Head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church’s Representation to the European Institutions meets with Primate of the Orthodox Church of the Czech Lands and Slovakia
On 10 November 2018, Bishop Viktor of Baryshevka, head of the Representation of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) to the European Institutions and International Organizations, met with His Beatitude Metropolitan Rastislav of the Czech Lands and Slovakia with the blessing of His Beatitude Metropolitan Onufry of Kiev and All Ukraine. Bishop Viktor was on a visit to Slovakia at the invitation of Archbishop George of Michalovce and Košice.
The UOC Information and Education Department reports that that the meeting took place at the resident of the Primate of the Orthodox Church of the Czech Lands and Slovakia. Archbishop George attended.
Bishop Victor conveyed Metropolitan Onufry’s cordial greetings and words of brotherly support to Metropolitan Rastislav and told him about peacemaking and humanitarian activity of the canonical Church in the present reality and about recent developments, underscoring the UOC official position.
His Beatitude Metropolitan Rastislav said: “We are concerned about our fraternal Ukrainian Orthodox Church, for which we pray, which we support and will support. We do not say ‘your Ukrainian people,’ we say ‘our Ukrainian people,’ because we are one in Christ and belong to the One, Holy and Apostolic Church. We pray, we believe and we hope for wise decisions of the entire universal Orthodoxy upon the church situation in Ukraine. As history teaches us, the interference of the state and politics into the church affairs had never ended successfully, because it is impossible to create even a temporary good on the violation of the sacred canons of the Orthodox Church.”