The head of the Ukrainian Catholic Church has welcomed the election of a leader for the country's new independent Orthodox church.
In Kiev on December 15, 192 bishops from Ukraine's three previously divided Orthodox denominations elected Metropolitan Epiphanius, 39, as metropolitan of Kiev and all Ukraine. He will receive a final decree, or tomos, establishing the new church from the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew on January 6 in Istanbul.
Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, major archbishop of the Ukrainian Catholic Church, said "the future of our Church, our people and of a free, independent Ukrainian state in Europe depends today on how we nurture unity and overcome what separates us."
