Nowadays, the Orthodox Church of Ukraine includes 7,000 communities. Many parishes joined the OCU after the Unification Council. However, recently this process has somewhat slowed.
Nowadays, the Orthodox Church of Ukraine includes 7,000 communities. Many parishes joined the OCU after the Unification Council. However, recently this process has somewhat slowed.
In his interview for Syohodni (Today), OCU Metropolitan Oleksandr (Drabynko) explained the causes of the slowdown in the Church's development.
“The process has slowed down for two reasons. First, it is easier to get Tomos on Fanari than to get state registration documents in Kyiv. Unfortunately, the state apparatus, worried about granting Tomos, whether it would be granted in Constantinople or not, thought hard about resolving the legal issues within its responsibilities. The Unification Council was held on December 15, yet the state registered the Church in late January if not February. This is what amazes me the most. In my opinion, if the state was truly concerned about the fate of the OCU, it should have registered it the very next day after its creation, December 16,” the hierarch said.
According to the Metropolitan, the Church lost time, and Moscow made good use of this delay.
"Moscow's pressure is another reason. We know of many examples of blackmailing and bribing priests to force them to refuse to join the OCU. When preparing for the Unification Council, I was approached by 70-80 priests of the Moscow Patriarchate who wanted to join the process. And as a result, only 5-6 parishes got involved. The problem is that for a long time there was no legal basis, which did not allow us to quickly take the parishes under our protection,” Bishop Oleksandr added.
“However, the Orthodox Church has come to pass and is developing. As our Metropolitan Epifaniy recently told us, today the Orthodox Church of Ukraine includes 7,000 parishes, 47 dioceses, and 77 monasteries. In the near future, the process of international recognition of the OCU will be intensified. And I think that as soon as it gets international recognition, everything will fall into place in Ukraine. It is an irreversible process as well as God's will,” the Metropolitan of the OCU emphasized.