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Efrem Lukatsky via PA Images

Ukraine Orthodox priests to establish church independent from Russia

Ukrainian authorities hope it will be a further step out of Russia’s orbit.

SEVERAL THOUSAND UKRAINIANS have rallied outside one of Kiev’s main cathedrals today ahead of a historic synod expected to establish an Orthodox church independent from Russia.   

Ukrainian priests were to meet in Kiev’s Saint Sophia Cathedral to work towards founding the church, in what Kiev authorities hope will be a further step out of Russia’s orbit. 

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko briefly came to the rally before going into the cathedral, where he is expected to attend the synod. 

“Let’s stand and pray for a Ukrainian church to be created today,” he said as he greeted several of the rally’s participants. 

He has made an independent Church a campaign pledge as he looks ahead to an unpredictable election next year.   

“The people have been waiting for this. Our Ukrainian church should finally be independent from Moscow,” 65-year-old Mykhaylo Khalepyk, who travelled to Kiev from the southern Kherson region, told AFP.  

Ukraine Russia Orthodox Church Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, left, greets people gathered to support an independent Ukrainian church near the St. Sophia Cathedral in Kiev. Efrem Lukatsky Efrem Lukatsky

Several of the rally’s participants said local churches throughout the country had encouraged parishioners to travel to the capital and even offered free transport.

Ties between Russia and Ukraine have broken down since Moscow annexed Crimea in 2014 following a pro-Western uprising in Kiev, and this year those tensions spilt into the religious arena.

The synod will seek to realise a landmark decision by Istanbul-based Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I to recognise Ukraine’s independence from the Russian Orthodox Church.

The ruling in October sparked fury in Moscow, which has overseen the Ukrainian branch of Orthodoxy for the last 332 years, and saw the Russian Orthodox Church cut all ties with the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. 

The synod aims to unite various branches of the Orthodox church in Ukraine into a single independent body. 

But Ukraine’s Moscow-loyal church has said it will not send any representatives to the event.

That leaves the meeting between the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kiev Patriarchate, the country’s largest branch by number of believers, and the smaller Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church.

 ’Provocations’ 

Ukraine’s SBU security service warned this week that Russia plans “provocations” in the country when the clerics are due to meet.

The SBU’s deputy head Viktor Kononenko asked Ukrainians on Thursday to “refrain from holding any (political) gatherings during this period” so that they “could not be used by the aggressor to weaken or discredit our country”.

Earlier this month, Ukrainian authorities raided several Orthodox churches aligned with Russia as religious tensions between the two countries grew.

The Russian church and the Kremlin have both said they fear Kiev will use force to wrest Moscow-loyal churches and monasteries into its control.

Ahead of the council, Russia’s Patriarch Kirill appealed to the Pope, the United Nations and others in the West to defend his church in Ukraine from “persecution”.

Kiev officials have framed the Church issue as one of national security, with Poroshenko in the past referring to the branch loyal to the Moscow Patriarchate as a “threat”.

The synod comes shortly after a maritime crisis that saw Russia seize three Ukrainian navy ships and arrest 24 sailors in the waters around Crimea.

If the attempt to create a unified Ukrainian Church is successful, it would be among the largest in the Orthodox world in terms of number of believers.

© AFP 2018 

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    Mute Donegal Doseofshh
    Favourite Donegal Doseofshh
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    Dec 15th 2018, 11:14 AM

    I think the whole thing is a bit unorthodox to be honest.

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    Mute Stefan Epure
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    Dec 15th 2018, 12:45 PM

    @Donegal Doseofshh: If it will be anything like the Romanian (un) Orthodox church. They are better of leaving it be.

    5
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    Mute Cal Mooney
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    Dec 15th 2018, 1:16 PM

    @Stefan Epure: The US have been urging this for the last 2 years. They want unrest on Russia’s doorstep.

    34
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    Mute Pixie McMullen
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    Dec 15th 2018, 11:20 AM

    Poroshenko is trying to create his own church and is dangerously mixing state and church together instead of there being a seperation of the two.
    This article fails to tell the full picture about whats going on, it`s NOT all roses and harmony for Poroshenko.

    Hierarchs of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church have refused en masse to take part in the so-called ‘unification council’ championed by the country’s president, sending “invitations” to the event back without reply.

    The mailbox of the man who sent the invitations – the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew I – has apparently been full of late, since 56 hierarchs have already followed suit, the Church said on Thursday. Apart from them, the Church’s bishops refused to take the invitations in the first place.

