Most Ukrainians want to ban Moscow Patriarchate

A national survey, held on April 6th, shows that there is growing support to sever ties between the Ukrainian Orthodox Church under Moscow Patriarchate and its Russian leadership. At the moment, 74 per cent of Ukrainians want the Ukrainian Church under Moscow Patriarchate to break ties with Russia. Fifty-one per cent of the respondents want to ban the Moscow Patriarchate in Ukraine completely. This reports the Ukrainian press agency Interfax.

According to the Catholic Austrian news website Kathpress, 21 per cent of the respondents opposes a ban. Still, they support cutting subsidies to the church and terminating rental contracts for places of worship.

However, not everyone in the war-torn country is evenly supportive of a total ban. Whereas two-thirds of the respondents in the western part of Ukraine support a complete ban, only 29 per cent of respondents in Eastern Ukraine support this.

In total, 1200 respondents across the country were questioned, although there were no people interviewed from the occupied territories.

Collaboration

Archbishop Yevstratiy of Chernihiv and Nizhyn, who is under the Kyiv leadership, thinks the Orthodox Church under Moscow Patriarchate in Ukraine should be sanctioned. He calls for sanctions against patriarch Kirill since "the head of the Russian Church publicly blesses the Russian army for aggression against a sovereign state". Yevstratiy continued by saying that if Kirill is sanctioned, it makes sense to ban interaction between him and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. "Such interaction will fall under the norms of collaboration."

Ultimatum

In the northern Ukrainian city of Novohrad-Volynsky, the city council decided to give the clergy of the Zhytomyr diocese an ultimatum; they should vacate all churches within 24 hours. The deputies of the city council decided that all activities of the Ukrainian Church under the Moscow Patriarchate should be banned immediately.

The deputies, therefore, published a statement. "None of the clergy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) in the Novohrad-Volynsky city territorial community has decided to renounce the Moscow Patriarchate during the 43 days of the Russian invasion of our country. If you want to continue serving the Moscow Patriarchate, we demand that in 24 hours, the churches belonging to the Ukrainian people be vacated," the deputies proclaimed.

According to the official website of the Zhytomyr diocese, 29 priests serve on the territory of the Novohrad-Volynsky deanery.

Praying in the rain

On Sunday, in the village of Mykhalcha, Chernivtsi region, representatives of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church under Kyiv leadership, together with armed men, seized the Assumption Church of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

When believers came to the Sunday service, the entrance to the church was blocked. That is reported by the news website of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church under Moscow Patriarchate. The confrontation between the supporters of the PCU and the armed men who, according to eyewitnesses, led the process lasted all day.

The parish, meanwhile, decided to continue their service outside the church." the Orthodox community will pray in the sun, in the rain, as long as it takes", the diocese wrote.

Fratricidal war

Although the Ukrainian Orthodox Church falls under Moscow's leadership, the Kyiv Metropolitan Onufry opposes the views of his boss in Moscow. Onufry also appealed to the Russian president Putin for an "immediate end to the fratricidal war". Earlier, the Ukrainian Church under Moscow Patriarchate shared on its website a story in which clergy were helping Ukrainian military with food and other aid.