The Russian Orthodox Church set out to calculate the number of parishes that left the Moscow Patriarchate to join the OCU

12.11.2021, 13:04
Interconfessional
The Russian Orthodox Church set out to calculate the number of parishes that left the Moscow Patriarchate to join the OCU - фото 1
Over three years, just over 200 parishes have left the UOC-MP to join the OCU.

This was stated by the head of the Synodal Department for Church-Society and media relations Volodymyr Legoyda and added that for most of them the transition was involuntary, according to Interfax-Religion.

"About 143 parishes left (maybe not the last figure), and they did not leave but were captured by force or for the connivance of the authorities in violation of the legal laws of Ukrainians. I don't remember the exact figure now, but less than two hundred is accurate," a church representative said in an interview with RTVI.

At the same time, Legoyda reminded that the "canonical" Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate has 12.5 thousand parishes, and this is still the largest church in Ukraine, which, as he noted, has never stated anything about autocephaly.

The Primate of the OCU Epifaniy reported that in two years, about 700 parishes have joined the Orthodox Church of Ukraine.

In just six months of its existence, 500 communities of the Moscow Patriarchate joined the OCU.

In 2019, users most often viewed the article of the Ukrainian Wikipedia "The transition of church communities to the OCU". It has gained more than a million views.