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Kyiv – Patriarch Filaret (Denysenko), head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Kyivan Patriarchate (UOC-KP), has warned Protopresbyter Ioan Zamaraiev, secretary of the Kherson Eparchy of the UOC-KP, about cooperation with the Latvian-based New Generation Church. cerkva.info released the text of the patriarch’s letter on 21 March 2007.

Patriarch Filaret’s letter was in response to the fact that on 18 March, at the invitation of Fr. Zamaraiev, Pastor Aleksey Ledyaev of the New Generation Church in Latvia preached during the morning Liturgy at the UOC-KP Cathedral of the Presentation of the Lord in Kherson. Prior to that, Fr. Zamarayev had participated in a New Generation conference in Riga without the patriarch’s blessing.

Patriarch Filaret recalled that the UOC-KP supports the position that the foundations, practice, and activities of the New Generation Church have the classical characteristics of a totalitarian sect or cult and its “new world order” doctrine, which states that it is necessary to introduce religious control over the state and the political life of countries, is non-Christian.

The participation of Fr. Zamaraiev in a New Generation conference and his greeting in the name of the UOC-KP’s Donetsk Eparchy were interpreted as UOC-KP support of the activity of New Generation and its “new world order” doctrine.

In his letter, Patriarch Filaret stressed that, by these actions, Fr. Zamariev “ignored the canonical prescriptions of the Orthodox church, since he allowed a person who does not belong to the Orthodox church to preach in the church and undermined the reputation of the UOC-KP.”

Therefore, Patriarch Filaret demands that cooperation with Pastor Ledyaev cease, and if the canons of the Orthodox church and decrees of the head of the UOC-KP are not followed, he warns that sanctions will be applied against Fr. Zamaraiev.

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