• Ukrainian clergy meet in Kiev to form their church; upsetting the Orthodox world
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/dec/15/ukrainian-priests-rile-moscow-with-moves-to-set-up-independent-orthodox-church Ukrainian priests will hold a historic synod on Saturday to work toward founding an independent church, in what the authorities in Kiev hope will be a further step out of Russia’s orbit. Ukraine’s Moscow-loyal church, however, has said it will not send any representatives to the synod, leaving the Kiev patriarchate of Ukrainian Orthodox Church, the country’s largest branch by number of believers, and the smaller Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church to attend. Ukraine’s SBU security service said this week that Russia was planning “provocations” in the country when the clerics meet. Its deputy head, Viktor Kononenko, asked Ukrainians on Thursday to “refrain from holding any [political] gatherings during this period” so that they “could not be used by the aggressor to weaken or discredit our country”. Before the council, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow appealed to the pope, the UN and others in the west to defend his church in Ukraine from “persecution”. If the attempt to create a unified Ukrainian church is successful, it would be among the largest in the Orthodox world in terms of number of believers. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/dec/14/ukraine-russia-tensions-reach-greeces-holy-mount-athos After the liturgy, Makarios, a 68-year-old Greek monk who has lived on Athos for 51 years, changed from his white prayer robes into his habitual black attire and doled out spiritual advice to a group of Belarusian businessmen who had made a pilgrimage to see him, over an austere breakfast of coffee and nuts. “Ukraine is an independent country and deserves its own church,” Makarios told the visiting Belarusians, who nodded dubiously. His view is not shared by all: a Ukrainian monk based at Makarios’s cell, Father Agafon, had a different opinion, calling those Ukrainians in favour of an independent church “splitters and heretics” and saying the Ukrainian church should remain under the control of Moscow. Kirill has banned Russians from taking holy communion in the churches of Athos, calling any priests who bless the ecumenical patriarch schismatics, leading to a dilemma for those Russians who want to visit. Yet it does not take long to notice that not all the monks live in full isolation from the outside world. Father Alexander, a 52-year-old from Luhansk in eastern Ukraine, wears the orange-and-black St George’s ribbon, symbol of the Russia-backed separatists, tied to his monk’s robes. “The abbot gave me blessing to go to the war but said if you carry a weapon you will die. I asked what would I do in a war without a gun, and he said: ‘Fight with your words’. And thanks to my words, we destroyed half the Ukrainian aviation. I drew maps of how they would fly on a napkin and we shot them all down,” he said. Alexander said Bartholomew, by granting independence to the Ukrainian church, was “sending 5 to 7 million people directly to hell”, and said it was “spiritually difficult” to continue praying in services where Bartholomew was blessed.
Geez, no wonder the Ukrainian branch wants independance.
Imagine going to hell because your corpochurch restructured and sold off your soul as an asset package to Behemoth Co (TM) https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/109910/7c8a4713-fcfa-436f-80b2-dda99770a8c8/image.png
https://www.kyivpost.com/ukraine-politics/unification-council-elects-head-of-ukrainian-orthodox-church.html?cn-reloaded=1 The Unification Council in Kyiv’s Saint Sophia Cathedral elected the head of the unified Ukrainian Orthodox Church on Dec. 15, the latest step on the path to Ukraine gaining its own national church. Epiphanius, Metropolitan of Pereyaslav and Bila Tserkva, born Serhii Dumenko, will head the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, the council announced. The Unification Council has elected the new Ukrainian Orthodox Church's first Patriarchate.
That was fast, it must have been one of the first things on their agenda.
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