UOC-MP Monks in Donetsk Region Criticize Church Leaders’ Support of European Integration
The community of a monastery of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP) criticized Metropolitan Volodymyr, who signed a European integration appeal from the heads of churches, writes Kommersant-Ukraine.
The community members believe that if the agreement will be signed with the EU, it will lead to a “militant advocacy of sexual perversion and abuse of children.” The UOC-MP leadership is surprised by such criticism because they believe that priests and lay people are entitled to their opinion.
“The faithful and the clergy of the church are not prohibited from having their own opinion on political issues. Democracy reigns in the church, we are above politics, which is confirmed by this letter. However, it is strange to say that Metropolitan Volodymyr’s signature is a private initiative. The head of the church acts on behalf of the church and most of the believers,” says the UOC-MP spokesman Archpriest Heorhiy Kovalenko.
About 200 monks of Holy Dormition Monastery in Donetsk Oblast made a similar statement against the metropolitan. “This document must not mislead Ukrainian citizens. The reasoning contained therein is in no way an expression of the position of the UOC-MP on integration; instead, it reflects Metropolitan Volodymyr’s personal civic stand, which he shares with representatives of the schismatic, sectarian, and heterodox non-Christian religious groups,” reads the statement.
The organizer of the Kyiv Russia Club Dmytro Skvortsov sees such statements as signs of divisions within the UOC-MP.
Representatives of the LGBT community similarly treated the document, adding that they see no reason for the monks to fear. “Both the appeal of the church leaders and this statement are no more than political manipulations, as there is no intention to improve the rights of the LGBT community. Moreover, the church leaders’ letter refers to ‘traditional values,’ so it is unclear why the authors fear the appeal – the church was opposed to LGBT people and remains so,” said the head of the NGO Insight Olena Shevchenko.
On September 30, the heads of Ukrainian churches and religious organizations, in a special address to the Ukrainian people about the European prospects of Ukraine, said that “our historical roots naturally determine Ukraine’s future – to be an independent state in the sphere of free European nations.”
The document refers to the link between Ukraine and Europe, because it is through its spiritual, cultural, educational, and legal tradition that our public life was built.
