A public appeal of the parishioners of the stauropegic cathedral of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker of the UOC-KP in the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (USA) appeared on the website of the UOC-KP on April 7, 2021.
Supporters of Filaret Denisenko note that “presidential power in Ukraine can exist only in parallel with the patriarchal status of the national Church,” and they view the refusal of the patriarchal status by the leaders of the OCU as “cowardice and betrayal of national interests.”
They also responded to accusations from the OCU regarding the current head of the vicariate of the UOC-KP in the USA and Canada, Bohdan Zgoba.
“We remind the leaders of the OCU about the benefits that our rector, archpriest Bohdan Zgoba, during their last visits to the United States as an entourage of His Holiness Patriarch Filaret, showed to each member of the delegation of the UOC-KP. This was organization of transfer and logistics of visits, numerous gifts in the form of modern computer technology, which they still use when they write unworthy things to their generous donor.
In recent years, archpriest Bohdan Zgoba has repeatedly transferred numerous humanitarian supplies to Ukraine, both for internally displaced persons from the occupied Donbass and for students and teaching staff of the Kyiv Orthodox Theological Academy. Through the efforts of father Bogdan, today all departments of the Kyiv Theological School are provided with modern equipment, which contributes to the best teaching of the future spiritual elite of Ukraine.
With the assistance of our parish, the Volyn Orthodox Theological Academy was also able to replenish its capacity and improve the sphere of well-being for students within the theological school. Among the latest donations that have helped improve the economic condition of the institution is a modern heating control system.
An even greater part of the humanitarian cargo for the Kyiv Orthodox Theological Academy from our parish and with the assistance of the Ambassador of Ukraine to the United States, Mr. Valery Chaly, was delivered to Kyiv by the presidential plane in 2018.
Also, with the assistance of our rector, Ukrainian chaplains who are in positions in the military units of the power structures of Ukraine received olive-colored cassocks as a unique uniform that allowed them to stand out as a separate group of military clergy. This is what helped to complete the final stage of the visual formation of the institution of the military priesthood in the OCU. Chaplain father Bohdan Zgoba who established friendly relations between the chaplains of the United States and Ukraine. He personally financed the trip of the chairman of the Internal Affairs Directorate, metropolitan of Cherkassy John, and the members of the delegation – tickets for flights and hotels.
We, the parishioners of the Cathedral of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, see that your negative rhetoric towards father Bohdan Zgoba manifests itself primarily in black ingratitude for the many good deeds that he has done, both for you personally, lord Epiphanius, and for the church structures that you govern, which should be breeding grounds for godliness. This is a small part of charity from what you and we know from the charity of our father Bogdan,” listed in the appeal to the OCU.
“Why do you hang labels of Russian agents on respectable and honest Americans and Ukrainians? Eventually you will answer not before us, but before the American law. Everything in good time,” the community promises and calls on Epiphany Dumenko “to stop putting unworthy labels on the representatives of the UOC-KP and everyone who supports and sympathizes with us, as comrades-in-arms, enemies of the Ukrainian people, calling us the hand of Moscow”.