UOC explains why the head of OCU is not called "Metropolitan"
Head of Phanar and Epiphany Dumenko. Photo: OCU website
Believers do not call the head of the OCU "metropolitan" not because they want to offend him, but because he has no holy dignity. Archpriest Nikolai Danilevich, spokesman of the UOC, deputy head of the Department for External Church Relations, said this in Yan Taksiur's program "Right to Faith" on the First Cossack channel.
Answering the relevant question from the presenter, who noted that believers are often accused of not calling Epiphany Dumenko “metropolitan”, ostensibly in order to humiliate and insult the head of the OCU, the priest emphasized that this is “because he does not have any holy dignity, not because they want to offend him somehow."
Father Nikolai recalled that Epiphany was “ordained” by Filaret Denisenko, who was under anathema himself and did not have a canonical ordination. Also, there is a branch from the UAOC in the OCU, which does not have apostolic ordination. “If they receive the canonical ordination, we will gladly call them metropolitans and bishops,” he said.
“This is a question of fidelity to what Jesus Christ said, rather than some intention to offend a person,” the UOC spokesman emphasized.
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