UOC refutes information about the restriction of their rights by ROC Synod

Archpriest Nikolai Danilevich. Photo: Apostrophe

The information disseminated by a number of Ukrainian media that the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church at its last meeting allegedly limited some of the rights of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church does not correspond to reality. The spokesperson for the UOC, Archpriest Nikolai Danilevich, wrote about this on his Telegram channel on Wednesday, December 30, 2020.

In particular, he clarified, it goes about Journal No. 113 of the meeting of the Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church on December 29, which says that the texts of services to the saints of Self-Governing Churches must be agreed with the Patriarchate.

Archpriest Nikolai Danilevich explained that this decision does not apply to the UOC, whose status is higher than the Self-Governing Church, and “we ourselves have been canonizing saints for a long time and compiling the texts of divine services for the saints, without the consent of the Russian Orthodox Church. And this situation is unlikely to change in the direction of limiting our rights."

“Of course, it sometimes happens that some decisions of the Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church, in which the UOC is mentioned, are interpreted in the same way as our media do. However, the realities of the life of our Church are different. The UOC is growing and developing, and it is already difficult and sometimes impossible to squeeze back some aspects of its life into the framework of some regulatory documents,” he stressed.

Earlier, the spokesperson for the UOC denied rumours about the arrival of the head of the Phanar to Kyiv in January 2021.

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