NEWS MEDIA NAME THREE UPTsMP BISHOPS WHO NEVERTHELESS MET WITH POROSHENKO
According to information of Religioznaia Pravda, three bishops of the UPTsMP arrived for a meeting with Poroshenko in the evening of 13 November: Metropolitan of Pereiaslav-Khmelnitski and Vishnevka Alexander, Metropolitan of Vinnytsia and Barskoe Simeon, and Archbishop of Novaya Kakhovka and Genicheskoe Filaret.
As reported by LV.ua, Metropolitan of Vinnytsia and Barskoe Simeon is the only one of the 83 participants in the council of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, held on 13 November in the Kiev caves lavra, who did not sign the resolution of the Synod. Metropolitan Simeon did not place his signature under this resolution, despite pressure exerted by other hierarchs on him. The metropolitan himself explained his decision by the fact that he did not agree with the severance of eucharistic communion with Constantinople.
We recall that the extraordinary council of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate called the decisions of the Synod of the ecumenical patriarchate recognizing the primates of the UPTsKP, Filaret, and the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church, Makary, to be canonical bishops invalid and uncanonical and it also refused to join a united church, since it considers that Ukraine does not need autocephaly.
Because of the conduct of a council in the Kiev caves lavra, the meeting of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko with the hierarchs of the UPTsMP in Ukraine House was scuttled. The clergymen explained their action by an unwillingness to meet with the head of state on non-church territory. (tr. by PDS, posted 14 November 2018)
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