Delegation of Anglican Church Visits Kyiv
On April 9-13 the delegation of the Anglican Church is visiting Kyiv. The delegation is led by Bishop Stephen Platten of Wakefield, the head of the Liturgical Commission of the Anglican Church who is responsible for ecumenical relations and is also a member of the House of Lords of the British Parliament. The bishop is accompanied by two canonists of the Anglican Church, the еcumenical secretary of the primate of the Anglican Church, Archbishop of Canterbury Fr. Jonathan Gudall, and an experienced participant of the Anglican-Orthodox dialogue, Fr. Hugh Wybrew. The delegation was also accompanied by the leader of the Evangelical Baptist Church of Georgia, Malkhaz Songulashvili who is engaged in scholarly-theological activity in England.
According to the members of the delegation, their trip is aimed to study the state of inter-denominational relations in our country, possibilities of establishing regular cooperation between the Anglican Church and the Christian denominations in Ukraine as well as to personally get acquainted with the life of the Ukrainian Orthodox Churches of the Kyivan and Moscow Patriarchate. The Anglican Church is interested to see with its own eyes the real picture of the life of the Ukrainian Orthodoxy instead of judging from other people’s accounts. So reported the press-service of the Kyivan Patriarchate.
On 11 April, at the patriarchal residence of the head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Kyivan Patriarchate (UOC-KP), the Anglican delegation met with Patriarch Filaret. The participants exchanged opinions of the state and prospect of the ecumenical dialogue, the challenges facing the Christian Churches in modern Europe. The guests were interested to learn about the activity of the All-Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations (AUCCRO). In the end, Patriarch Filaret presented to Bishop Stephen Platten and Archbishop Malkhaz Songulashvilli the Orders of Christ the Saviour and to the canonists, Fr. Jonathan Gudall andFr. Hugh Wybrew the Orders of St George the Victorious.
On that same day, the visitors accompanied by Bishops Ilarion and Yevstratii visited Bishop Stanislav Shyrokoradiuk of the Roman Catholic Church in Ukraine. Bishop Stanislav told them about the life of RCC in Ukraine and answered their questions.
On the same day, the delegation met with the ex-head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, Cardinal Lubomyr (Husar).
On 12 April, the delegation visited the Apostolic Nunciature of the Vatican in Kyiv.
The delegation of the Anglican Church was received in the premises of the parliamentary committee by the head of the Committee on Culture and Spirituality of the Supreme Council of Ukraine, a Ukrainian deputy, Volodymyr Yavorivskyi. The meeting was especially interesting as Bishop Stephen Platten is a member of the House of Lords of the British Parliament. Bishop Stephen noted that it is important for the Anglican Church and the British society to support high standards of the freedom of worship and confession, including the ones in Ukraine. Therefore, he and other representatives of the Anglican Church show interest for the state-Church and inter-denominational relations in Ukraine as they seek to promote their successful development on the democratic basis.
After that, the members of the delegation were received by the head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP), Metropolitan Volodymyr at his residence in the Kyiv Cave Monastery.
The program of the visit also included a meeting with the heads of the Protestant denominations of Ukraine, the head of the all-Ukrainian Union of Associations of Evangelical Christians Baptists, Viacheslav Nesteruk and Senior Bishop of the Church of Christians of Evangelical Faith (Pentecostals) of Ukraine, Mykhailo Panochko. The heads of the Protestant Churches told the visitors about their denominations, their life in USSR and in the independent Ukraine, and the visitors told them about the goal of their visit. After that, the participants exchanged ideas on many issues, of which the question of fruitful inter-denominational cooperation within the framework of the AUCCRO, the Conference of Christian Churches of Ukraine and the Council of Evangelical Protestant Churches of Ukraine was the main one.
The foreign guests together with Bishop Ilarion visited the cathedral of the Holy Sophia.
The Tuesday program ended with a visit to St. Michael’s Vydubytskyi Monastery. In St. George’s Cathedral, Patriarch Filaret in the presence of the Orthodox and Anglican clergy, prayed for the people of Japan who are suffering from natural and technological disasters.
According to the report of the press-service of the Kyivan Patriarchate, all the participants expressed confidence that the visit has been a successful beginning and a pledge of fruitful cooperation between the Anglican Church and the Ukrainian Churches.
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