Kravchuk and Kuchma ask Primate of Czech Lands to support SLC
Ex-presidents visited Metropolitan Rostislav to discuss issues on granting autocephaly to the Ukrainian Church.
On May 30, the Ukrainian delegation with the participation of former presidents Leonid Kravchuk and Leonid Kuchma visited the Primate of the Czech Lands and Slovakia Metropolitan Rostislav. The main topic of the conversation was a complex religious situation in Ukraine.
Ex-presidents told the Czech hierarch about their desire to create an independent autocephalous church, and also stressed that their aspirations are shared by "twelve million Ukrainians," reports the press-service of the Orthodox Church of the Czech Lands and Slovakia.
The head of the Czech Church drew the interlocutors' attention to the fact that interference in the affairs of religion on the part of authorities is unacceptable in a democratic society.
"The schism that arose out of human egoism can only be healed through repentance and return to the Church," the Bishop emphasized, adding that the new autocephaly should be the result of an all-Orthodox consensus.
At the end of the meeting, Metropolitan Rostislav expressed the hope that the complex ecclesiastical situation in Ukraine would be resolved in a canonical way, so as not to provoke the aggravation of the already tense socio-political situation in the country.
Earlier the UOC Chancellor Metropolitan Anthony (Pakanich) of Borispol and Brovary stated that Primates of the Local Churches including those under the jurisdiction of Constantinople Patriarchate are outspokenly critical of an idea of granting autocephaly to schismatics.
