Drabinko: Autocephaly was nearly imposed on Ukraine

Petro Poroshenko, Epiphany Dumenko and Andrey Parubiy. Photo: rbc.ru

Ex-metropolitan of the UOC Alexander (Drabinko) said that a unique situation occurred in Ukraine when the believers of the UOC renounced the "almost imposed autocephaly". Drabinko said this in an interview with Saken Aimurzaev, posted on the YouTube channel DetectorUA.

“We told about the situation in Ukraine, about our experiences to the abbess in one of the monasteries. She made a helpless gesture: “I don’t understand: they give you autocephaly just like that, without any strugle, for nothing – take it. And you say, ‘I don’t want to’. What is wrong with the heads of the people?” Drabinko recounts.

He emphasized that he had never heard about “such a unique case, which occurred in Ukraine, when autocephaly was almost imposed.”

He is also surprised by the fact that the hierarchs from the UOC call him a "traitor" after his uniting with the OCU.

“Our Ukrainian bishops and others, for some reason, consider me a traitor. But I don’t know what is the point of my treachery,” the ex-metropolitan wonders.

Earlier, the UOJ wrote that Epiphany and 11 “hierarchs” of the OCU “served” in the half-empty Drabinko’s Cathedral.

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