Metropolitan Makariy of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (UAOC) in a letter addressed to the head of Lviv Regional State Administration Viktor Shemchuk explained why he defends the interests of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP) in the transfer of the building at 57 Pekarska St. in Lviv.
According to Metropolitan Makariy, it took the consistory of the Lviv Eparchy of the UAOC twenty-four years to come into the possession of the building. The consistory wrote many letters and requests and had to go through many lawsuits to get a proper space for eparchial administration.
According to the UAOC metropolitan, defending the interests of the UOC-MP in this case, he was guided by the fact that the Orthodox branch of Christianity in Ukraine must reach some understanding, and in the future must unite into one Ukrainian National Orthodox Church. “For these aspirations to succeed, we must change ourselves and all that is around us,” said the metropolitan.
It pains him to see that at events held at the state level priests of the UOC-MP do not even want to stand next to representatives of the UAOC. The same attitude is observed at joint memorial services. Instead, the metropolitan stresses, when priests from Russia go to the shore of the Black Sea, namely to the village of Lazurne in Kherson Oblast, they go to the church of the Autocephalous Orthodox Church, attend worship, and give donations to the needs of the church. The metropolitan is also outraged that when Orthodox Christians of Galicia want to go to the sacrament of confession and communion in a monastery of the UOC-MP in Ukraine, they are cast aside and called “schismatics.”
In the letter, Metropolitan Makariy writes: “When religious conflicts between us and the public end, then we will be at the highest level, regardless of religious affiliation and beliefs, and Christian doctrine and Christian love will be the basis.”
He hopes that “leadership of the UOC-MP eparchy will make every effort to ensure that the Christian spirit of love and unity, which the laity and clergy of all branches of Ukrainian Orthodoxy have long sought, will prevail in the Christian Orthodox monasteries and shrines of the UOC-MP that are on our land, to meet their spiritual needs, and accept them as brothers and sisters, not as ‘schismatics’ and villains, because it will lead not only to the spread of despair and disunion between the churches but also to misunderstanding among Christians.”