UOC-MP speculates on the topic of the directive from State Service of Ukraine on Ethnic Policy: No one is forcing them to “renounce the Cross”

Viktor Yelenskyi, head of the State Service of Ukraine on Ethnic Policy and Freedom of Conscience, stated at the Media Center Ukraine that clergymen of the moscow patriarchate are misleading their congregations about the directive issued by the State Service of Ukraine on Ethnic Policy.

“The directive from the State Service of Ukraine on Ethnic Policy contained four points: all parishes must leave the russian Orthodox Church, the russian Orthodox Church’s statute must be declared invalid; the Kyiv Metropolitan must renounce his membership in the russian Orthodox Church’s Synod; and the Kyiv Metropolis must announce that it does not recognize the validity of and disagrees with the occupation of eight dioceses in eastern Ukraine and Crimea. In other words, there was no requirement to renounce Orthodoxy, change the calendar, or alter the language of worship,” Yelenskyi emphasized.

The Primate of the UOC, Metropolitan Onufriy, refused to comply with the directive, which was to be implemented by August.

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