Dumenko tells the head of Phanar about his calls on UOC for unification

Epifaniy Dumenko and Patriarch Bartholomew. Photo: OCU

On 13 August at the meeting of the official delegation of Ukraine with Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, the head of the OCU Epifaniy Dumenko assured the Ecumenical Patriarch that he constantly calls on representatives of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church to unite.

“The Orthodox Church of Ukraine and I personally always and invariably proclaim that our doors and our hearts are open to all. We have repeatedly appealed and continue to appeal to our brothers and sisters, who are still in the Moscow jurisdiction, with a call for unity, for the joint creation of a single Local Church, as defined by the Tomos and canonical order,” the press service of the OCU cites Dumenko.

Earlier police officers, who were engaged in seizing the Transfiguration Cathedral of the UOC in Bila Tserkva, as well as the OCU activists themselves used tear gas against parishioners.

Also, during the seizure of the Ivano-Frankivsk Cathedral of the UOC on 28 March 2023, the secretary of the eparchy, Archpriest Vasyl Romaniuk, was hospitalised unconscious as a result of tear gas directed in his face.

On 25 July 2022, the “dean” of the Kremenchuk district of the OCU, Volodymyr Makohon, stated that 90% of the ‘clergy’ of Dumenko's structure were against uniting with priests of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

As reported by the UOJ, in 2023 Epifaniy Dumenko said there was no point in uniting with the UOC because “there is already a truly Ukrainian and autocephalous Orthodox Church of its own. The Church is canonical and recognized by the Ecumenical Patriarchate and other Churches”.

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