Dumenko appears in public wearing panagia of ROC patriarchal exarch

Dumenko wearing the exarch’s panagia. Photo: OCU

Epifaniy Dumenko, head of the OCU, appeared in public wearing panagias that once belonged to Metropolitan Ioann (Sokolov), Patriarchal Exarch of the Russian Orthodox Church. A photograph of him wearing the insignia was published on Facebook by OCU spokesman Yevstratiy Zoria.

On the reverse side of one of the panagias, produced during the Russian Empire period, the following inscription has been preserved: “To the Angel of the Church of Kyiv, His Eminence Metropolitan Ioann V of Kyiv and Galicia, Patriarchal Exarch, in memory of five years of service in Ukraine.” Metropolitan Ioann (Sokolov) was appointed Patriarchal Exarch in Kyiv in 1944, and the inscription is dated 1949, marking the fifth anniversary of his ministry there.

According to Zoria, the set of two panagias and a cross belonging to Metropolitan Ioann later passed to Filaret Denysenko, who allegedly gave them voluntarily to Serhiy Dumenko. Zoria claimed that Filaret “saw Metropolitan Epifaniy as his successor and personally handed over this now historic set of episcopal panagias to him during his lifetime.”

The OCU has consistently maintained that the entire history of the Church in Ukraine from 1686 until the emergence of Dumenko’s structure constituted a “spiritual occupation.” Zoria did not explain why the head of the OCU is wearing the panagias of what they describe as “occupiers.”

As previously reported by the UOJ, the OCU removed the veneration of a number of icons of the Mother of God and saints “linked to the ROC.” Metropolitan Ioann Sokolov governed the Kyiv see from 1944 to 1964 and was one of the key church administrators of the Soviet period. His name appears on the panagia now worn by the primate of a structure that has officially declared a break with the entire legacy of the Moscow Patriarchate.

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