Media: OCU puts pressure on Romanian-speaking believers of UOC

Romanian-speaking believers of the UOC support the church community in the village of Mikhalcha. Photo: vesti.ua

The so-called “Romanian Vicariate” of the OCU was established on July 27, but so far none of 127 Romanian parishes has entered it, reports “Vesti”.

A source in the Romanian Orthodox Church told “Vesti” reporters that "the OCU is exerting strong pressure on priests and laity to fill Romanian Vicariate, and this can lead to the creation of rival Romanian-speaking structures in Ukraine".

According to the “Vesti” source, the Romanian-speaking diaspora plans to turn to Bucharest and the Romanian Orthodox Church for support, as well as to declare their affiliation with the UOC.

In turn, the press service of the Chernivtsi Eparchy of the UOC says that Romania is afraid of aggressive actions by the OCU against its diaspora in Ukraine.

According to the representative of the press service, “this is not the diaspora at all, but full-fledged members of the Ukrainian society – it is their involvement in the processes that confuses the OCU now. Romanian and Ukrainian villages in Bukovina are mixed, and Romanian neighbours very often come to help their fellow believers from the UOC communities, where raider seizures of churches take place. The latest case is the conflict in the village of Mikhalcha of the Starozhynets district: Romanians came to the aid of the UOC community.”

Moreover, the “Vesti” source said that “when the situation was similar in the village of Tovtry (the police cut the locks off the temple), phrases like “Romanians, go to Romania” sounded from the side of the invaders. How to deal with such a position is unclear: Epiphany and Zoria demonstrate their intentions to create a Romanian Vicariate, and examples of ‘the opposite love’ occur on the ground. ”

The edition also reports that alarming notes are also heard from the Romanian media. So, Joseph Mihaileanu in the copyright material for the site activenews.ro writes: “Although Vicariate seems to be a tool of unity for the Romanians in Ukraine; if it is not rejected from the very beginning, it will lead to a deep split among the Romanians. The Romanian community knows that there is a policy of forcible assimilation of minorities in the Ukrainian state, culminating in the Education Act of 2018 and the State Language Act of 2019 ... Not a single Romanian priest went to the schismatics, although the latter announced that they would allow them to serve Romanian. How can they be trusted after decades during which they said the opposite? ”

Earlier, the UOJ wrote that the OCU cleric Vitaliy Daneliuk accused the Ukrainian Romanians of inciting ethnic hatred.

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