Metropolitan Anthony: Contradictions in OCU will only increase

Filaret Denisenko was the first to leave the OCU. Photo: 24.ua

The internal contradictions that are observed in the OCU did not arise now – they were from the very start, says the Chancellor of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Anthony (Pakanich) of Boryspil and Brovary.

“The authorities artificially united the two schismatic groups without eliminating all their internal contradictions,” Metropolitan Anthony said at a press conference at the Holy Dormition Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra.

He recalled that the head of the liquidated UOC-KP Filaret Denisenko, "who is the founder of the organized schismatic movement in Ukraine", immediately left the OCU.

“And these contradictions will only increase. There is no inner religious soil, no nucleus to live together. After all, until now in different cities, there are so-called bishops of the UAOC and the Kyiv Patriarchate, and the task in the future, as I understand it, is to have one so-called bishop.

This all happens very painfully, the process of internal seizure of temples is connected with this. We must state that the OCU as an artificial organization will have just such a future - strife, discord, division,” resumed the UOC Chancellor.

Earlier, the UOJ wrote that OCU "hierarchs" accused each other of the raider seizure of churches.

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