Head of UGCC Open to Dialogue With ROC

Patriarch Sviatoslav (Shevchuk) told the Italian published edition Il Regno that he is open to dialogue with the Russian Orthodox Church. According to the hierarch, the divide of the unified Kyivan Church of Volodymyr’s baptism is a painful experience for UGCC. “I am open to dialogue and even more, I think that a process of reconciliation with ROC should take place. We have historic wounds which can be healed only by a process in which all Church institutions will be engaged. I intended to start that way and I hope that ROC will show the same openness,” said Patriarch Sviatoslav.

In answer to the journalist’s question if any steps towards dialogue were made after the letter from the Head of the External Church Relations of ROC, Ilarion Alfeev with a proposal of closer cooperation, the patriarch said that there was correspondence but there was no meeting yet: “We have not started a serious dialogue about the existing problems.”  

In the hierarch’s opinion, the dialogue is to take place primarily in Ukraine. “It would be natural for Blessed Metropolitan Volodymyr (Sabodan) of UOC-MP to be my interlocutor,” noted the patriarch.