“I’D LIKE TO PUBLICLY SUPPORT THE IDEA OF UKRAINIAN CHURCH AUTOCEPHALY” 

Metropolitan Oleksandr (Drabinko)

Metropolitan Oleksandr (Drabinko) of Pereyaslav-Khmelnitsky and Vyshneve of the UOC-MP [Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Moscow Patriarchate] declared support for the Ukrainian Church autocephaly [in] his article, which he wrote for the lb.ua.

Metropolitan notes: “The onset of the current ‘autocephalous campaign’ took me working at my desk. In particular, I was working on the final version of my book Ukrainian Church on the Path to Autocephaly. The texts included in this book were prepared throughout years, and in the end there are documents relating to the history of self-proclamation of autocephaly in 1919-1925. Decrees of the Ukrainian People’s Republic, the decisions of the assemblies and councils that proclaimed or spoke for autocephaly, etc. The book is likely to come out before we know the end of the chapter ‘2018: Waiting for [the] Tomos’ that I have not yet written.

Will it be the bestowal of canonical autocephaly on the Ukrainian Church by Constantinople? Or there will be another historical pause in solving the Ukrainian church issue? But regardless of the results of the decision of the Ecumenical Patriarch, I would like today to publicly support the idea of autocephaly of the Ukrainian Church.

Moreover, I do it consciously, perfectly understanding all the risks that this position is fraught with. The fact is that, after analyzing almost a century-long history of the struggle of Ukrainian Orthodox Christians for autocephaly, I realized: there is no alternative to the canonical independence of our Church.”

This brief report appeared originally on the RISU website on May 10, 2018.

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