UNIFICATION COUNCIL: NAME OF REPRESENTATIVE OF UPTsMP IDENTIFIED
At the unification council, where the fate of the creation of a united Orthodox church of Ukraine will be decided and also its head will be chosen, UPTsMP Metropolitan of Cherkassy and Kanev Sofrony will be present.
The hierarch clearly declared his support for the creation of a local church in Ukraine, having noted that he does not intend to conceal this. He voiced his position in an interview with BBC.
"I have this position: I will go to the council, but not in order to shout 'Hurrah, everything is settled,' but in order to observe. I will go there in the capacity of an observer in order to decide how to act better so that it will be good for our people. Imagine. We (the UPTsMP) have monasteries and parishes, not a few, 12,000. And of these 12,000 some will transfer into the new church and the rest will remain. And these transfers will occur with great effort, perhaps not without blood. But it would be very simple to resolve, without schisms," the metropolitan expressed his conviction.
Sofrony thinks that if all bishops of the UPTsMP support a transfer into a United Local Church, then it would make no sense to talk about some kind of schism. After all, in such a case all parishioners of the Moscow patriarchate would follow their clergy and the parishes and monasteries would become part of the autocephalous church.
The metropolitan also added that it would be good if the whole episcopate of the UPTsMP would participate in the unification council. However, unfortunately, not all of them by far will go there.
"I would like to see more. I will say why: in my opinion if the primate of the new church is chosen by voting, then if we wish that this would be a legal church in the full sense of the word, it is necessary that its primate be from the canonical church. And for the primate to be from it, it is necessary that there be a majority (of its representatives) at the council," he said.
Safrony also emphasized that he does not fear discipline for his participation in the upcoming council, since it cannot be called a canonical violation.
In addition, the metropolitan added, in his opinion there may participate in this unification council not just the three hierarchs of the UPTsMP who were at Ukraine House at the meeting with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, but many more.
"Two (proponents of autocephaly in the UPTsMP) are known—I and Alexander (Metropolitan of Pereiaslav and Vishnevka Alexander Drabinko). Then Simeon showed up. Perhaps there are another six or twenty, but who they are is unknown. It is like the Verkhovna Rada: three, four, five persons speak out, but everybody votes. So it is here: several men may be known, but the others may change their mind and their actions," Sofrony summed up.
As Obozrevatel reported, the Unification Council of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, at which autocephaly is to be announced and a primate elected, may occur on 22 November.
Metropolitan of Gaul Emmanuel may head up its proceedings. It was learned on 16 November that he has already arrived in Kiev. (tr. by PDS, posted 17 November 2018)
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