    And you can already see Poroshenko invoking the Martial law by saying there will be no public gatherings allowed will be allowed.
    Next is the SBU saying the Russians are planning a provocation at the time of this meeting, will be interesting to see what Poroshenko tries to blame them for this time

    71
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    Mute Patrick Nolan
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    Dec 15th 2018, 12:51 PM

    @Pixie McMullen:
    Our Pixie comes up with a post that wholeheartedly backs the Putin world view.
    How surprising.

    29
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    Mute Pixie McMullen
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    Dec 15th 2018, 1:22 PM

    @Patrick Nolan: Whats wrong, do ye not like facts Paddy?
    How is this Putins world view?

    26
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    Mute SC
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    Dec 15th 2018, 1:38 PM

    @Patrick Nolan: I found the comment informative, Russia isn’t always right or always wrong so you can’t dismiss something just because it doesn’t portray Russia as evil. There was some new Ukrainian church involved in the Ukrainian genocide of Poles.

    22
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    Mute Brendan Greene
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    Dec 15th 2018, 1:40 PM

    @Pixie McMullen: what is also a fact that is that the Russian Patriarch Kirill is slavishly devoted to Putin and will not tolerate any deviation by clergy in Russia from this alliance of church and state.

    19
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    Mute Pixie McMullen
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    Dec 15th 2018, 1:56 PM

    @Brendan Greene: The church in it`s present form in the Ukraine has been there since 1686, well before the Soviet Unioon, Modern Russia or Putin.
    Poroshenko is bent on ripping up history, there are some 200 churches and monasteries at risk of being taken over , it is =also against the Ukrainian constitution according to Krilli

    Active involvement of government officials in the drive for the supposed church independence is actually a blatant breach of the country’s constitution, Patriarch Kirill stressed.

    “The Ukrainian President himself does not make secret his hostile attitude towards the Church. Mr. Petro Poroshenko publicly threatened to banish from the country those Ukrainians who do not want to join the “autocephalous church” which is being created by the government,” the letter reads.

    “The Constitution of Ukraine stipulates that ‘the church and religious organizations in Ukraine are separated from the state’ and therefore any interference of the state in inter-church relations is unconstitutional.”

    18
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    Mute Oleksandr Savitskyy
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    Dec 15th 2018, 2:27 PM

    @Pixie McMullen: Great narrative from Russian propaganda. “Hierarchs of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church have refused en masse” just by “mistake you forgot to add “of Moscow Patriarchate”?

    11
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    Mute Oleksandr Savitskyy
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    Dec 15th 2018, 2:31 PM

    @Pixie McMullen: Great Narrative from Putin’s propaganda. “Hierarchs of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church” ? Have you just by mistake forgot to add Hierarchs of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Moscow Patriarchate? The ones who make masses for Putin? And thus making them not connected to the state?

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    Mute Pixie McMullen
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    Dec 15th 2018, 2:40 PM

    @Oleksandr Savitskyy: Ah, How`re ye Olek!
    any comment on what Poroshenko is doing is unconstitutional ?

    Any comment on the church being there since 1686??

    12
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    Mute Cal Mooney
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    Dec 15th 2018, 3:06 PM

    @Pixie McMullen: Paroshenko pictured with some his troops this week wearing Nazi insignia. This is the type of animal we are dealing with.

    12
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    Mute Oleksandr Savitskyy
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    Dec 15th 2018, 3:14 PM

    @Pixie McMullen: Exactly what Poroshenko is doing unconstitutional? Do you the history? Look at what church was there in 1686. Do you even know that Moscow was build nearly 300 years after the first Church was build in Kiev? And the comments of Patriarch Kirill about “Active involvement of government officials”. The head of the church who is using government security services, government jet, 3 out of 4 of his residencies are provided by Putin and nearly half of all income of that church provided by Russian goverment. He was smuggling cigarettes from abroad in 90-s as “humanitarian help” (was officially investigated) and partly this way made his $4bn fortune.

    13
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    Mute Oleksandr Savitskyy
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    Dec 15th 2018, 3:22 PM

    @Pixie McMullen: Here is the best description of “Active involvement of government official” and how awkward the Russian Ortodox Church has become under Kirill and Putin rule. Russian priests baptizing and icon of Stalin (who murdered 90% of priests in 1930-s) and Strategic Bomber of Russian http://simvol-veri.ru/xp/kto-pustil-proxanova-i-ikonu-stalina-na-voenniie-aerodrom-so-strategicheskimi-bombardirovshikami.html

    12
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    Mute Oleksandr Savitskyy
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    Dec 16th 2018, 2:52 AM

    @Cal Mooney: Poroshenko is a jew. Did you know that?

