OCU cleric says he decided to leave UOC after attending ethno-festival
“I say that I am a priest, and they ask from what jurisdiction” – the ex-priest of the UOC was confused by wary looks at the song festival.
Former UOC priest Vasyl Levchenko, who served in Zastavna, Bukovyna, after his transition to the OCU gave an extensive interview to the Chernivtsi-based publication Suspilne and tried to explain the reasons for his action.
‘Shortly before the transition, I left for my little homeland. On the way got to the ethno-festival in my grandfather's place, in Kryachkivka. I grew up in a family where they sang Ukrainian songs, in Ukrainian traditions. And I felt at home there, among my own people. But I introduce myself, I say that I am a priest, and they ask me what jurisdiction I am from. And you start: I belong here, but from the Moscow Patriarchate. And they were so wary,” he said.
Then, Levchenko says, he thought: “How long can this go on, when you are among your own people, but you constantly have to justify yourself somehow.”
“Before the end of the festival, on the third day, I was actually on my way from there with the decision that I want to go to the Ukrainian Church, because I'm tired of fighting windmills,” concluded the cleric of the OCU.
He also said that it was a long way and in fact for him to do so was logical.
“At some point the puzzles just came together. I had such a principle – I serve in place, do my job, must do it well. And I set myself a goal - to Ukrainianise the divine service, to cleanse people's brains from the rubbish that had been thrown over the decades by Moscow propaganda. I tried to do this work. Then I lost the opportunity to do what I thought was right and necessary,” the ex-cleric of the UOC added.
Levchenko complained that there were complaints about such his activities from parishioners-“vatniks”.
“People did not like what I was doing. And I stopped doing it. But I just started to feel that I was losing myself as a priest,” he continued.
He said that his wife helped him make the final decision: “...I honestly don't know if I would have decided to take this step if my wife hadn't supported me.”
As the UOJ wrote, the OCU cleric believes that a priest should be called “Mr. Presbyter” and his wife “Mrs. Presbytera”.
