Drabinko: UOC ban will not entail mass transition of its communities to OCU

Alexander Drabinko. Photo: velychlviv.com

"Hierarch" of the OCU Alexander Drabinko stated that the bill banning the UOC will not increase the number of "transitions" of communities of the canonical Church to the OCU. The former Metropolitan of the UOC shared this in an interview with "Polskie Radio".

Responding to a journalist's question about whether communities of the UOC will start joining the OCU en masse after the adoption of Bill 8731 by the Verkhovna Rada, Drabinko said that this will not happen.

"I don't think that there will be some kind of mass transition after the law is passed, because it is impossible to ban the Ukrainian Orthodox Church given that it is not a legal entity," Drabinko reminded.

"Legal entities are dioceses, monasteries, parishes, which will have to prove, if someone accuses them of belonging to the Moscow Patriarchate, that they are not the Moscow Patriarchate," said the "hierarch" of the OCU.

According to him, "this is at least up to 10 thousand court cases that Ukrainian courts are awaiting after the adoption of this law... How this will happen, I don't know yet, but let's wait to see."

Earlier, the UOJ reported that the OCU acknowledged that the "ordinations" of Filaret Denisenko were invalid.

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