His Beatitude Lubomyr: “Moscow Patriarchate wants to have a strong hold over the whole Church in Ukraine”.

Moscow Patriarchate cherishes a desire to have a strong hold over the whole Kyivan Church in Ukraine. These words were said by the former UGCC Primate, His Beatitude Lubomyr, in an interview to the CEO of Channel «1+1», Oleksandr Tkachenko, in his programme “Tkachenko.ua” which is due to be on Monday, June 20.   According to His Beatitude Lubomyr, Moscow Patriarchate is trying to assume the history of Kyivan Church. “There is no doubt that Christianity, thanks to the missionaries, has reached those territories which nowadays constitute Russian State, but this is also true of many other countries in different parts of the world. And this fact in itself, in my opinion, does not give the right to this, let’s put it this way - Daughter-Church, i.e. Church which derives from missionary endeavors of another Church, to assume the history of the Mother-Church”, - said His Beatitude Lubomyr.   He stressed out that “we are the Mother-Church, and we rejoice of the fact that our ancestors went out in different parts of Slavic world to preach the Word of God. But we do not see any grounds for such an assuming” – said the former UGCC Primate.   In his opinion, our Church – the Church of Kyiv – even if it is not united, it has its proper history and saints. “Russian Church has its own history and saints; it went through different periods of becoming Church, Metoropoly, Patriarchate ecc. It is not part of our Kyivan history, it is Moscovite history which legitimately has Patriarchate, and thanks God that it has it, as a typical completion of its structure” – said His Beatitude Lubomyr.  

UGCC Information Department