UOC-MP denies inviting Patriarch Kirill to Ukraine and supposed Primate’s re-election

UOC-MP called false the information distributed by the press service of the UOC-KP about Patriarch Kirill’s possible visit to Ukraine to participate in commemoration of St. Prince Vladimir and on the possible re-election of Metropolitan Volodymyr under the Kremlin’s pressure.

The statement by the UOC-MP was posted on the official site of the Church.

The statement’s text:

Due to recent publications on the UOC-KP official website concerning the internal life of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, the Department for External Church Relations of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church is authorized to state the following:

1. We declare false the information that the Holy Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church allegedly planned to invite Patriarch Kirill to Ukraine, which would trigger protests in Ukrainian society, and therefore the visit would be transferred to the Crimean Chersonese, where the bishops of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church would sit in a session and would have to elect a new Primate. The agenda of the Holy Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church have not included and does not include now any issue of inviting His Holiness Patriarch Kirill to the festivities dedicated to the Holy Prince Vladimir this year. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church considers the dissemination of this information to be a provocation deliberately arranged by the leadership of the UOC-KP.

2. We are very upset that government representatives, including Director of the Department Department of Religious and Ethnic Affairs to Ministry of Culture of Ukraine Vladimir Yushkevich are guided by this untested and blatantly provocative information when making their public statements. We believe that these statements bring tension in social life and in relations between the confessions, and may be regarded as interference in the internal affairs of the Church, which is unacceptable on the part of the relevant officials.

3. It is a pity that the official website of the UOC-KP becomes a place which makes public the rumors, gossip, and provocative unverified information, aiming to excite artificial hatred and division in the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, and distort in the eyes of Ukrainian society the image of the Church. We are sure that publication of any information with a reference to anonymous sources is not a worthy method of presenting information for the UOC-KP press-service. We consider such actions to be a threat to internal security and stability in Ukrainian society, which is inadmissible, especially in the current difficult period for our country.

4. We believe that the information policy of the UOC-KP press-center does not facilitate reconciliation and dialogue, to which the UOC-KP so actively encourages, but in fact does quite the opposite. It seems that one of the main goals of this denomination is sweeping criticism of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and everyone and everything connected with it.

5. It should be noted that the Ukrainian Orthodox Church on its part never allowed herself to demonstrate in its official statements or publications online the unhealthy interest in the inner life both of the UOC-KP and other confessions, and even to slide into commenting on rumors, gossip and scheming around any religious organization.

6. We urge the Ukrainian society and media not to spread provocative and misleading information from dubious sources about Ukrainian Orthodox Church, and if such information appears, to contact officials of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church eligible to comment certain events of the internal and external life of the Church.