Metropolitan Oleksandr (Drabinko) said it in an interview with Ukrainian Radio, answering the question: Why not everyone in Ukraine have accepted autocephaly yet?
Metropolitan Oleksandr (Drabinko) said it in an interview with Ukrainian Radio, answering the question: Why not everyone in Ukraine have accepted autocephaly yet?
"Unfortunately, we have a certain degree of slave psychology, which was developed by us during 300 years of stay in the Russian Empire in the eclesiastical terms, and for 70 years of Babylonian captivity of the Soviet Empire. We have a certain reverence among believers and clergy. The believers are reverent towards the priest, as the priest says, that is the way it should be. There is a private Evangelical canonical approach to the understanding of the processes that occur in our lives. The episcopate has a fear of the Holy Synod, that they get transferred from the pulpit or deprived of their position, the priests are afraid of the Bishop…
I just hope that this slavish psychology is already absent in the Orthodox Church of Ukraine. And in my opinion, those who are under the Moscow Patriarchate should do the same. Ukraine is an example in political terms, when Archangel Michael raises the sword of dignity and freedom over Kyiv, freeing us from the shackles of totalitarianism. So, I hope, this will be the case with the Church life.
Today we have a full-fledged autocephaly, we are absolutely not dependent on Constantinople in anything, we are absolutely equal sister Church, as well as Constantinople," the Metropolitan answered and added that in no way regrets that he joined the Ukrainian Autocephalous Church:
"I did not regret for a moment what was actually the leitmotif of my entire conscious Church life in the Ukrainian Orthodox Church."