Bundled UOC-KP news

Some back story: The Ukrainian Orthodox Church - Kiev Patriarchate (UOC-KP) is not universally acknowledge as a canonical Orthodox jurisdiction as is the Moscow aligned body (UOC-MP). As such, Ukrainian President Yushchenko, the Ecumenical Patriarch, and other religious and government leaders get in hot water whenever they associate with the UOC-KP. Here are three stories related to this back and forth:

Kyiv (RISU) — Ukraine’s President, Victor Yushchenko, awarded the head of the Rivne Eparchy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church - Kyivan Patriarchate Metropolitain Yevsevii (Politylo) of Rivne and Ostrih with the order of Prince Yaroslav the Wise of the 5th degree for his years of prolific religious activity and on the occasion of his 80th birthday. The respective President’s Decree 632/2008 was published on 10 July by the press service of the head of the state.

On recognition:

Kyiv (RISU) — The Local Council of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church – Kyivan Patriarchate (UOC-KP), held in Kyiv on 11 July 2008 on the occasion of the 900th anniversary of St. Michael’s Golden Domed Monastery in Kyiv and the 1020th anniversary of the baptism of Kyivan Rus passed an address to the heads of the Local Orthodox Churches calling them to “see the situation in Ukraine not through the distorted mirror of Moscow, but with their own eyes.” RISU's Ukrainian-language web page posted this story on 14 July, 2008.

The UOC-KP stresses that “the present leadership of the Moscow Patriarchate is not able or willing to bring peace and unity to the Church in Ukraine. That leadership resorted to the division of the Church in Ukraine for the sake of retaining administrative power, and now, they even go so far as to threaten to disturb the unity of the whole Universal Patriarchate.”

According to the Local Council of UOC-KP, solving the problem of the Ukrainian Church and its recognition as local and autocephalous will considerably reduce the power of the Moscow Patriarchate to claim primacy in the Universal Orthodoxy and provoke conflicts.

UOC-KP accuses representatives of the Moscow Patriarchate of “continuously spreading disinformation of the real state of affairs in the Ukrainian Church.”

“We [hereby] ask the Mother-Church to objectively examine the situation in Ukraine and inform other local churches about it. We address You, Holy and blessed Heads of Churches, with a request to examine and evaluate the situation in the Ukrainian Church independently and not under the influence of the Moscow disinformation. We ask you to support the Constantinople Patriarchate in its aspiration to stop the division of the Orthodox Church in Ukraine, even if representatives of Moscow Patriarchate oppose this. We address you with a request to recognize the autocephaly of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which has all the canonical, historic, and pastoral grounds for its full-value autocephalous existence. It is our request that these addresses and requests of ours be considered at the meeting of the heads of the local Orthodox Churches to be held in October of this year and that our Church be accepted in the Eucharistic communion and its autocephaly be recognized. Thousands of pastors and millions of Orthodox believers in Ukraine expect this from you!” stated the address.

The Ecumenical Patriarch:

Kiev, July 15 (Interfax) - Representatives of Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople have demanded to exclude participation of "hierarchs" of the self-proclaimed Kiev Patriarchate in the celebrations of the 1020th anniversary of Russia's Baptism. Which some may consider odd as he just met with them on a trip to Ukraine recently.

The Ukrainian Church Department for External Relations Archimandrite Kirill (Hovorun) tells it in his article in the official website of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church on the results of the recent visit of the Constantinople representatives to Kiev.

Istanbul guests reminded that Patriarch Bartholomew recognized only Metropolitan Vladimir as the primate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

When in Ukraine, the Constantinople Patriarchate representatives more than once stressed that schismatics should not participate in the same events with Patriarch Bartholomew and Metropolitan Vladimir, Fr. Kirill writes.