On January 7, during the Nativity Divine Liturgy at Saint
Sophia’s Cathedral in Kyiv, “Metropolitan Epifaniy of Kyiv and All Ukraine”
commemorated the Russian Orthodox Church Primate for the first time since the Orthodox
Church in Ukraine (OCU-KP) creation.
At the Grand Entrance, after mentioning the Patriarch of
Constantinople, he commemorated the Primates of all the Local Orthodox
Churches, including the name of Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia (at
1:04 in the video here below).
President Poroshenko was present. He had repeatedly said
that churches where they pray for the Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church
cannot be called Ukrainian. On October 14, he said, “Can we call Ukrainian the
churches where they pray for Patriarch Kirill of the Russian Orthodox Church,
who in turn prays for the Russian army that kills Ukrainian soldiers and the
civilian population? I ask the people and the faithful of this Church to think
about it.”
Let us recall that between the moment of the creation of the
OCU on December 15 and Epifaniy’s trip to Istanbul on January
6, the name of the Moscow Patriarch had not been commemorated during the liturgical
services of the newly-formed church structure.
