A photo from the scene
On December 15, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko declared establishment of a new church in the country – the Autocephalous Orthodox Church.
“I congratulate everyone on setting up the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church which has been just created at St. Sophia’s,” Poroshenko said addressing a small crowd in Sofiyskaya Square after the end of the ‘unification’ council.
While the Ukrainian media covered the meeting as a “nation-wide” event, in fact, the collected crowd was a result of efforts of the Poroshenko government, which was moving people from around the country as extras.
Forthermore, only 2 from 90 archbishops of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church attended the assembly. They were Metropolitan Alexander (Drabinko) of Pereyaslav-Khmelnitsky and Vyshnevsky and Metropolitan Simeon of Vinnitsa and Barsky.
IMAGE: Metropolitan Epiphanius of Pereyaslav-Khmelnytsky and Belaya Tserkov
During the assemby, Metropolitan Epiphany of Pereyaslav and Belotserkovsk, who had earlier served as a bishop of the uncanonical Kiev Patriarchate, was elected head of the new church. It’s important to note that Epiphany did not get the titul of Patriarch.
No congregation sent their congraduations or support letters to the head of the newly established ‘Ukrainian church’. In fact, Patriarch Filaret of Ukrainian Orthodox Church – Kiev Patriarchate, who was among main backers of the move, demonstrated that his actions pursue political goals only and representatives of other churches understand this. The actions of Filaret motivated by political poorness are mostly aimed at seizing as many economic and church-political assets as its possible. This approach is far away from the religion itself and could damage the church as the organizing body of the Orthodox faith.
Furthermore, these actions faced a resistance from many prominent Ukrainias, for e xample the undisputed cruiserweight box champion Oleksandr Usyk.
The lack of the support to the “new Ukrainian church” in the most of the society shows that it’s not so easy to destroy its cultural historical basis.
