OCU Head Calls for Renewed Dialogue on Church Unity in Ukraine

Photo: pomisna.info

KYIV — Epiphany Dumenko, head of the state-backed Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU), issued an address on February 2 calling on Orthodox clergy and faithful of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) to renew dialogue toward church unity. The appeal followed a meeting of the OCU Synod, which created a Commission on Dialogue chaired by Simeon Shostatsky, a former UOC bishop who later joined the OCU.

In his statement, Dumenko claimed that canonical order requires a single autocephalous Church in Ukraine and asserted that the OCU’s repeated appeals for dialogue over seven years have gone unanswered. He urged the UOC to establish a parallel commission and begin talks without preconditions.

The UOC, however, has not rejected dialogue in principle. At its May 2022 Local Council, it outlined concrete conditions for meaningful discussion—ending forcible church seizures, clarifying the OCU’s claimed autocephaly, and resolving questions of Apostolic Succession. These conditions remain unmet. Instead, those sympathetic to the OCU have continued to seize churches, issue threats against monasteries, and, in several cases, abduct clergy of the UOC into conscription for military service—actions that sharply contradict Dumenko’s stated desire for peace and unity.

Dumenko further misidentified the UOC as those who “depend on the position of the Russian Patriarchate,” despite the UOC’s May 2022 council stating it “condemns the war as a violation of God’s commandment Thou shalt not kill! (Ex. 20:13)” and that it “express[es] our disagreement with the position of Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia regarding the war in Ukraine.”

Previously, the UOJ reported that the UOC said that the Kazan Church in Chyhyryn was forcibly seized by an OCU-linked group. 

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