UPTs METROPOLITAN SUSPECTS HIS COLLEAGUE OF GOAL OF LEADING UNIFIED CHURCH
Religiia v Ukraine, 14 September 2018
Metropolitan Jonathan, who administers the Tulchinsk and Bratslav diocese of the UPTsMP, which occupies a part of Vinnitsia oblast, on 14 September 2018 conducted an extraordinary meeting of clergy of his diocese at which he called to the clergy's attention his last order forbidding them to have any contacts with representatives of the Constantinople patriarchate, a correspondent of the portal Religiia v Ukraine reported from the scene.
Vladyka Jonathan described for clerics of his diocese this possible scenario: in the event that there arises in Ukraine a jurisdiction of the ecumenical patriarchate, churches of the Moscow patriarchate will start being targeted and stolen in its favor. The vladyka claimed that a likely primate of this new jurisdiction would be his colleague Metropolitan of Vinnitsia Simeon, who heads up the neighboring diocese of the UPTsMP. Supposedly the "graceless" Metropolitan Alexander, vicar of the Kiev metropolitanate, had agreed to this.
"Your churches will be stolen. Your fees will depart to the Phanar," Archbishop Jonathan declared to participants in the meeting.
The meeting lasted about an hour and a half.
According to several clerics of the Tulchinsk diocese, they are seriously considering closing their pages on social networks, because for items on the topic of autocephaly that displease Vladyka Jonathan they can expect discipline. In a recent "circular communication," Vladyka Jonathan called his clerics "subordinate clergy."
Vladyka Jonathan is known as a popularizer of the "Russian world" in Ukraine, who received from the believers of his diocese a promise "to stand to the death" for administrative subordination to Moscow. (tr. by PDS, posted 14 September 2018)
Editorial disclaimer: RRN does
not intend to certify the accuracy of information
presented in articles. RRN simply intends to certify the
accuracy of the English translation of the contents of the
articles as they appeared in news media of countries of
the former USSR.
If material is quoted, please give credit to the
publication from which it came. It is not necessary to credit
this Web page. If material is transmitted electronically, please
include reference to the URL,
http://www.stetson.edu/~psteeves/relnews/.