Metropolitan Speaks About Mission Of Autocephalous Orthodox Church-Sobornopravna

Metropolitan Moisei of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church-Sobornopravna (UAOC-S) has been recently appointed metropolitan of Kyiv and all Ukraine. While in the southwestern Ukrainian city of Uzhhorod on 15 November 2002, the metropolitan presented his vision of the church’s role in Ukraine’s religious life. The UAOC-Sobornopravna, which until recently functioned outside the country, is now returning to Ukraine. “Sobornopravna” is a term that means “in accordance with the canonical regulations of Orthodoxy.”
Metropolitan Moisei stressed that the UAOC-S is not a newly established church, but a canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church, recognized by the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople in 1924. It functioned on the territories of Volyn, Polissia, Kholmshchyna and Pidliashia that were under Polish rule and belonged to the Kyivan Metropolitanate and all Rus. Due to persecutions of the Soviet regime, the church’s hierarchs emigrated abroad and are now returning “with the aim of restoring the canonicity and uniting all the churches of Ukraine into one national church.” “Today, we are all witnessing a great division between the Orthodox churches in Ukraine. This division continues to deepen and leaders of these churches perform the role of estranged princes, who don’t realize what the consequences of this division for the future of Ukraine might be. The divided church divides the nation. Therefore, the mission of the Ukrainian Orthodox Autocephalous Church-Sobornopravna is to unite all the churches in Ukraine,” said the metropolitan. “The Assembly of Canonical Bishops of the Diaspora gave me the responsibility of the canonical metropolitan of Kyiv and all Rus-Ukraine to restore the metropolitanate in the status of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church-Sobornopravna, as well as to stimulate the unification of all Ukrainian churches in Ukraine and the in diaspora so that they become one church family, not only in Ukraine, but also throughout the world where Ukrainian metropolitanates exist,” reads the address of Metropolitan Moisei. Source: www.uaoc.org