MOSCOW, December 10. /TASS/. Clerics of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) have launched a flash mob in support of the church along social networks, Chairman of the Russian Orthodox Church’s Synodal Department for Relations with Society and Mass Media, Vladimir Legoida, said on Monday.
"Despite pressure from the state, the Ukrainian church’s clerics are keeping a stiff upper lip, demonstrating courage and a sense of humor. Or bitter irony," he tweeted.
The clergymen earlier began posting their photos on social networks with inscriptions like, "I support the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), ready to be summoned to the SBU (Ukraine’s Security Service)." "An UOC priest, I’m beginning a flash mob in support of the Holy Church and my fellow clerics, including myself, who were summoned for interrogation by the SBU in the Rovno Region. By doing so, we will show our loyalty to our Mother Church, its Primate His Beatitude Metropolitan Onufry and also that we are not afraid of pressure and intimidation," Archpriest Vasily Nachev, Head of the Rovno Diocese’s Social Department, wrote in his social network post.
The law enforcement agencies’ pressure on members of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church has become increasingly frequent recently. According to Metropolitan Vladimir, Abbot of the Holy Dormition Pochaev Lavra, one of the most sacred sites in Ukraine, this pressure became apparent after the planned meeting with Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko scheduled for November 13, which never took place.
On November 30, Ukrainian Security Service officers conducted searches in the apartment of Metropolitan Paul, Abbot of Kiev Pechersk Lavra (the Kiev Monastery of the Caves), saying that these investigative actions were part of a criminal case on inciting inter-confessional strife.
On December 3, news came that that the SBU was interrogating about 20 clergymen of the UOC’s Rovno and Sarny dioceses (in western Ukraine). The Ukrainian security agencies earlier conducted searches in the Ovruch diocese in Ukraine’s northern Zhitomir Region.
Church crisis in Ukraine
Kiev has attempted to create a Local Orthodox Church in Ukraine independent of the Moscow Patriarchate since 1991. In April 2018, Poroshenko wrote a personal letter to Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople asking for autocephaly for the Ukrainian church.
The Holy and Sacred Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople decided at its meeting held on October 9-11 to proceed with granting autocephaly to the Ukrainian Church. It revoked the 1686 decision on transferring the Kiev Metropolitanate under the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate and announced plans to bring it back under the jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. It also reinstated the heads of two non-canonical churches in Ukraine, Filaret of the Kiev Patriarchate and Makariy of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Church, to their hierarchical and priestly ranks.
On October 15, the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church said in response to that move that full communion with the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople was no longer possible.
On November 13, the Council of Bishops of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church held its meeting in Kiev Pechersk Lavra (the Kiev Monastery of the Caves). The Ukrainian Orthodox Church announced after the meeting it did not recognize Constantinople’s decisions on Ukraine and said it was severing full communion with the Ecumenical Patriarchate. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church also spoke out against joining the process of granting autocephaly to Ukraine’s church and said it opposed its name change.
On December 5, Poroshenko announced that the so-called unification council to create the Ukrainian autocephalous church would take place on December 15. He said that Patriarch Bartholomew had sent letters to bishops of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kiev Patriarchate, the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church and the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church "inviting them to take part in that historic event."
On December 7, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church’s Holy Synod said that Constantinople had no canonical right to convene any church meetings in Ukraine, while the planned ‘"unification council" would be considered illegal, since it would be attended by schismatics.