Met. Simeon: The majority of Vinnitsa eparchy doesn’t support OCU
The majority in the Vinnitsa eparchy of the UOC does not support the newly created church structure, which Metropolitan Simeon has moved to.
Former UOC Metropolitan Simeon believes that in the future the process of joining hierarchs, priests and believers to the OCU will be difficult. He stated this on the “Hromadske TV”.
“At present, the majority in the Vinnitsa eparchy, apparently, does not support the idea of an autocephalous church. But no longer an idea, we already have an Orthodox Church in Ukraine, which I joined,” said the “hierarch”.
He explained: “I think that in the future the process of joining the hierarchs, priests and believers of this church, which appeared today in Ukraine, will continue. No one says now that this process is simple. It will continue for a long time, there are different forecasts as to how much it will take,” added Simeon.
As reported, Metropolitan Simeon is one of the two bishops of the UOC (along with Metropolitan Alexander Drabinko), who was present at the “Unification Council”. Their participation was commented by the head of the Synodal Information and Education Department of the UOC Archbishop Clement. According to him, these hierarchs no longer have any relation to the UOC: “We only state that they have gone into schism, and we will inform the Local Churches that they no longer appear in the diptych of canonical bishops of Ukraine,” Vladyka Clement emphasized. On December 17, the UOC Holy Synod banned Metropolitan Simeon from priesthood.
