There are no cases of UGCC priests beign transfered to the Moscow Patriarchate, Fr. Ihor Yatsiv, press secretary of the Patriarchate of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, said in a commentary to Gazeta.UA.
“We have received no such signals from the churches of UGCC. However, priests of the Kyivan Patriarchate approach us with requests to understand their problem and assist in defending their rights. For today, it is them and tomorrow it is us. It is difficult to argue with that as it is regularity. Undoubtedly, it is scary and it causes interdenominational tension,” he said.
According to Fr. Yatsiv, everything was fine until recently. The All-Ukrainian Council of Churches was active, internal discussions were held and joint decisions were made. “And now, there seems to be no way out. The authorities give absolute preference to one of the denominations, they deliberately or nondeliberately cause interdenominational tension,” noted the priest.
The press secretary of the UGCC also reminded that President Viktor Yanukovych forgot to greet them on Christmas.
“The fact that we were not even mentioned in the Christmas greeting address of the president is not so much of a concern to us. At least because the Greek Catholics are Orthodox according to their rite and faith. I mean that we were not greeted only because of our denomination. But the problem is not so much that we were not mentioned as that one of the denominations is deliberately and constantly favored over others,” noted the press secretary.
According to Fr. Yatsiv, the local officials see the signals from the center and try to please the authorities. “They begin to support the denomination in question at the local level. Some are not granted even what they are entitled to according to the law, and the others, who did not even ask, are granted everything,” he added.