Relations Between Kyiv and Moscow Patriarchates Deteriorate

Patriarch Filaret of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Kyivan Patriarchate (UOC-KP) stated under the new regime, attempts are being made to seize churches of the UOC-KP. According to the primate, there are increasingly more cases of church buildings being transfered to the Moscow Patriarchate.

“In the Rivne region, they began to invite people and campaign for the transfer to the Moscow Patriarchate. In Odesa, the Secretary of the Press Service of Metropolitan Volodymyr stated that it is necessary to liquidate the Kyivan Patriarchate. We built a church in Makariv with the money of the Kyivan Patriarchate. And they re-registered the church as one belonging to the Moscow Patriarchate,” the patriarch said, reported Segodnya.ua.

A similar story with Yahotyn. The Cathedral of the Holy Trinity has become a stumbling block. In the 1800s it was built by Hetman Kyrylo Rozumovskyi, in the 1930s, the Communists destroyed it and in 1994 the state began to restore it and on March 29, 2012, the unfinished cathedral was transferred to the books of the local authorities. ”We not only consecrated the site but we also contributed funds for the restoration of the church, and now, the Moscow Patriarchate wants to seize it. And the authorities of Yahotyn wanted to transfer the church to them last week,” complained Patriarch Filaret.

Representatives of the UOC-MP state that it is not so. “No one was going to transfer anything to us. The cathedral was restored as an architectural monument, as a museum. To be able to serve services there, it is necessary to rebuild its interior. Adherents of Filaret are now making approaches to the cathedral. On April 7, on the Annunciation Day, they conducted a meeting in the territory of the church.”

Representatives of the UOC-MP state that they do not drag anyone to their church and do not use assistance of the authorities, reported UNIAN.