UKRAINIAN CHURCH’S UNIFICATION COUNCIL TO BE HELD THIS SATURDAY

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KievPecherskLavra_20120630

Monastery of the Caves in Kyiv

The Unification Council of the Orthodox Church in Ukraine is scheduled to take place this Saturday, December 15, 2018, at which the new Primate of the Ukrainian Church will be elected. All canonical bishops of Ukraine—both those of the Moscow Patriarchate and those recently restored to communion by the Ecumenical Patriarchate—have been invited to attend as full participants eligible to be elected. 

Once the Primate of the Ukrainian Church is elected, the Tomos of Autocephaly from the Ecumenical Patriarchate will be delivered into his hands.

Wherever we stand on the question of Ukrainian autocephaly and the involvement of the Ecumenical Patriarchate—whether we are for, against, undecided, or confused—as brothers and sisters in the Orthodox faith around the world we have reached the point, now more than ever, where our only proper response is to pray: sincerely, earnestly, and most importantly, humbly, with love and forgiveness for all, and asking forgiveness of all. Only prayer such as this can arise as incense in the sight of the Holy, Consubstantial, Life-Creating, and Undivided Trinity: the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

What prayer can we offer most appropriately, if not that which our Lord, God, and Saviour Himself has taught us?

Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Нехай буде воля Твоя, як на небі, так і на землі. 
Да будет воля Твоя, яко на небеси и на земли.
 
And perhaps the Prayer of the Third Hour:
 
O Lord, who didst send down Thy Holy Spirit upon Thine Apostles at the third hour, take not the same Holy Spirit from us, 
O Good One, but renew Him in us who pray unto Thee.
 
Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me.
 
O Lord, who didst send down Thy Holy Spirit upon Thine Apostles at the third hour, take not the same Holy Spirit from us, 
O Good One, but renew Him in us who pray unto Thee.
 
Cast me not away from Thy presence, and take not Thy Holy Spirit from me.
 
O Lord, who didst send down Thy Holy Spirit upon Thine Apostles at the third hour, take not the same Holy Spirit from us, 
O Good One, but renew Him in us who pray unto Thee.

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See Deacon Nicholas Denysenko’s The Ukrainian Church: A Multigenerational Divorce at Public Orthodoxy, Oleg Petrasiuk’s brief report at the Kyiv Post on the Council preparations, and the extensive Ukraine section in our Archives by Author.
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