The Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate still remains under the jurisdiction of the Russian Orthodox Church.
This conclusion was reached by the State Service for Ethnopolitics and Freedom of Conscience after an examination of the new charter of the UOC-MP. Such actions were carried out for two months in accordance with the decision of the National Security and Defense Council. This was reported on February 1 by the press service of the State Ethnopolitics.
A canonical connection was established between the UOC-MP and the ROC. The status of the Moscow Patriarchate within the Russian Orthodox Church has remained unchanged – it has certain rights of independence, but is not independent.
It is also stated that the relations of the UOC-MP with the ROC are not relations of two equivalent churches, because the Moscow Patriarchate does not have the status of an autonomous church, which would be recognized by other Orthodox churches in the world.
In addition, the experts of the State Ethnic Policy did not find any documents or actions indicating that the leadership of the UOC-MP acts as an independent church or plans to declare its own independence.
Recall, on January 29, the head of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, Metropolitan Epiphanius, said that the OCU already has more than 8 thousand religious communities, and according to this indicator, the UOC of the Moscow Patriarchate prevails in terms of the number of parishes. After receiving the OCU Tomos, the UOC-MP lost about 1.7 thousand parishes.
Source: Racurs
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