Maidan

UKRAINIAN AUTOCEPHALOUS ORTHODOX CHURCH - CANONICAL
ELECTS PATRIARCH AND HOLDS ITS FIRST ALL-CHURCH SOBOR

From June 15 through June 20, 2005 Bishops, clergy and faithful from North America, South America, Europe, Africa and the Carribean, and representing nearly 40 countries, arrived in Kyiv to participate in the first Sobor of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church - Canonical.

The Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church - Canonical was originally established in 1924 with a Tomos issued by His All-Holiness Gregorios VII, Ecumenical Patriarch, re-establishing the historic Kyivan-Rus (Ukrainian) Metropolitinate as an Autocephalous Church, placing the responsibility of establishing a new Synod of Bishops upon His Beatitude, the Metropolitan Archbishop of Warsaw, Dionisij Walenynskyj. Through the years, because of the War and its resulting partitions, the Bishops of the Ukarinain Autocephalous Orthodox Church - Canonical were forced into exile. In 2002, His Beatitude Metropolitan Moisey, Metropolitan of Kyiv and All Russ-Ukraine, returned from the diaspora to re-establish the Church in Ukraine and to unite all the various Churches which had developed in the Diaspora.

The principle objective of the Sobor was to affirm the standing of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church - Canonical with respect to the Tomos of 1924 and to call upon the Ecumenical Patriarch and the other Canonical Orthodox Churches throughout the world to support its legitimacy both historically and canonically. The other objectives of the Sobor were to report on and to analyze the growth and work done by the UAOC-C in its Mother-Church of Ukraine and throughout the world, to familiarize everyone with the various situations in which the UAOC-C lives and functions and to recommend ways in which the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church may grow and develop in the future.

On Saturday, June 17, the Synod of Bishops elevated Metropolitan Moisey [Moses Koulik] to the office of Patriarch of the UAOC-C in an impressive ceremony at the Cathedral of Saint Sophia and enthroned Patriarch Moisey on Sunday, June 18 at the Cathedral of Saint Sophia. Afterwards, the new Patriarch, Bishops, clergy and people walked to the offices of President Victor Yushchenko to symbolically ask for recognition by the Ukrainian Government. Bishop Ioan of the United States told reporters: “Despite statements to the contrary by the government of Ukraine, there is no religious freedom in Ukraine. President Victor Yushchenko has never responded to the requests of the UAOC-C for registration, and he has completely ignored the five letters the Bishops from around the world have written to him. Yushchenko, whom all our Bishops, as individuals, and the faithful of our Church, had supported during the Orange Revolution, has unilaterally attempted to crush us. We have no option other than to make the suppression of our Church known to the governments of the United States and the European Union.”

The Church is growing rapidly, and, as a result, the Sobor celebrated the ordinations of Bishop-elect Chrysostomos as Bishop of Ecuador and Bishop-elect Vsevolod as Bishop of the Ternopilsko-Bukovinska Eparchy. In addition, Charles Smollen, an American national stationed at a US Army base in Germany, was ordained to the priesthood by Patriarch Moisey for service in the Diocese of the Midwest.

From the Press Office of Bishop Ioan
Bishop of the Midwest (USA)
www.uaocmoisey.org