"The Berlin Wall is crumbling." Believers part with the Moscow Patriarchate

Ukrainian believers continue to leave the bosom of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate and go to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine. There is no accurate data how much paraffin has already been decided, since PCU, although I received a Tomos, that is, a decree on autocephaly, but has not yet managed to register legally, according to secular laws. At the same time, almost every day it becomes known about the transitions of individual parishes.

On January 19, three paraffities of the UOC MP in the Zhytomyr region immediately announced the transition to the Orthodox Church recently created in Ukraine. This happened on the day of the celebration of the Baptism of the Lord, when the Orthodox believers recall the baptism of Jesus Christ in the Jordan River. Since the appearance, thanks to the decision of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (PCU), there were already more than a dozen such news.

The representative of the President of Ukraine in the Verkhovna Rada Irina Lutsenko recently stated that we are talking about 70 paraffities, but the PCU hierarchs say that this figure can be three or even four times larger.

“There were more parishes, since not all of them declared their decision,” says Metropolitan Alexander (Drabinko) , and in the past - the hierarch of the Moscow Patriarchate, and now the Orthodox Church of Ukraine. - Unfortunately, we have no registration today, so we can only take on canonical nourishment, since the organization - the Orthodox Church of Ukraine has not yet been legally registered. The religious center has not been registered, which would conduct statistics and issue a document on legal and canonical affiliation. We can have different parishes in each diocese, someone appeals to me, asks to take under my episcopal control to its paraffize, give them, for example, antimins ( the fabric that is covered with an altar during a worship, which is a necessary affiliation for the liturgy.-RS ), if there is no antimins, and the opportunity to serve in the Orthodox Church of Ukraine. Someone talks about it, someone does not say, it can be large parishes or small parishes. It seems to me that this statistics can already be three or four times more than the one that is voiced today. Personally, I have several statements from different places of Ukraine that people are asking them to accept them to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine. I am publishing something, I don’t publish something, they simply begin to remember Metropolitan Epiphanius in place as the head of the Church and me as his ruling bishop, who accepted them into his canonical subordination. But I can’t give them a legal document that would be registered, from which it would be possible to take official statistics for its voice to state bodies.

The service in the temple of the village of Rubanovskoye, Dnipropetrovsk region, whose parishioners decided to move to PCU

As an example, Metropolitan Alexander cites the Vinnitsa diocese of the UOC -MP. Together with the head of autocephaly, Metropolitan Simeon (Shostatsky), who headed it, moved to PCU more than 50 parishes:

-Following Metropolitan Simeon today, more than 50 parishes have been joining his point of view, and the rest are still in an indefinite state, since the Ukrainian Orthodox Church should be renamed the Law of Ukraine to the Russian Orthodox Church and new charters must be adopted within two to three months. That's when the old charters cease to operate, then the parishes will need to decide, to accept them the charter of the Russian Orthodox Church operating in Ukraine, or the charters that will be given to Metropolitan Simeon, which belongs to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine. People, as a rule, know the ruling bishop, they were directly under his jurisdiction, they received the holy Miro from his hands, antimins, documents, awards, certificates, and many, of course, will share the point of view of their ruling bishop. But, of course, this will not all be: someone does not do this for ideological reasons, someone-by the lack of their canonical consciousness, someone-for love for the "Russian world". There are different trends.

Believers come for water consecrated in baptism by the Metropolitan of Kyiv Epiphanius

Transitions to the PCU are sometimes accompanied by dramatic events. For example, the believers of the village of Vorselka at the meeting decided to go to the new church, but the priest of the Moscow Patriarchate refused to obey him, as he was supported by part of the laity. Proponents of PCU did not let him into the church, and the priest, along with several supporters, had to perform a worship at the entrance to the temple.

But most often, priests of the UOC MP agree with the decision of the community. This happened, for example, in the Ivano-Frankivsk region . Here about 20 believers wanted to stay in the Moscow Patriarchate, but most parishioners voted against this. This does not mean that those who disagree after the decisions will be able to be removed by home. The priests of the UOC MP, together with their supporters on January 17, received the right to establish a separate community and carry out worship in the same temple, only at other hours.

At the same time, some religious associations of believers prefer to stay in the Moscow Patriarchate. On the official website of the UOC MP, a report is posted on how at the meeting of laity in the villages of Bronitsa and Sosonka in the Vinnitsa region the parishioners of the local temples voted against the transition to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine.

The Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate is the largest church of Ukraine. Last year, the UOC-MP distributed information that in Ukraine it became 300 more than in 2017. Now, according to the press service of the Moscow Patriarchate, we are talking about 12,741 paraffia.

One of the temples of the UOC MP consecrated in January of this year

Based on this data, it seems that even though three hundred paraffia for the UOC MP is a few. Nevertheless, in connection with the outflow of the arrival of the parishes, the hierarchs increasingly began to turn to believers with a request to protect the church, calling the processes of the “schism” and calling for the “safety rules”.

These fears are due to the fact that the exarchs of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, who arrived in Ukraine for the organization of the unifying cathedral at the end of last year, met 18 out of 96 Bishops of the UOC MP, and each bishop was tens and hundreds of parishes. This was stated in an interview with the BBC Archbishop Daniil Pampilsky. "Most of them were and, to this day, they are ready to take a step to join the new local Ukrainian Orthodox Church," he said, noting that "representatives of the UOC -MP had instructions received from Moscow: they were forbidden to come into contact with us."

