Metropolitan Oleksandr: “The fact is that, after analyzing almost a century-long history of the struggle of Ukrainian Orthodox Christians for autocephaly, I realized: there is no alternative to the canonical independence of our Church.”
From RISU, May 10, 2018 Metropolitan Oleksandr (Drabinko) of Pereyaslav-Khmelnitsky and Vyshneve of the UOC-MP [pictured] declared support for Ukrainian Church autocephaly in an article that he wrote for the lb.ua. In the article the Metropolitan noted: "The onset of the current ‘autocephalous campaign’ took me working at my desk. In particular, I was working on the final version of my book, Ukrainian Church on the Path to Autocephaly. The texts included in this book were prepared throughout years, and in the end there are documents relating to the history of self-proclamation of autocephaly in 1919-1925. Decrees of the Ukrainian People's Republic, the decisions of the assemblies and councils that proclaimed or spoke for autocephaly, etc. The book is likely to come out before we know the end of the chapter ‘2018: waiting for Tomos’ that I have not yet written. “Will it be the bestowal of canonical autocephaly on the Ukrainian Church by Constantinople? Or there will be another historical pause in solving the Ukrainian church issue? But regardless of the results of the decision of the Ecumenical Patriarch, I would like today to publicly support the idea of autocephaly of the Ukrainian Church. “Moreover, I do it consciously, perfectly understanding all the risks that this position is fraught with. The fact is that, after analyzing almost a century-long history of the struggle of Ukrainian Orthodox Christians for autocephaly, I realized: there is no alternative to the canonical independence of our Church.” ### *The article above appears through courtesy of the Religious Information Service of Ukraine. Access RISU at http://risu.org.ua/en/index
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