The Ukrainian language issue has been a big one in the canonical/non-canonical church bodies debate. This is no small proclamation.
(RISU) - The administrator of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Moscow Patriarchate, Metropolitan Antoniy of Boryspil, stated that the Ukrainian language can be used in the services in UOC-MP churches, reported ТSN.
“In the territory of Ukraine, there are parishes where the services are conducted in Hungarian, Romanian, Church Slavonic and Ukrainian. The question of the choice of language of the service is not an issue for the church conscience,” noted the hierarch.
“This is a question of a cultural and not religious character. For it is very important that the priest should be able to hear a confession in Ukrainian, for example,” explained the metropolitan.
"If two thirds of the parishioners prefer services in Ukrainian or another language, there will be no problem,” he added.
The metropolitan said that the UOC-MP celebrates services in Ukrainian mostly in the Volyn region. Such parishes also exist in Kyiv.
The metropolitan also pointed to the need of church work abroad, in the countries where many Ukrainians live.
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Seems pretty reasonable to me.
ReplyDeleteI hope this signals a change in policy, 'cause when I lived in Ukraine it was well known that if you were Ukrainian-speaking you went to the Kyiv Patriarchate or UAOC parishes to hear the services in Ukrainian - everything Moscow Patriarchate, in the central areas of Kiev anyways, was in Slavonic.
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