Author of the seal: Epiphany Dumenko stole the seal of Metropolitan of Kiev

On June 23, 2019, the Editor-in-Chief of the “Glas” channel, an icon painter and the designer of the seal of the UOC Primate, Archimandrite Alipiy (Svetlichny), said in the “Pravblog” Telegram channel that the seal image of the head of the PCU Epiphany Dumenko coincides in the smallest details with the one he created.

The icon painter stressed that the seal of the Metropolitan of Kiev was officially registered.

“It is outrageous but Dumenko not only stole the name of our Church, he meanly stole the seal of His Beatitude Metropolitan of Kiev! I designed and made this seal in 1992 for Metropolitan Vladimir (Sabodan). Now Sergei Dumenko made it for himself. Indeed, Satan is the ape of God,” wrote Fr. Alipiy.

In a commentary for the UOJ, Archimandrite Alipiy said that the seal with the image of Oranta is also used by the current Primate of the UOC, His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry of Kiev and All Ukraine. It was made in three copies, the first of which was hand-made. The authorship of the seal image fully belongs to Archimandrite Alipiy and the icon painter did not grant the OCU any rights to use it.

“This seal was used by His Beatitude Vladimir, and now by His Beatitude Onuphry. This is the seal of the Metropolitan of Kiev and All Ukraine,” says Archimandrite Alipiy. “I designed it specifically for Metropolitan Vladimir. Initially, the seal was hand-made, the first time he did prints by hand. Then the “machine” version was made, and later a more modern version of it appeared. But there was always the image of Oranta on the seal.”

As for the seal of Epiphany Dumenko, the icon painter has no doubts – his design was stolen by the OCU.

“He (Epiphany Dumenko – Ed.) just “ripped off” the design. If you look at the modern seal of the Metropolitan of Kiev, which was made third in the lifetime of Metropolitan Vladimir, with an original but more carefully executed image, they “ripped it off” to the details,” the priest said.

We would like to note that the individual small details of the image are still somewhat different, but these differences only emphasize the general similarity.

We recall that on January 30, 2019, the OCU was officially entered into the State Register under the double name Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Orthodox Church of Ukraine). The name of the legal entity – “Keiv Metropolis of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Orthodox Church of Ukraine)” fully coincides with the current name of the UOC. The official name of the OCU duplicates the name of the UOC – "Kiev Metropolis of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church", but without the specification in brackets.

As the UOJ reported, earlier religious scholar Alexander Sagan said that the name of the UOC (OCU) causes confusion in society because of the identity of the name with the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and explained: the initiator of the name of the UOC (OCU), under which the administration centre of the new structure is registered, was Filaret . According to Sagan, such a name of the OCU is unsuccessful as it duplicates the name of the canonical UOC.