UOC Synod resolves to consider “Unification Council” as unlawful assembly
The members of the Holy Synod of the UOC did not bless the episcopate, clergy, monkhood, and laity to participate in the “unification council”.
On December 7, 2018, the Primate of the UOC, His Beatitude Onufriy, Metropolitan of Kiev and All Ukraine, informed all the bishops of the decisions of the Holy Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church regarding the “unification council”.
According to the UOJ, the members of the Synod condemned the event and decided to consider it an illegal assembly, since representatives of schismatic "churches" are going to take part in it.
“In the light of the above and based on the Decree of the Council of Bishops of the UOC of November 13, 2018, the episcopate, clergy, monkhood, and laity of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church are not blessed to take part in the so-called unification council,” said His Beatitude Onufriy.
The members of the Synod called the incidence of pressure on the Church as "direct coercion to violate the bishop's oath, which the bishops pledged to abide by even under the threat of death."
“The Ukrainian Orthodox Church does not authorize anyone from among the episcopate, clergy, monkhood, and laity to represent the UOC at the so-called unification council,” the Synod participants officially announced.
Earlier, the UOJ announced that His Beatitude Onufriy and other hierarchs of the UOC, who had received invitations to the “unification council”, are returning them to the Patriarch of Constantinople without an answer.
