so-called "new territories", i.e. has dual subordination to both the Constantinople and Hellas Churches.
In addition, Dumenko said that the Synod of the OCU "had created a vicariate for the Romanian who wish to pray in the Romanian language in their communities".
Epiphany also stated that his delegation had visited Romania several times and he had personally sent a letter to Patriarch Daniel with suggestions.
“Now we have realized their synodal request that they want to have their Romanian vicariate in Ukraine, just as in Ukraine there is a Ukrainian vicariate within the Romanian Orthodox Church under the leadership of the patriarch himself. Therefore, we opened the Romanian vicariate to be managed by the Primate,” said Epiphany.
“Therefore, we are doing a lot for our autocephalous status to be recognized ‘church by church’,” concluded Mr. Dumenko.
Recall, so far there is not a single Romanian parish within the OCU. Moreover, representatives of the OCU proposed to the priests of such parishes "to back off to Romania".
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