ROC’s special commission to deal with parishes in the annexed territories

Archpriest Igor Yakimchuk, Deputy Chairman of the Department for External Church Relations (DECR) of the Moscow Patriarchate, said that the Moscow Patriarchate’s Office for Dioceses in the CIS countries will deal with the life of parishes in the annexed territories of Ukraine, ria.ru reports.

“By the decision of the Holy Synod of March 24, 2022, the Moscow Patriarchate’s Office for Dioceses in the Near Abroad was formed under the leadership of Metropolitan Pavel of Krutitsy and Kolomna. The dioceses on the territory of Ukraine are also in his purview,” said Archpriest Igor Yakimchuk.

The following dioceses of the UOC are located in the territories annexed by Russia: Donetsk and Mariupol, Luhansk, Horlivka and Slaviansk, Berdiansk and Prymorsk, Rovenky, Kherson and Tauride, Zaporizhia, Novokakhovka, Severodonetsk.

As previously reported by the UOJ, the Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church transferred the Crimean eparchies of the UOC to the subordination of Patriarch Kirill.

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