OCA priest tells what the future Primate of the UOC surprised him with

Metropolitan Tikhon of All America and Canada and Metropolitan Onufriy of Kyiv and All Ukraine at the Bancheny Monastery. Photo: news.church.ua

Priest of the Orthodox Church in America Nikolai Breckenridge from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, in his letter to the former spokesman of the UOC-KP, the spokesman of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Andriy Kovalev, expressed support for the faithful of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and its Primate His Beatitude Metropolitan Onufriy.

He emphasized that the OCA sees His Beatitude Metropolitan of Kyiv and All Ukraine as an old friend. A cleric of the Orthodox Church in America shared memories of the first meeting with the future Primate of the UOC. Father Nikolai met Metropolitan Onufriy in 2005, the then Bishop of the Chernivtsi and Bukovyna Diocese, during a pilgrimage to the monastery of the OCA of St. Tikhon of Zadonsk.

"I was with a small group, and severalhours after the Hierarchical Divine Liturgy had ended, we saw Met. Onufriy walking toward us, as a normal pilgrim. None of us really knew who he was, but he was walking in the direction of the Bishop’s house, about a kilometer down the road, all by himself. We saw his Panagia, so we knew he was a Bishop, and so we offered a ride in our car, as it seemed wrong to make the Bishop walk. His response was that it was 'good to walk for his sins'. Such was his humility."

The OCA cleric wrote that he knows that our Primate is "real deal".

"We know that your Primate is the real deal. He is a man who is concerned with the Kingdom of God above all else. We know that the Ukrainian Orthodox Church is a sister Church who seeks the same Kingdom we do," concluded the OCA priest.

As reported by the UOJ, the priest of the Orthodox Church in America Nikolai Breckenridge from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, wrote a letter to the former spokesman of the UOC-KP, the spokesman of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Andriy Kovalev, who called Metropolitan Tikhon of All America and Canada after his visit to Ukraine "a Kremlin agent in a cassock" and called on the SBU to investigate the details of his trip.

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