Uniates not to serve at St. Sophia’s in the near future
On March 7, a meeting took place between the heads of the OCU, the UGCC and President of Ukraine, where it was decided that none of them would serve at St. Sophia's.
On March 7, Petro Poroshenko met with Epiphany and the head of the UGCC Sviatoslav Shevchuk in the Presidential Administration, reports the resource “Catholicnews”.
The meeting was on the service at the St. Sophia’s Cathedral of the capital.
As is known, on February 17, 2019, Sviatoslav Shevchuk publicly announced the pilgrimage of believers of his Church to the St. Sophia Cathedral on the Annunciation Day. According to him, the Minister of Culture Yevgeny Nishchuk (Greek Catholic by faith) gave permission to the UGCC to hold a festive Liturgy at St Sophia’s on April 7.
However, this did not please Philaret, who wrote a strong letter to Shevchuk, in which he urged the Uniates to abandon the idea of serving at the St. Sophia Cathedral. On February 23, a message appeared on the website of the Ministry of Culture, in which information about the forthcoming service of the UGCC was refuted, but by evening it mysteriously disappeared.
It turned out quite recently that the Uniates sent a letter to Prime Minister Vladimir Groysman on January 31 asking them to allow service at the St. Sophia Cathedral three times a year on an ongoing basis.
So, on March 7, the question who and when will serve at the St. Sophia Cathedral was decided by the President: nobody will serve. Suddenly, it turned out that restoration work began in the cathedral from March 18. The Ministry of Culture promptly posted a corresponding announcement about it on a day off.
We recall that on December 15, 2018, the Unification Cathedral was held at the St. Sophia Cathedral, where the OCU was created, then the OCU’s liturgy with the presentation of the Tomos was served on January 7, and finally, on February 3, Epiphany was enthroned.
Sviatoslav Shevchuk stated that “none of the Churches – heirs of the Kievan Church – can single-handedly occupy the ancient cathedral of the Divine Wisdom of God Sophia of Kiev. Rather, it should be a meeting place for the descendants of the Kievan Church of Sophia, be a reminder, a call, an awakener and a hope for our unity in Christ.”
