OCU cleric buried with Church Slavonic funeral shroud

Online users have drawn attention to the funeral service of an OCU cleric in which the deceased was covered with a burial shroud featuring inscriptions not in Ukrainian but in Church Slavonic. The discussion began after a post by OCU cleric Oleksii Filiuk about the funeral of his spiritual mentor, Roman Slyvka. The “service” was led by the OCU’s Ternopil “Metropolitan,” Nestor Pysyk.

The shroud also depicts a church with onion domes – a form Epifaniy Dumenko previously promised to fight against, claiming it represents a Moscow tradition.

A believer of the UOC, Natalia M., published a Facebook post that received more than 4,000 likes, expressing surprise that the OCU uses Church Slavonic – the very language for which UOC clergy and believers are often criticized.

“I don’t think that in seven years the OCU hasn’t established its own sewing workshops capable of producing vestments in Ukrainian,” she wrote. Natalia stressed that she personally has nothing against the use of Church Slavonic in the OCU, but addressed several questions to supporters of the structure: “Why do you, the OCU, pressure UOC believers over the language issue? You yourselves use it. Why do you stir up hostility through language? And you know very well that this is Church Slavonic, not Russian.”

In the comments, many users expressed full support for her position.

Earlier it was reported that OCU cleric Filiuk inadvertently revealed that he serves on an antimins issued by Patriarch Kirill.

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