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Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church-Canonical Head Sends Declaration

03.09.2005, [00:26] // Speech, greeting, press release //

The press center of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church-Canonical on 2 September 2005 sent RISU a declaration regarding recent events involving the church’s hierarchy. The text, sent in English, is submitted below in its entirety, though the editor has made some corrections to the spelling and grammar.

Declaration of the Patriarch of the UAOC-Canonical

Regarding the fact that many envious persons are spreading perverted information about me, I want to inform all brother and sisters in Christ:

My belief and my preaching are based only on true dogmas of Our Lord Jesus Christ and I don't change anything, not a letter.

With respect and faith I treat the Apostolic teaching and consider it to be very useful in development of the Church of Christ.

With respect and faith I treat the Old Testament and consider it to be the fundament of the New Testament. The same attitude I have to the Apostolic rules and seven Ecumenical Councils, if these regulations are in absolute harmony with the teaching of Our Lord. The regulations contradicting the teaching I reject.

With respect I treat the bodies of the saints, but absolutely don't perceive idolatry, especially fanatical worship to dead bodies and relics of the saints, which they also sew into communion cloth, when the Greek Orthodox Church doesn't have such a tradition, as God bequeathed in the second commandment as well as in the Old and New Testaments.

With faith and truth I serve God alive, the Creator of the Sky and the Earth, as the Lord bequeathed in the first commandment.

Our Lord said: «Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! Because you build the tombs of prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous. (Mt 23:29). «And say if we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets». (Mtt. 23-33). «You, serpents, you, generation of vipers. How can you escape the damnation of hell? Therefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wisemen, and scribes: and some of them you shall kill and crucify.(Mtt. 23-34). Any forms of idolatry God forbids in His commandments, as well as in the Old and New Testaments.(Lu 19:31, Lu 21:1, Lu 21:11; Nu 19:16, Nu 19:18, Job 20:11, Job 21:24, Jer 8:1, 2Ch 34:5, Mic 3:2/3, 1P 1:24, 1 Cor 15:50, Ju 1;9).

I develop the Church of God and hierarchy only on the fundamentals of the Gospel. That's why archpriests and the clergy of our Church are endowed with gifts of the Holy Spirit – prophecy, healing and preaching, which should be the spiritual content of the Church of Christ, and there should be not only outer beautiful attributes.

I believe that God has chosen me, unworthy, for development and renewing of the purity of His Holy Church on earth. And as an instrument in His hands I fight with any corruption in His Church.

Archpriests, the clergy and the faithful should be like brothers and sisters in one Christian family.

I won't let any malice be in the Church, but if I will skip something, then God will purge His Church from anything mean and cunning, political, greedy and mercenary, from buggers and sodomites.

I believe in God, not people, and I strive to keep the authority of Orthodoxy in the people's eyes, who are sincerly looking for the truth of God.

With love I treat all Christian confessions and all God's Churches and religions on the earth.

I am intolerant of any satanic movements and devilish distortions in Christian Churches.

With love in Christ

+ Moisei, Patriarch of Kyiv and All Rus-Ukraine

Source: Press service of the UAOC-C