DESS refuses to register the Romanian Orthodox Church of Ukraine

Patriarch Daniel. Photo: PODUL.RO

The State Service of Ukraine for Ethnopolitics and Freedom of Conscience in response to a request from the Romanian media outlet PODUL.RO reported that it refused to register the Romanian Patriarchate as the "Romanian Orthodox Church of Ukraine". According to DESS officials, the establishment of such a religious structure contradicts "the principle of locality, which is fundamental in Orthodox ecclesiology".

"Today, about 130 religious communities, in which the majority are representatives of the Romanian national minority, are part of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate. They have no self-governance and no single centre of decision-making on important and specific issues of their life and functioning," DESS noted.

DESS, instead of registering the Romanian Church in Ukraine, suggested that the Romanian parishes, which are now under the jurisdiction of the UOC, should be subordinate to Dumenko.

"Just as in Romania, there is an Orthodox Ukrainian vicariate covering all parishes of Ukrainian tradition and subordinate to Patriarch Daniel, within the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) there should be a Romanian vicariate subordinate directly to the Primate of the OCU, in which representatives of the Romanian national minority are guaranteed full unconditional respect for their liturgical, linguistic, ritual traditions and the necessary level of self-government," DESS wrote.

As reported by the UOJ, earlier the head of the Chernivtsi Eparchy of the OCU, Feognost Borodiak, called on Romanian-speaking parishes of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church to join the so-called Romanian Autonomous Vicariate of the OCU.

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