At the initiative of His Eminence Bishop Mykhailo of Lutsk and Volyn, a new subdivision of the Volyn Eparchy Administration – the pilgrimage service – has begun its activity. The newly created structure will deal with a number of issues of church ministry that in the past, apart from individual cases, did not receive a systematic solution. This concerns the organization of pilgrimages to Orthodox shrines, the restoration and promotion of pilgrimage traditions, and the popularization of Volyn and Ukrainian shrines. This was reported by the press secretary of the Volyn Eparchy, Archpriest Vitaliy Sobko, at a regular press conference held on May 20 at the eparchial administration.
Historian and methodologist for educational work Larysa Savchuk has been appointed as the chief coordinator of the pilgrimage service. She previously worked for some time as the head of the archaeology section at the Minor Academy of Sciences of Ukraine and as an assistant at the Department of Archaeology and Source Studies of Lesya Ukrainka Volyn State University.
Presenting the pilgrimage service, the press secretary noted, the Volyn Eparchy Administration is convinced that its activity will open a new page in the spiritual life of many Volyn residents and will contribute to the development and proper veneration of the Orthodox shrines of Volyn and Ukraine.
At the same press conference, journalists had the opportunity to familiarize themselves with a statement recently made public by the press service of the Kyiv Patriarchate. Father Vitaliy reported that this document is an official reaction to the unfolding in Russian media of a campaign regarding the resolution of the problem of the division of Ukrainian Orthodoxy, and to statements by leaders of the Moscow Patriarchate that after the change of state power in Ukraine there have been oppression and violence against the Moscow Patriarchate.
The Kyiv Patriarchate once again emphasized that since 1992 it has repeatedly come forward with initiatives that would resolve the contradictions existing in Ukrainian Orthodoxy, but the ROC and the UOC MP not only did nothing to overcome the division of the Orthodox Church in Ukraine, but on the contrary, by their statements and actions only worsened the situation.
The statement also notes that the Kyiv Patriarchate specifically does not encourage the faithful of the MP to leave its ranks, while using violence or otherwise violating legislation, but if believers express a desire to be in the UOC of the Kyiv Patriarchate, this Church has no moral right or legal grounds to refuse them this.
The press service of the Kyiv Patriarchate categorically rejects slanderous accusations that the Kyiv Patriarchate, by organized and purposeful incitement of interconfessional enmity, is destabilizing the situation in Ukraine or conducting a campaign to "seize churches of the UOC MP," and emphasizes that the Church does not intend to call on the Ukrainian authorities, or its faithful and supporters, to establish a single Local Orthodox Church in Ukraine by illegal or violent methods.