Khmelnytsky church community reaffirms its loyalty to UOC

Temple of the UOC in honor of the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos (Khmelnytsky). Photo: Facebook page of the Khmelnytsky Eparchy

On May 14, 2023, the community of the church in honor of the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos in the city of Khmelnytsky at a general parish meeting once again declared its loyalty to the UOC, the legal department of the Khmelnytsky diocese reports.

“The rector of the religious community, Archimandrite Pakhomiy (Didyk), and thousands of parishioners who gathered in the Church of the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos, once again unanimously confirmed their spiritual and canonical unity with the independent and autonomous Ukrainian Orthodox Church with the administrative center in Kyiv under the leadership of His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry of Kyiv and All Ukraine,” notes the legal department.

The vote was held after another attempt by the supporters of the OCU to present the “decision” of the meeting of the territorial community (which in fact no one announced or carried out) to change the jurisdiction of the parish as the position of the parishioners of the temple.

Diocesan lawyers emphasized that “the authorized general parish meeting of the religious community was held in strict accordance with the requirements of the Law of Ukraine 'On Freedom of Conscience and Religious Organizations', its own charter, as well as clarifications from the State Service of Ukraine on Ethnopolitics and Freedom of Conscience.”

As the UOJ reported, on April 5, a group of Khmelnytsky residents already tried to “transfer” the Church of the Nativity of the Virgin to the OCU. Then the church community also confirmed its loyalty to the UOC and His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry.

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