“I do not know about the results of negotiations with these hierarchs, especially from the Lord of the Exarch,” says Metropolitan Alexander. -I can only say that yes, indeed, on the eve of the Unification Council, which took place in Sofia, Kyiv arrived in Kiev several His Bishop Vladyyk of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, but in some surprising way one was abroad in the morning, although in the evening I told me that he would be present at the cathedral. The second was in the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra-the people's deputies Derkach and Novinsky took it out of the hotel in which he lived, you probably saw this video, it walks on the Internet . One of them still somehow ended up in the laurel and the next day remained there, and did not come to the cathedral, although he was in the hotel. Another Bishop, who was going, ended up urgently in the hospital, under a dropper, and the second, being his vicar, as I understand it, performed the obedience of the ruling and, probably, also fell ill. This is what I reliably know about those Lords who, except me and the Lord of Simeon, should have been present at this cathedral. In fact, we can say that they did not arrive there due to pressure from the priesthood of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and politicians who, so to speak, removed from society, those people who could take part in the meeting of the Unification Council.

- How much this pressure can influence the decision of priests and bishops in the future or in the near future go to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine?

Metropolitan Alexander during a service in Kyiv

- The fact is that paraffia is no longer guided by the concept of canonism and non -canonicalness, which was cultivated until recently. Those paraphs are crossing that they wanted to be in a single local Orthodox Church, but for the time being they were held by the very concept of reality or invalidity of the sacrament. Today, this issue was removed in connection with the recognition of the local church of the Constantinople Church and the entry of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine into the family of the Orthodox churches of the world. Therefore, those parishes and people who wanted to, cherished in their hearts overcoming this split, today decide on this step, and there will be more and more of them. Those who wanted to stay in the Moscow Patriarchate, in the Russian Orthodox Church,, of course, will remain, but will accept new charters in which their religious and confessional belonging to the Russian Orthodox Church in the territory of the state of Ukraine will be attested. Something unexpected here, in fact, is not observed. The canonical door of the Orthodox unification into a single Orthodox Church, and an obstacle, the wall that was built at one time by the concept of "non -canonicality", little by little, like the Berlin wall, collapses. How strong can the pressure of politicians be? Well, by inertia, some part of our society, which has not left the Soviet Union, which has not left the Yanukovych era, is still afraid and gets his head into the shoulders, no matter what happens.

- And when the church will be registered legally, do you expect that there will be even more transitions?

- I think it will be in the near future. Many priests, I will tell you in direct text, say: "Well, now the holidays will end, and then we will hold meetings, we will determine our jurisdictional affiliation. Epiphany will end, we will devote water, we will cover it at home and then decide." I think the first large -scale stage will be after the festival of the Baptism of the Lord, all the more the law on the free transition of paraffia, the change of jurisdiction was adopted, and this will accelerate and simplify the accession of parishes to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine. And the next stage, I think, will be after the election, in the month of March, when there are no longer any prerequisites for the fact that maybe the "opposition block" will come to power. Many are waiting for the elections to somehow influence. The clergy are worried about: no matter how the Holy Principles punished for some of them, so to speak, selfless tricks. But the adopted law suggests that the parish community determines the number of necessary votes to the transition to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, despite the desire of the priest. If earlier the priest gathered a parish assembly, could impose his idea, his thinking that he was told in the diocese, so that he convey to the attention of his believers, then in this case believers gather and say to the priest: "Father, or you, or, be kind, free up space."

Decree on autocephaly. Kyiv, Sofia Cathedral, January 7, 2019

- And what will the Orthodox Church of Ukraine do in this case? Suppose believers said that there were already such cases that they did not want to be under the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, but want to be in the new church. What will you do, for example, as one of the hierarchs of this church, or other hierarchs?

- Believers make a decision, write a petition, come to me, I sign a petition, which is blessed to you from now on to be members of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, to remember the Metropolitan of the Kyiv and All Ukraine Epiphanius, and me as the ruling bishop, who directly took into communication with the Orthodox Church of Ukraine.

- Yes, but they need a priest.

- The priest will be directed if the priest who served them will refuse and will not perform worship if he does not go with the community. The priest will return to the bishop who appointed him there, and let him find him another place of service, if he finds. The community will determine whether this priest will be with it or will not. If he is contrary to the opinion of the community, then he must return to his employer - to the bishop, ”explains the Metropolitan of PC Alexander.

Metropolitan Epiphanius during a worship, January 19, 2019

The Orthodox Church of Ukraine appeared thanks to the decision of the Ecumenical Patriarchate to publish Tomos, that is, a decree on the bestowal of autocephaly. This process was preceded by long-term negotiations in which not only the church hierarchs of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate, the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church and part of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, but also the secular authorities of Ukraine: the President and the Verkhovna Rada, which turned to the so-called Materter Church, took part.

The decision made in Istanbul was historically justified by the fact that in Kyiv there had been a Metropolitan Department in Kiev, but in 1685 it was re -reflected in Moscow as a result of the fact that the Moscow Patriarch Joachim, without the consent of Constantinople, appointed Metropolitan of Kyiv. Subsequently, the Ecumenical Patriarchate had to simply recognize this decision so as not to cause a split in the church. Nevertheless, the split nevertheless occurred, many centuries after this event, when in the early 1990s Moscow did not recognize the decision of the Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church on independence. Thus, two Ukrainian Orthodox churches arose - the Moscow and Kyiv Patriarchate. The latter had a non -canonical status for more than 20 years, and Patriarch Filaret, who heads it, was devoted to the anathema synod of the Russian Orthodox Church. The anathema was already removed by the Ecumenical Patriarchate.

In December last year, Metropolitan Kiev was elected in Kyiv at the Unification Cathedral. It was the patriarchal governor of the UOC -KP Epiphanius. On January 6, from the hands of the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, during a joint service, he received a decree on autocephaly - Tomos, and was announced the appearance of a new Orthodox Church - the Orthodox Church of Ukraine. On February 3, intronization is planned, that is, the construction of the metropolitan to the department. Following this, the first meeting of the Holy Synod in the history of the church will be held.