Defamation of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate)
January 11, 2016. Ukrainian Media reproduced the fake information from the site “Informator”, that a priest from Sverdlovsk in Luhansk region (Ukraine), denied to read a pray for the health of a child under the excuse that her birth certificate was delivered in the Ukrainian territory, as the website pravmir reports.
The Department of External Church Relations of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) commented that in the city of Sverdlovsk there is a chapel in honour of St. Agapit of Caves. There are a rector and priests there.
In the article of the site “Informator” is not specified the name of the priest, the names of women and children who were victims of such a misconduct. Archbishop of Rovenky and Sverdlovsk Pantaleon said that his office is always open for parishioners to denounce any possible cases of improper behaviour of clergy. If the case with the woman is a real, she can come to the bishop and tell him about the incident.
The Archbishop Panteleimon was in Sverdlovsk and he had opportunity to learn about this “incident”. “It is obvious that in this case we are talking about defamation against the Ukrainian Orthodox Church,” said on the official Facebook page of the Department for External Church Relations of the UOC.