Head of the UAOC Places Hope in President Yanukovych
In his greeting address on the 60th anniversary of birth of President Viktor Yanukovych, the head of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (UAOC), Metropolitan Mefodii, expressed wishes of good health and success in the service in the responsible post. The hierarch is pleased with the dialogue of the president with Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople and assured that the UAOC is prepared to propose its own models for certain Ukrainian churches to come out from canonical isolation.
“We are firmly confident that by your word you will do what your predecessors failed to: you will prudently and competently promote unification of the divided Ukrainian Orthodoxy. It is obvious that canonical establishment today of one national Orthodox church in Ukraine will do good not only for the Church of God but for our Ukrainian state as well.
Our Holy Church with great pleasure learns about your dialogue and close cooperation with both His Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople the New Rome and Patriarch Kirill of Moscow. We pray to the all-merciful God for your activity in that area to be productive and successful for Ukraine and the Ukrainian Church. On our part, the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church is always ready for such cooperation and expresses readiness to participate in the interchurch dialogue at all levels and even now is able to propose for discussion its own models for certain Ukrainian churches to come out from canonical isolation.
All the faithful of our church and I personally once again greet you on your glorious 60th birthday and sincerely wish you, Mister President of Ukraine, good health, Cossack longevity, success, God’s help in the responsible service. Let me assure you, dear Viktor Fedorovych, that our flock has great hope in you. Therefore, let our prayer for your health and salvation become a good encouragement and a Christian’s best wish today. And this prayer will be said by hundreds of thousands of our faithful all over Ukraine and abroad. It is only in unity and agreement that we can achieve your old motto: ‘Ukraine will win!’” reads the address published by the UAOC website.
