OCU “hierarch” awards cleric suspended by another “bishop”
In Zakarpattia, OCU “Bishop” Viktor Bed awarded a medal to cleric Anatolii Natolochnyi, who had been suspended from priestly ministry by OCU “Bishop” Varsonofiy Rudnyk the previous year.
On April 6, 2021, Viktor Bed, OCU “Bishop” of Mukachevo and the Carpathians, awarded “Archpriest” Anatolii Natolochnyi the Medal of St. Andrew the First-Called, Apostle of Ukraine, the eparchy’s press service reported.
Bed presented the award to Natolochnyi for his “service to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine and the Ukrainian people, and on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of his priestly ordination.”
However, less than a year earlier, in May 2020, another OCU “hierarch” in Zakarpattia, Varsonofiy Rudnyk, “Bishop” of Uzhhorod and Zakarpattia, had suspended Natolochnyi from priestly ministry for disobedience and failure to comply with directives. The suspension notice also stated that any cleric who dared to continue serving despite the prohibition should be “completely cut off from the Church.”
Thus, one OCU “bishop” in Zakarpattia (Bed) awarded a medal to a “priest” who had been suspended by another OCU “bishop” in the same region (Rudnyk).
Earlier, the UOJ reported that OCU “Bishop” Afanasii Shkurupii of Kharkiv and Poltava had accused OCU “Bishop” Mitrofan Butynskyi of Kharkiv of raiding churches belonging to his eparchy.
