So, on 12 December 2022, Metropolitan Luka of Zaporizhzhya and Melitopol (UOC-MP) holds an informal meeting with his subordinates who are in the temporarily occupied territory. The plan was to persuade them to move under the omophorion of Gundyaev. To make it look like it was their idea to request the move. As all the UOC-MP parishes in Crimea, Rovenky and Romny have already done.
Translated from the church language, moving under the omophorion means coming in direct subordination to Moscow. Bypassing Kyiv. Despite the fact that according to the norms of canon law, to which all world Orthodoxy is subject, the UOC-MP remains part of the ROC (even if they themselves claim otherwise).
The meeting ends in nothing: Luka's subordinates refuse to ask to come under Gundyaev's omophorion, honestly saying that they are waiting for liberation by the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Luka is left with nothing, and at the end of March 2023, we see him "standing" with members of the UOC-MP Synod on Bankova Street, demanding that President Zelenskyy not evict Moscow priests from the Kyiv Pechersk Monastery.
Afterwards, Luka goes on a hunger strike to support the Lavra's brethren. A "hunger strike" of a kind. In fact, he fasts on a regular basis, but for purely medical rather than "political" reasons. Given the risks of being overweight, he was directly prescribed to do this. In short, he is "suffering for the faith".
And now, just a year later, the boomerang is back.
On 4 March, representatives of the FSB and the Russian Orthodox Church met two Zaporizhzhya collaborators.
The first is Archimandrite Ioann, the abbot of the Melitopol St Sava Monastery of the UOC-MP. You must exactly how he was sitting in the Kremlin at the solemn ceremony of "accession of new territories". Before that, he openly campaigned for a "referendum" on "accession" and even provided monastery premises for it.
The second is Archpriest Maksym, rector of the Melitopol church in honour of the Great Martyr Heorhiy (the Victorious). This figure is known for supporting the occupiers from the very beginning, praying for Putin, etc.
They were tasked with urgently gathering the clergy in the temporarily occupied territories, initiating their appeal to Gundyaev to accept them under the omophorion.
The very next day, the traitors got down to business, offering their colleagues from the Kamyanka-Dniprovska, Enerhodar and Melitopol church districts of the UOC-MP a ready-made text of an appeal to Gundyaev under the pretext that our leader, Luka, is in Zaporizhzhya, and we have no contact with him, so we have to go ahead and do it:
- we would like to join you;
- we would like you to appoint an interim leader for us from the ranks of the Russian Orthodox Church.
Importantly, almost all the clergy signed the appeal.
And that's when Luka started to fret. He realised that he was being flushed down the drain. By his own people.
He couldn't think of anything better than... just don't laugh... to complain to Gundyaev (and at the same time to deprive the signatories of all church awards, but that's just a minor detail). Like, I, Luka, am here, in place, I am not going anywhere and I am in constant video contact with those in the occupied territories, things are being done and we do not need to appoint anyone else here. And if you, Bishop Kirill, do decide to send an emissary, let it be Metropolitan Iosif (Maslennikov).
Sounds like a familiar name, doesn't it?
Maslennikov, one of the three traitorous metropolitans who transferred the Romny diocese under the omophorion, fled to Russia, where he had hoped to be "thanked" with the position of abbot in the newly created monastery. But it did not work out. He had to work as a "mediator" between the Russian Orthodox Church and the occupied territories.
In other words, Luka is not so much against direct subordination to the ROC (for which he campaigned in late 2022), but is simply afraid of losing power in the territory "entrusted" to him. How to keep it is not of fundamental importance to him.
On 8 March, Luka informed the "second in command" in the UOC-MP, Antoniy Pakanych, of his intention to complain to Gundyaev. Pakanych told Luka that "God should not be disturbed by trivial matters", but promised that the leadership of the UOC-MP ... would convey the essence of the report to the head of the Russian Orthodox Church orally. Just like that!
Are you surprised that they - despite their own statements, despite the decision of the Council of 27 May 2022 (on the alleged severance of contacts with Moscow) - are still in direct and constant contact? You should not be. Let me just remind you that both Pakanych and Onufriy were and remain members of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church. Yes, they still are.
Then Luka revised his report and redirected it to Onufriy. Of course, he received no response.
And then it turned out that the fate of the Zaporizhzhya dioceses would be decided at the Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church in Moscow on 12 March.
Guess: did Pakanych know about this when he refused to allow Luka to address Kirill directly?
In fact, on 12 March, Moscow decided:
- to appoint a new head to the Berdyansk diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church (all of which are previously annexed structures of the UOC-MP). A certain Feodor of Alatyr and Poretsk (a Russian citizen, of course);
- to temporarily entrust him with the administration of parishes in the territories of Veselу, Kamyanka-Dniprovska, Melitopol and Mykhaylivka districts, as well as the cities of Melitopol and Enerhodar;
- all of these parishes should be attached to the Berdyansk diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church (it is easier to register them through the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation. If they are registered with the Ministry of Justice, they do not even need to apply for omophorion);
- to commemorate this newly appointed Feodor at services immediately after Gundyaev and Luka.
The latter is the most unpleasant. And from a church point of view, it is offensive. After all, it clearly indicates Luka's place in the hierarchy of "Orthodox brothers".
Boomerangs are like that - they always come back, as they say.
P.S. If you want to know whether the UOC-MP has reacted in any way to the latest annexation of some of its parishes by the ROC, I think the answer is obvious.