Two UOC-MP metropolitans defrocked for joining UOC-KP

(orthochristian.com) - The Holy Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church met today in the Kiev Caves Lavra under the chairmanship of His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry of Kiev and All Ukraine to discuss the grave challenges facing the Church and the faithful in this time.

Among the Synod’s resolutions today was the decision to dismiss from their dioceses and defrock the two metropolitans who departed from the canonical Church to join the new nationalist church created by Constantinople on Saturday, reports RIA-Novosti.

“The Synod dismissed Metropolitan Simeon of Vinnitsa and Bar and the bishop of the Kiev Metropolia Metropolitan Alexander of Pereyaslav-Khmelnitsky and Vishnev from their dioceses and forbade them from serving,” the decision reads.

His Eminence Archbishop Clement, the Chairman of the Synodal Information and Education Department, stated that Metropolitans Simeon Shostasky and Alexander Drabinko “went into schism.” The abbot of the Kiev Caves Lavra His Eminence Metropolitan Pavel of Vyshgorod and Chernobyl stated that they were deprived of their clerical order.

“If they were in the UOC, then some kind of step could be applied to them… We only state that they went into schism, and we will notify the Local Churches that they no longer appear in the diptychs of the canonical bishops of Ukraine,” Abp. Clement previously commented.

Archimandrite Dionysiy (Pilipchuk) was chosen as the new bishop of Pereyaslav-Khmelnitsky, while Met. Simeon’s has been replaced by the vicar of the Kiev Metropolitanate His Grace Bishop Barsanuphius (Stolyar) of Borodianka, reports the Union of Orthodox Journalists.