According to the press service of OCU, the Synod of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine developed the rules for changing a parish and appealed to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Moscow Patriarchate [UOCMP] asking for a canonical union.
On March 21 the Holy Synod of OCU decided “The exceptional order of joining the Orthodox Church of Ukraine”. It relates to the church authorities and members of a parish under the jurisdiction of UOCMP and looks for the possibility of separating from ROC due to their civilian and moral duties.
OCU highlights that ROC and its leaders support the War against Ukraine and are even among the influencers of this War.
“We know that there are different thoughts in the eparchies of UOCMP: some just took a break and do not commemorate the patriarch Kyryl, some are ready for more extreme steps. Some have decided to end all the relationships with the Moscow Patriarchate and to join OCU. And the mentioned decision of the Synod was developed exactly for them,” – mentioned in the message.
According to this decision eparch, church authorities, monasteries and religious communities that want to unite with OCU will remain their structure as eparchies of OCU.
Church authorities, monasteries and religious communities that for some reason are not able to join a local eparchy of OCU could be accepted directly to the omophorion of the head of OCU, the metropolitan of Kyiv, and the whole Ukraine as monasteries. To achieve that they would need to submit a written application.
OCU treats this as the necessary temporary measure which serves to soften the canonical rules to adopt these parishes to OCU with the following full integration to the respective eparchies according to their location.
So, the Holy Synod of OCU has asked the church authorities and religious communities of the Moscow Patriarchate to “follow the Thomas”.
Metropolitan Epifanyy wrote in his Twitter: “Our Holly Synod asked archbishops, church authorities, monasteries and religious communities that are under the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate in Ukraine to follow the Thomos of independence of OCU and to join the canonical union with the Orthodox Church of Ukraine.”
The Orthodox Church of Ukraine was created on the unification council in Sophia of Kyiv on Jan 15, 2018. Metropolitan Epifanyy was appointed as its representative. On Jan 6, 2019, the Patriarch of Constantinople Varfolomay gave to Epifanyy the Thomos which grants the independence of OCU.
OCU became the 15th church in the gathering of Orthodox churches of the world.
Apart from Ecumenical Patriarchate, the Church of Greece, the Greek Orthodox Church of Alexandria, the Church of Cyprus and other churches officially acknowledge OCU.
As of Jan 6, 2022, more than 700 parishes of UOCMP joined OCU.