The Orthodox Church of Ukraine (WTO) already has more than 8,000 religious communities.
This was announced in an interview with NV by the head of the WTO, Metropolitan Epiphanius.
Now the OCU has more than 8,000 religious communities, and new ones are constantly being joined, not on paper, but real parishes, where there is a community, a functioning temple, and divine services are performed,” he stressed.
Epiphanius noted that the Moscow Patriarchate, four years after receiving the Tomos, lost about 1,700 parishes.
In total, 11,000 or so parishes have been declared in them. Therefore, if we take away these, if we take away the dioceses annexed by Russia, this is Crimea, this is part of the parishes in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions that are located in the occupied territories, which came under the direct control of the Russian Orthodox Church and Patriarch Kirill, if we take the number of parishes of the Russian Orthodox Church that are located on territory of unoccupied Ukraine, so we, the WTO, already dominate quantitatively the Moscow Patriarchate in Ukraine,” he stressed.
Epiphanius also noted that, according to opinion polls, the Ukrainian church in society is supported by more than 50%, while the Russian one is supported by 2-4%.
There are also cases when people do not have physical access to the WTO church and continue to attend the church of the Moscow Patriarchate, but this is a temporary thing, we are working to ensure that all believers have access to our church,” the head of the WTO added.
Source: “NV”
Source: Racurs
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