UOC Chancellor: There were no "transitions" to the OCU in 2021
According to Metropolitan Anthony, the UOC will be facing a difficult situation for many years to come, since anti-church laws have not yet been canceled.
On January 7, 2022, in the new edition of the "Word of the Hierarch" program on the UkrLive TV channel, the Chancellor of the UOC, Metropolitan Anthony (Pakanich) of Boryspil and Brovary, said that there were no so-called "transitions" in the OCU in 2021.
“The situation has changed, perhaps even drastically, when compared with the period of President Poroshenko's rule. Then the state policy was to infringe on the rights of believers in the UOC and simply to eliminagte the UOC. Now there is no such state policy – there is no order from Kyiv to seize churches. If we take brief statistics, then in 2019 there were 128 raider seizures. Last year there were only 7. In 2019 there were 88 so-called "transitions", and last year there were none at all. It means there is no state order, there are no instructions from the center, and the situation is gradually stabilizing,” noted the UOC Chancellor.
At the same time, according to Metropolitan Anthony, the UOC will be facing a difficult situation for many years to come, since anti-church laws have not yet been canceled.
“We are grateful to President Vladimir Zelensky that there is still a certain distance between politicians and religious issues, albeit nothing is being done to fundamentally resolve the ecclesiastical issue, because those laws that are unconstitutional, which contradict all European conventions, are still in force. This is a law on renaming and a law that facilitates the so-called "transitions" of parishes of our Church to schismatics. These issues, unfortunately, are not being resolved, and until they are resolved in the field of existing laws, this situation will smolder for a long time,” added Metropolitan Anthony.
According to him, because of these laws, more than 1,000 parishes still do not have state registration.
“During this period, due to the law on renaming, we cannot register a single bishop in the diocese whom we have moved or appointed. Today more than 1000 parishes do not have state registration. This qualifies as a whole operating Local Church, the issue is still open, documents have been submitted, but due to the fact that this law is in effect ... True though, it is suspended, but nevertheless, these parishes are not registered by the relevant bodies. This is a very big difficulty," Metropolitan Anthony emphasized.
As the UOJ previously reported, Dumenko counted three times as many believers in the OCU as in the UOC.
