Brotherhood of St. Andrew the First-Called of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church Wishes to Unite with the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in the Diaspora

KANIV – On May 15-16, 2010, in the central-eastern Ukrainian town of Kaniv, the annual meeting of the regional Brotherhoods of St. Andrew the First-Called of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (UAOC) was held.  As a result of the joint activity of the Kharkiv and Lviv Brotherhoods an address to the laity and clergy of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church in Ukraine and an address to the laity and clergy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church outside Ukraine were passed.  The authors of the documents condemned the actions of the present leadership of the UAOC and proposed ways to save their church.

The address to the laity and clergy of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church in Ukraine stresses that "the church is under threat of losing its sovereignty and being subordinated to imperial projects of the Kremlin dictators and Moscow secret services."

"In this decisive moment of national history, the role of the leaders of the schism is revealed in a new way… It is becoming obvious whose task Metropolitan Mefodii (Kudriakov) fulfilled when he renounced loyalty to the Blessed Metropolitan Kostiantyn, refused to fulfill the decrees of the Local Council of 2000, spread slander against the administrator of the patriarchate, and destroyed our administrative center in 2005," reads the document.

RISU was told by the deputy head of the Lviv Stauropegion Brotherhood of St. Andrew the First-called, Yurii Fediv, that the authors of the document called the bishops, priests, parish communities, and brotherhoods of the UAOC to "openly admit their mistakes, their past violations of church statutes and council decrees and return to the canonic unity with our eparchies in the diaspora and to the subordination to the patriarchate established by Most Holy Patriarch Dymytrii of the Blessed Memory."

"We demand that the administrator of the patriarchate, elected by the council, Archbishop Ihor (Isichenko), return to active fulfillment of the powers vested in him by the Local Council in 2000 and to prepare for the regular Local Council in Ukraine with the blessing of the Blessed Metropolitan Kostiantyn as the spiritual head of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church," stresses the address.

Furthermore, the authors express hope that "Ukrainian Christians in the world will be governed in their attitude to the problems of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church in Ukraine not only by the feeling of patriotism but also by understanding the universality of Christ's Church, in each part of which the church fullness is embodied."

"The support of our Church in Ukraine is also a contribution to the future of ecumenical Orthodoxy, its rescue from the sad fate of being a secret weapon of the Kremlin, destined to self-destruction. We are calling you to hear the part of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church in Ukraine, which has not entered the schism of Mefodii (Kudriakov), kept loyalty to the Mother Church and has not lost hope to restore the full canonical unity with the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in the diaspora," reads the document.

The authors of the address stress that the document expresses the position of not only the Kharkiv and Poltava Eparchy headed by Archbishop Ihor (Isichenko) but also the majority of the parishes of the UAOC in the Lviv, Volyn, Ivano-Frankivsk, and Ternopil oblasts as well as in southern Ukraine.

"They are ready even now to enter the canonical jurisdiction of the Permanent Conference of the Ukrainian Orthodox Bishops Outside of Ukraine and accept a bishop appointed for them," add the members of the All-Ukrainian Brotherhood of St. Andrew the First-Called of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church.