The hierarchs of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, who participated today in the Unification Assembly of Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church in Kyiv, no longer have any relation to the Moscow Patriarchate. This was stated in the commentary to BBC News Ukraine by the chairman of the Synodal Information and Education Department of the UOC-MP, Archbishop Clement (Vecherya).
According to him, they "create a new church and go there."
On the question of whether any sanctions would be taken on these hierarchs, Clement replied that "they no longer have any relation to the UOC".
"If they were in the UOC, then some actions could be applied against them ... We only state that they have moved to the schism, and we will inform the local churches that they no longer appear in the diptych of canonical bishops of Ukraine," he said.
At the same time, Clement added that the positions that these hierarchs occupied in the UOC-MP will become vacant. "In this case, the people themselves wanted to separate themselves from their church. We can only state this with sadness," he concluded.
Earlier, it was reported that at least two hierarchs of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) of the Moscow Patriarchate arrived at the Unification Assembly in Kyiv. They are Metropolitan Pereyaslav-Khmelnitsky and Vishnevsky UOC (MP) Oleksandr (Drabynko), as well as Metropolitan of Vinnytsia Symeon.
Until today, it was not known how many hierarchs of the UOC-MP would arrive at the Assembly, since their church officially refused to participate in the event.
It was expected that there would be about a dozen representatives of the UOC-MP. That is, taking into account the priests and laity in the format of the local council, it was assumed that the UOC-MP will have up to 30 votes.
