"Priest" of OCU refuses to provide his church to the new "bishop"

The "enthronement" of the new "Bishop of Kamianets-Podilskyi" took place in the village. Photo: OCU website

On February 10, 2024, in the village of Slobidka-Kulchievetska, Kamianets-Podilskyi district of the Khmelnytskyi region, the "enthronement" of the new "Archbishop of Kamianets-Podilskyi" of the OCU, Herman Semanchuk, took place, who had received this see following the division of the Khmelnytskyi diocese of the OCU into the Khmelnytskyi and Kamianets-Podilskyi ones.

According to the UOJ sources, the presentation of the new Bishop of Kamianets-Podilskyi of the OCU took place in the village, not in his titular city, because the "synod" appointed to him the Cathedral of St. John the Theologian, which is a small chapel on the territory of the agrarian university. Semanchuk did not want to "serve" there. He requested the local "dean" Oleksandr Tsisar to yield him a see at the latter's Sts. Peter and Paul Cathedral in the center of Kamianets-Podilskyi, but received a refusal.

Moreover, according to the UOJ information, Tsisar refused to provide his church even for the "enthronement" of Herman Semanchuk, which caused him and four "bishops" to perform the historic "liturgy" outside the city.

The UOJ also learned that there were no representatives of the local authorities at the first "liturgy" of the new "bishop" of the OCU in Kamianets-Podilskyi, which is also associated with the influence of Tsisar, who has close ties with city officials.

Earlier, the UOJ wrote that the "hierarch" of the OCU reported major escalating problems within his structure.

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