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Metropolitan of Kyiv and All Ukraine, Primate of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) Epifaniy (Epiphanius) has said Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I will visit Ukraine soon.

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Epifaniy announced the visit during a divine liturgy in Kyiv's St. Michael's Golden-Domed Monastery, on the occasion of the first anniversary of the creation of a single local Ukrainian Orthodox church, Ukrainian TV Channel 5 reported on Sunday, December 15.

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According to Epifaniy, several more parishes are expected to join the newly created Orthodox Church of Ukraine in 2020.

As UNIAN reported earlier, the Unification Council of members of the Ukrainian Orthodox churches in Kyiv on December 15, 2018, elected Metropolitan of Pereyaslavsky and Bila Tserkva from the then Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate Epifaniy (also known as Epiphanius I) as head of the new local Orthodox church in Ukraine.

On January 6, Epifaniy, as Primate of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine and Metropolitan of Kyiv and All Ukraine, received from Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I in Istanbul the tomos of autocephaly (independence) of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine.

Metropolitan of Kyiv and All Ukraine Epifaniy was inaugurated as Primate of the newly created Orthodox Church of Ukraine at Kyiv's Saint Sophia Cathedral on February 3.