About the forced transfer of fathers from one parish to another, and what does the odious book of memoirs have to do with it.
They write to us here that after reading our message about the problems of Archbishop Athanasiy Shkurupiy, we remembered another story from the book of memoirs of the participants of the Unification Council, which we should pay attention to, because there is a moment that is firmly different from the current reality of Archbishop Athanasiy. We are talking about the memoirs of the Metropolitan of Donetsk and Mariupol Sergiy Gorobtsov.
So, in fact, Sergiy did not mention anything about the Council in this book of “memoirs of the participants in the Council”. But he told how good it is to live and serve in the OCU.
“Over the long period of service, we have gained invaluable experience and built democratic relations between the ruling bishop and the parish priest. There are no large contributions to the diocese – everything is discussed so that the priest is comfortable working in his parish. The opinion of each abbot is appreciated. You can independently choose in which language you will conduct the service – Ukrainian or Church Slavonic. In the OCU, there is no tradition of forcible transfer of fathers from one parish to another (only at the request of the parish priest). There are no fixed rates for the fulfillment of requirements, sacraments and rituals, which inspires believers to see their priests as merciful and good shepherds.”
In principle, we can only be glad for Sergiy, but the question really arises – why is the situation radically different in other dioceses? Can someone explain why in the almost neighboring diocese, where Athanasiy is in charge, there are almost massive movements of fathers between parishes? And the matter is not only in Archbishop Athanasiy or Bishop Mitrofan, to whom the clergy apply after a forced transfer – In fact, these are not isolated cases. It was the same with fr. Anatoly Natolochny, about whom we recently wrote. There are a lot of such stories.
Therefore, perhaps, Metropolitan Sergiy will share a secret or give advice on how the rest of the bishops, clergy and believers can also get into that fabulous OCU about which he writes?