Dumenko claims the late UOC Primate supported creation of OCU

Dumenko at the monument to Metropolitan Volodymyr in Kyiv. Photo: OCU

On 23 November 2025, the head of the OCU, Serhii Dumenko, speaking in the Transfiguration Cathedral in Kyiv (whose rector is Metropolitan Oleksandr Drabynko), claimed that the late Primate of the UOC, Metropolitan Volodymyr (Sabodan), had blessed the initiation of dialogue on unification with the then-existing schismatic structures – the UOC-KP and the UAOC.

Dumenko stated that “the ecclesiastical division which, like a bleeding wound, could not find healing for many decades […] received healing at the Unification Council.”

“And although the late His Beatitude Metropolitan Volodymyr did not live in the body to see the moment when the dialogue process begun with his blessing bore good fruit, he raised and guided those who in due time faithfully fulfilled their calling,” Dumenko said.

It should be recalled that Metropolitan Volodymyr maintained that the predecessor of the OCU – the Kyiv Patriarchate – was not a Church, and that unification with this structure was fundamentally impossible. “What kind of unification can we talk about? You cannot obtain a homogeneous substance from oil and water… The unification of Churches can occur only through the repentance of the schismatics and their return to the bosom of the Mother Church,” the Metropolitan wrote.

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