Diocesan council of Tulchyn diocese under the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate condemns acts of radicals from the Orthodox Church of Ukraine after the visit of Patriarch Bartholomew to Ukraine

On 7^th September an extraordinary session of the diocesan council of the Tulchyn diocese under the Ukrainian Orthodox Church took place in Tulchyn. It was attended by the deans of ecclesiastical areas as well as the deputy abbot of the Tyshkov Holy Dormition monastery archimandrite Amphilochius (Vasilievsky) and the mother superior of the Chechelnyk Convent of the Archangel Michael abbess Seraphima (Smaglo).

The members of the diocesan council heard the reason why fake legal documents became the basis for conflict in the village of Krasnoselka in the Bershad region of the Tulchyn diocese of the UOC.

For information:

The diocesan administration of the Tulchyn diocese of the UOC received information from the dean of the Bershad ecclesiastical area (Haisyn region in Vinnitsa) archpriest Oleg Murakhovsky that stated that on 3^rd September upon the territory of the Krasnoselka church building of the UOC, earlier sealed off by the police, radicals from the non-canonical OCU, led by ‘priest’ Rostislav Protsanin and one Sergei Yarko, removed the lock on the door of one of church’s out buildings in which the community of the UOC was holding a service. At the same time there were two police cars standing by the church building ‘in order to maintain public order.’ It was only after Fr. Oleg Murakhovsky phoned the ministry of the interior hotline that statements were taken down.

According to the deputy chairman of the Bershad administration Hechitailo the latter had an ‘oral order from the authorities’ to secure the ‘correct’ decision on the issue of the church building.

According to sources from the OCU there was no seizure of the church building as they have in their possession a resolution from the supreme court of Ukraine (no.61-7647 21, dated 5^th June 2021) that states that the UOC church in Krasnoselka belongs to the ‘Krasnoselka religious community of the UOC’, which was artificially created by the local authorities on an incline of part of the inhabitants of the village.

At the same time the actual members of the Krasnoselka Orthodox religious community under the church’s rector – a priest of the Tuclhino diocese of the UOC – voted not to take any decision to change the jurisdictional allegiance of their community, as borne out by the corresponding statement of the rector of the Church of St. John the Divine.

In spite of the protests by the rector of the Krasnoselka religious community of the Tulchyn diocese of the UOC, the state registrar of the Vinnitsa regional administration illegally registered the cloned ‘Orthodox community’ as being legally valid. Thus, there took place a raid on the Krasnoselka Church of St. John the Theologian under the UOC, which at one time had been solemnly consecrated by the archbishop of Tulchyn and Bratslava Jonathan.

The members of the diocesan council expressed their protest and condemned the illegal actions of the group of hooligan radicals from the OCU who seized the church building on the canonical territory of the Tulchyn diocese of the UOC.

They noted the ‘inhumane indifference of the Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew who stubbornly “refused to notice” the acts of violence of the politicized radicals of the OCU with regard to the faithful spiritual children of His Beatitude Onuphrius, Metropolitan of Kiev and All Ukraine, who has been canonically elected by the council of bishops to be the Primate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and who has been recognized by the fullness of the Local Orthodox Churches, including the Local Church of Constantinople.’

“Since there have appeared in the media threats by radicals of the OCU to continue their seizures of church buildings under the canonical UOC, there is reason to believe that these threats are a result of the visit of Patriarch Bartholomew to Kiev which, according to the statement by the head of the OCU Epiphanius Dumenko, has “emboldened” supporters of the OCU to “assert themselves” in Ukraine,” the statement by the Tulchyn diocese emphasizes.

The members of the diocesan council of the Tulchyn diocese supported the statement by the chancellor of the UOC the metropolitan of Boryspil and Brovary Anthony which asserts that the ‘formation of the OCU destroys not only the unity of the Orthodox in Ukraine but also leads to a dramatic weakening of the unity of the country’s territory.’

At the end of the extraordinary session of the diocesan council a decision was taken to send a letter of protest to the Ukrainian president Vladimir Zelensky as the guarantor of the constitution and unity of Ukraine with an insistent request to defend the rights, honour and dignity of the citizens of Ukraine the Orthodox faithful of the Tulchyn diocese as part of the multinational and multimillion Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

In order to defend their rights, the faithful were called upon to support the ‘Laity’ public movement. The council gave its permission to hold processions of the cross and prayer rallies in the deaneries of the Tulchyn diocese for the cessation of the seizure of church buildings and the legal pressure exercised upon the clergy and faithful of the UOC, as well as to look at the possibility of holding in Vinnitsa a joint prayer rally of clergy and faithful from all the dioceses of the UOC on the territory of the Vinnitsa region.