Fr Georgiy Kovalenko: hundreds of monks and parishes "disappear" from the UOC
I reviewed the statisticspresented in the report at the Council of Bishops of the UOC by Metropolitan Onufriy. Some figures were surprising,” former spokesman of the UOC (MP) priest George Kovalenko writes on his Facebook page.
As of January 1, 2016, there are 11,949 parishes.
I remember that Metropolitan Volodymyrmentioned this same figure in 2012 at the Jubilee Council of the UOC. Then in 2013 he referred to 12,500 parishes.
I looked up the statistical data of the State Committee on religions (figurespresentedby the previous Primate did not differ).
As of 01.01.2011 – 11,952 parishes
01.01.2012 - 12,230 parishes
01.01.2013 - 12,485 parishes
01.01.2014 - 12,714 parishes
01.01.2015 – 12,241 parishes
I became curious what is the statistic presented by the state for this year. But it immediately becomes clear that in 2014 the UOC lost about 500 parishes. And if the figures from Metropolitan Onufriy’s report and the new report of the National Committee on Religions coincide, then we can state that the UOC has lost more than 700 parishes and has been thrown back to 2011 in terms of quantity.
Of course, everything can be attributed to the inadequacy of state and church statistics. But of course we must sort the things out and see the actual number of parishes (and not only in of the UOC) instead of those on paper.
The statistics monks and nuns proved to be similarly interesting.
In 2012, according to the report of Metropolitan Volodymyr, there were 1,747monks and 3,079 nuns in 211 monasteries of the UOC.
In 2016, according to the report of Metropolitan Onufriy, 1,603 monks and 2,515 nunslive in 247 monasteries.
The question is where these 144 monks and 564 nuns have gone during 4 years?
By the way, according to the State Committee on Religions, as of January 1, 2015, the UOC had 4869 monks and nuns. If we compare these figures with those given by the Church, 751 people are missing!
Where have these people gone? Have they died? Have they left the monastery? Have they been expelled? Or may be again, no one knows their actual number?
P.S. Due to operational response from the Metropolis (see the comments), I found out this is the problem of discrepancy between the church and state statistics. So as they say, “it pains me to see the state suffering.”
