Intervention Of Politicians Further Divides Church In Ukraine - Ukrainian Orthodox Church

Intervention of politicians in church affairs further divides the Ukrainian church, the head of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP), Metropolitan Onufriy of Kiev and all Ukraine, said Saturday.

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 15th December, 2018) Intervention of politicians in church affairs further divides the Ukrainian church, the head of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP), Metropolitan Onufriy of Kiev and all Ukraine, said Saturday.

The Ukrainian authorities and the newly created church want to get a tomos from the Constantinople patriarch on autocephaly. However, the tomos may be obtained only by a leader of the "unified" Ukrainian church. The so called unification council is meant to choose the leader of the new independent Ukrainian Orthodox church and adopt the structure's statute. The UOC-MP, which has been the only canonical Orthodox church in Ukraine for hundreds of years, has refused to take part in the unification council, set for Saturday.

"If the politicians did not intervene, we would have united a long time ago. But they do intervene and divide us even more. Because they approach church life and solve church problems with political patterns, but they do not approach church life.

Church life is completely different," Onufry told the Perviy Kazatskiy broadcaster.

He also noted that the so called unification council was far from what it had been declared to be.

"We have a local church, we do not need anything, we have much more than those, who will be at this 'council,' were promised to be given. We have everything. We just need patience, humility and labors," the metropolitan said.

The Ukrainian authorities, including President Petro Poroshenko, said they did not intend to interfere in the affairs of the church, but they failed to deliver on that promise. Poroshenko managed to organize the recognition of the non-canonical church in Ukraine by the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople.

The Moscow Patriarchate calls the situation around the autocephaly the "legalization of schism," saying that it will have catastrophic consequences and affect millions of Christians in Ukraine and other countries, and has already broken the Eucharistic communion with the Patriarchate of Constantinople.