The leadership of the UOC-MP shared to its deans the text of an appeal stating that the requirement of the law on renaming religious organizations that have a leadership center (beneficiary) in the aggressor country violates the constitutional rights of this jurisdiction.
This is reported by the Cerkvarium.
Until February 16, it is required to forcibly collect signatures in support of the UOC-MP from each parish:
"From each parish and monastery until February 16, these appeals must be filed with the diocesan administration with a wet seal (if any) and signatures of the rector (vicar, abbess) and the maximum number of parishioners (brothers and sisters), following which they must be sent to the specified addressees in 3 registered letters."
The appeal notes that no one can impose on the Church their understanding of its religious and hierarchical structure.
At the same time, opponents of the UOC-MP are called "pseudo-religious organizations". As a means of pressure, a poorly veiled threat of violation of peace and tranquility in the state and an appeal to "violation of the rights and freedoms of particularly vulnerable segments of the population, including believers of the UOC-MP, was used."
State leaders are asked to apply the powers granted by the legislation, as well as authority and political influence, in order to repeal (in the original - "cancel"*) laws that are inconvenient for the UOC-MP.
Earlier, the UOC-MP has already bombarded the Ecumenical Patriarch with spam statements against the recognition of the OCU, and the courts, and now they are to do the same to the state leadership.
"Please note that this was promptly done on the eve of the Constitutional Court's consideration of the issue of renaming religious organizations that have a leadership center (beneficiary) in the aggressor country and in light of the position of Deputy Prime Minister Oleksiy Reznikov on the need for such renaming," the newspaper notes.
"Probably, the UOC-MP was also impressed by the blocking of TV channels that conduct an openly anti-state disinformation campaign -Channel 112, NewsOne and Zik. NewsOne regularly broadcast programs where they "told the truth" about the infringement of the rights of the UOC-MP and openly humiliated the OCU," Cerkvarium reports.
According to the letter of His All-Holiness Patriarch Bartholomew of the Ecumenical Council, sent to Cerkvarium, after 15.12.2018 the UOC-MP ceases to exist as a canonical structure on the territory of Ukraine, and its bishops are only titular (and not ruling) Bishops under Russia.
As RISU has reported, Odessa public activist Mikhail Sheludko recorded and posted on Facebook a photo of what the plate in St. Andrew's metochion looked like in 2012. On a blue background, yellow letters in the first line indicated that this was the Moscow Patriarchate, followed by the name of the denomination and the church. In 2015, the plate was changed. At first glance, everything seems to remain the same – the same contours, colors, symbols, size, but on the new information sign, customers "forgot" to indicate that they belong to the Moscow Patriarchate.
The inscription "Moscow Patriarchate" also disappeared from the table of St. Elijah's Monastery of the Diocese of Odessa.
In the end, in the same year 2015, the Metropolitan of the UOC-MP in Moscow on the Memorial Day of Saints Cyril and Methodius publicly stated that the structure headed by him is part of the Moscow Patriarchate.