Synod of UOC-Moscow Patriarchate Accuses Romanian Patriarchate of Noncanonical Actions

On August 26, under the headship of Metropolitan Volodymyr, a regular session of the Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Moscow Patriarchate was held in the Synodal Hall of the Kyivan Metropolitanate.

The synod decided to appoint Archimandrite Iona (Cherepanov) the vicar of the Kyivan Metropolitanate and bishop of Obukhiv.

The synod heard a report by the head of the Department of External Church Relations of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Archbishop Oleksandr of Pereiaslav-Khmelnytskyi and Vyshnevskyi, on the situation regarding the consecration on July 16 of the Church of St. Peter and Paul in the village of Kamyshivka, in the Odesa Oblast, by clergymen of the Romanian Orthodox Church. The UOC representatives stressed that the Romanian Patriarchate never approached the hierarchs of the UOC for permission to consecrate the mentioned church as it is located within the canonical territory of the UOC. The participants of the synod concluded that such actions contradict the canonical order of the Orthodox Church and are in no way conducive to brotherly relations between the Romanian Orthodox Church and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

The Synod decided to:

Express concern over the activity of the Besarabian Metropolitanate of the Romanian Orthodox Church in the canonical territory of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church;

Ask Metropolitan Volodymyr of Kyiv and All Ukraine on behalf of the Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church to send an appropriate letter to Blessed Patriarch Daniel of Romania.

The synod also renamed the Supreme Church Council of the UOC into the Coordination Council of Heads of Synodal Institutions of the Primate of the UOC.

The journals of the synod were published by the website of the UOC-MP.