DETAILS OF UPCOMING MEETING OF POROSHENKO WITH EPISCOPATE OF UPTs PUBLISHED
Union of Orthodox Journalists, 12 November 2018
A meeting of the president with the primate and hierarchs of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UPTs) will be held on 13 November. A meeting of clergy will be held at 1:00 p.m. and at 2:00 p.m. the head of state will arrive.
As news media report, the meeting will occur against a backdrop of crisis being observed in the process of the creation of a United Local Church. Vesti reports this.
The publication learned that Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko initiated the meeting with the primate and bishops of the UPTs. At the same time, the president insisted that the UPTs hierarchs come to him for a reception in Ukraine House. He discussed this question in a telephone conversation with His Beatitude Metropolitan of Kiev and all-Ukraine Onufrey in the evening of 9 November.
According to information of a source in the administration of the president, the reason for the attempt to move the meeting from the Kiev caves lavra, where it was originally planned, was of a protocol nature. The president insisted on meeting in the Ukraine House since he was concerned that his visit to the lavra could be perceived by the public as an expression of support for the UPTs.
The publication explains: the telephone conversation lasted a long time. His Beatitude Metropolitan Onufrey did not consent to move the meeting to Ukraine House and he insisted that the head of state come to the lavra. After long hesitation, the president consented.
According to the source, Poroshenko complained in the conversation that he did not want leaks of information about the upcoming meeting. However, by the time of the conversation, information that such a meeting was being planned had already become known to the public.
The publication also reports that according to unofficial information, Metropolitan of Vinnytsia and Barskoe Simeon, whom it was planned, according to news media information, to consider in the capacity of a candidate for the position of head of the United Local Church, will not attend the meeting with Poroshenko. He became sick suddenly and is in the hospital.
As the Union of Orthodox Journalists reported, political science expert Ruslan Bortnik earlier explained that the process of the creation of a new church structure has hit a dead end and is not going in the way the administration of the president would wish. In his opinion, without representatives of the largest confession, the UPTs, the unification council will be turned into a constituent council: the patriarchate of Constantinople will declare that the schism has not been overcome and thus it still does not see for Ukraine its own patriarchate. It is for this reason that the president is trying to encourage hierarchs of the UPTs to cooperate and participate in a unification council, the political scientist noted. (tr. by PDS, posted 12 November 2018)
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