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    Mute Greg Blake
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    Dec 15th 2018, 12:03 PM

    That’s a very bad sign for the whole region, it means the church leaders are openly taking political sides. With this, the political divisions are going to get more pronounced and more difficult to bridge well into the future. Like them or not, churches are a political reality, and can have a major effect on the public sentiment.

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    Mute Martin O'Dwyer
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    Dec 15th 2018, 12:33 PM

    @Greg Blake: always did.!

    6
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    Mute Martin O'Dwyer
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    Dec 15th 2018, 12:35 PM

    @Greg Blake: always the same .

    3
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    Mute John O'Leary
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    Dec 15th 2018, 11:06 AM

    Love a new church.

    16
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    Mute Dave Thomas
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    Dec 15th 2018, 11:13 AM

    @John O’Leary: just what the world needs

    25
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    Mute Martin O'Dwyer
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    Dec 15th 2018, 12:35 PM

    @John O’Leary: A new problem.

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    Mute Martin O'Dwyer
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    Dec 15th 2018, 12:36 PM

    @John O’Leary: A new force.!!

    3
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    Mute Martin O'Dwyer
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    Dec 15th 2018, 12:37 PM

    @John O’Leary: A new religion again.

    2
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    Mute Oleksandr Savitskyy
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    Dec 15th 2018, 3:01 PM

    Just so you can understand what is current (and former) Russian orthodox church is. It is a highly corrupted structure, very close to Russian Goverment and a big part of the top priests are “former” KGB agents as majority of real priests were executed during Stalin times and the rest was put to prisons or had to emigrate after 60-s. Kirill flies on Russian Government jet and security provided by Putin’s Security Department. Not all of the priests are like Patriarch Kirill and the rest of the top of that church, but as soon as they complain about something they are immediately banned from public ministry or even titles. Like it happened to the real priest from on of Minsk Church who complained on Kirill. https://www.znak.com/2018-10-15/svyachennik_vystupil_s_kritikoy_patriarha_kirilla_i_emu_zapretili_sluzhit Full article in Russian. Basically he complained that people have been waiting for hours for Kirill to arrive , when he arrived he even did not paid respect or went to those people, yet he was driven in his Mercedes to the Church door , only people who had special pass could come and the rest were waiting behind the fence or live fence from security. Some of security man were staying with their backs turned to the altar (big sin in Orthodox church) Pictures say it all https://www.svaboda.org/a/29541950.html?fbclid=IwAR0_499HANzP9KQq9dhoKNJWq7422aqYtLUOcS58UPoxFD18yWXIQZy2FhA

    12
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    Mute Sean Conway
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    Dec 15th 2018, 11:47 AM

    Putin went down the same road as the US american presidents. superstition to control the people.

    10
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    Mute Cormac Ó Braonáin
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    Dec 15th 2018, 12:26 PM

    @Sean Conway: I bet that you’d even find Putin in your bowl of corn flakes.

    25
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    Mute The decline of Manchester United
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    Dec 15th 2018, 1:16 PM

    @Cormac Ó Braonáin: Are you trying to say Putin is a cereal killer?

    21
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    Mute Tommy Roche
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    Dec 15th 2018, 12:52 PM

    They should all sit down together, have a good ‘oul pray and wait for himself to sort the whole thing out.

    10
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    Mute tommytukamomo
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    Dec 15th 2018, 1:49 PM

    21th century, we have sent probes to distant galaxy’s, space travel for passengers is just around the corner.
    Supersonic flight is no longer a dream.
    Most cancers are no longer a death sentence but we are still prepared to wage war over sky fairies.
    Humanity has a long long way to go.

    10
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    Mute Joe O'riordan
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    Dec 15th 2018, 1:58 PM

    @tommytukamomo: sky fairies?? Bet you felt all superior and smart when you typed that ……dont believe then dont mock…there are people of far higher intellect than you that do believe. Saying that the bar above your level of intelligence is not so high……

    12
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    Mute tommytukamomo
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    Dec 15th 2018, 2:19 PM

    @Joe O’riordan: Two words Oh high & mighty one..
    “PROVE IT “.
    And mind you don’t trip over those beads you sanctimonious person.

    10
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    Mute David Ahern
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    Dec 15th 2018, 11:29 AM

    Bloody Spliters

    15
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    Mute Paul Quirke
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    Dec 15th 2018, 11:19 AM

    Will be found totally and utterly dead soon

    10
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    Mute Packie Hughes
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    Dec 15th 2018, 2:12 PM

    Churches should work to unite.

    3
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    Mute Andre le Flohic
    Favourite Andre le Flohic
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    Dec 15th 2018, 2:35 PM

    let god sort it out !!

    2
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