Bombshell: Epiphany claims OCU doesn't grab UOC temples but builds its own

Head of the OCU Epiphany Dumenko. Photo: screen video

Strong OCU communities do not take away temples from the believers of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church but build new ones next to them – so much the better. This was announced by the Head of the OCU, Epiphany Dumenko, in an interview with Radio Svoboda.

According to him, "the Russian Church throws a lot of resources in order to create a certain negative picture."

“In most communities that have joined the OCU, this decision was made by 90% of believers,” he said. “There remains a small percentage – 10%, sometimes 5%, and sometimes even 5 people who, reinforced by militants, are trying to seize the church of the community, which has already moved to the OCU.”

Epiphany noted that "when the community sees it will be difficult to fight for the temple, it begins to build its own nearby."

“There are a lot of such cases that a temple of the recognized Ukrainian Orthodox Church (OCU –Ed.) is built across the road from the temple of the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine,” he added. “If the communities are strong and capable, then sometimes they even choose to have no confrontation, struggle, clear separation – they take a land plot and construct an even better church, because they abandon an old wooden one for a large and beautiful brick temple nearby, in which they satisfy their spiritual needs.”

We will remind that earlier the UOC Chancellor, Metropolitan Anthony of Boryspil and Brovary, said that 84 communities voluntarily left the jurisdiction of the UOC, of which 28 went to the OCU without a rector, 56 – with a rector, while 122 temples were subject to church raiding, committed by the members of the new church structure. 

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