Statement of the Administrative Department of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church
Honourable veterans of the Great Patriotic War,children of war and descendants of all the deceased, tortured in the concentration camps and abducted from Ukraine during the Great Patriotic War!
The Ukrainian Orthodox Church has the greatest respect for the feat of arms of the soldiers-liberators, and prayerfully commemorates all those who put their lives for their neighbours in the battlefield of the World War II in fulfillment of the Gospel commandment.
The Holy Synod of the UOC fixed the special annual memorial service for the deceased soldiers for May, 9. In all the churches and monasteries of our Holy Church, which blessed our brothers and fathers to defend our Motherland in 1941, the pannikhida services and memorial Litias are performed that day.
This year, as usual, the Primate of the UOC planned to conduct the memorial service and the church commemoration of the deceased soldiers and all the victims of the World War II not only at the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, but also at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in the Park of Glory (Park Slavy) in Kyiv. The Primate of the Autonomous Church of Finland of the Patriarchate of Constantinople Metropolitan Leo of Karelia and All Finland was to take part in the liturgical service.
But the format, suggested by the protocol service of the Administration of the President of Ukraine makes impossible the prayerful participation of the Primates of the canonical Orthodox Churches in the action in the Park of Glory on May 9, 2009.
Therefore the Primates of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and the Orthodox Church of Finland will perform the memorial service and the church commemoration of the deceased soldiers and victims of the World War II the day before, on May 8, at 20.00 pm in accordance with the orthodox tradition and the canons of the Holy Church.
