Ukraine Poroshenko-Denisenko plan to form independent Orthodox church in Ukraine

In the Ukraine we may find Patriach Filaret (born Denisenko) a former cleric of the Moscow Patriarchate, who left the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP) in 1992 following the collapse of the Soviet Union. He had lost an ecclesiastical election and tried to form his own church, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kiev Patriarchate (UOC-KP) and therefor he became excommunicated. His church is not recognized by any of the other members of the international community of Orthodox churches. 

Now the Poroshenko government, formed in the beginning of the civil war that followed the U.S.-backed 2014 bloody coup in the “Euromaidan” uprising, is favouring the split-off of the traditional church by the anti-Moscow church known as the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kiev Patriarchate (UOC-KP)

They have called on Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew in Istanbul to remove the authority of the Moscow Patriarchate and recognize a new, single independent Orthodox church in Ukraine, severing all ties to Moscow.

The single church in the Poroshenko-Denisenko plan would carry the UOC-KP name with the authority, according to Denisenko, to seize all churches, temples, chapels, monasteries and other properties belonging to the UOC-MP. 

It would mean dispossessing the historic UOC-MP, which has direct “apostolic” continuity with the 1030-year-old original Kievan church and Christianity in the Eastern Roman empire, once brought there by Christ’s own disciples. UOC-MP said they would not pray in church together with the excommunicated Denisenko.

Virgin Mary’s girdle

A chunk of the Virgin Mary’s girdle, made of camel hair and preserved for centuries since its owner headed heavenwards according a lot of Christians. For several Christians it is a holy relic, which is now on tour in Russia and drawing crowds of Orthodox believers on a scale that makes U2 concerts look under-populated

The belt is usually kept in a monastery on Mount Athos, Greece, but has been toted round a series of Russian cities over the past few weeks, ending up in Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Saviour – the vast white and gold post-USSR replacement for an Orthodox cathedral razed under Stalin. Pilgrims are flooding in to kiss the relic, which is believed to have special powers to treat infertility and promote health.

For the Orthodox Church, already enjoying a resurgence and snowballing membership since the USSR fell apart, the public display of faith is an apparent triumph: devotion doesn’t come much plainer than this. Not everyone agrees, though: even among the faithful, the extremity of the response (at least half a million people have turned out in Moscow alone, and another two million elsewhere in Russia) smacks a touch too much of superstition, of a kind of mass hysteria.

Read the whole story:

1. Belt up! – the Virgin Mary comes to Moscow

2. Belt up part II – how the Virgin Mary won Russia’s elections