UOC KP to celebrate anniversary of “separation” from OCU

Filaret Denisenko and Epiphany Dumenko. Photo: UOJ

On June 21, 2020, the UOC-KP will celebrate the anniversary of the “local council”, which actually separated this structure from the newly created OCU. The announcement of the event is published on the official website of the UOC-KP.

It is said that a year ago the “council” of the UOC-KP“ reaffirmed the continued existence of the Kyiv Patriarchate – the only Ukrainian Church with the Patriarchal organization, independent of the authority of other religious centers”

Also, a statement by the press service of the Kyiv Patriarchate said that "the local council ... did not approve but canceled the Decree of the Council of Bishops of December 15, 2018 (held in Warm Sofia)."

“In accordance with the statute, the main governing body of the UOC-KP decided that the Church withdraws from the Orthodox Church of Ukraine and continues to exist as an independent Church that serves the interests of the Ukrainian people and the Ukrainian state,” the UOC-KP website says.

The stated reason for the withdrawal of the UOC-KP, led by "patriarch" Filaret, from the OCU, was the "discrepancy between the autocephaly under the Tomos, granted on January 6, 2019, in Constantinople (Istanbul), and the status of the autocephalous Churches which all autocephalous churches possess."

Earlier, the UOJ wrote that the UOC-KP initiated a criminal case against former president of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko.

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