Priests of the Autocephalous Orthodox Church of Ukraine do not receive salary and survive only on donations made by their parishioners.
This was stated in an interview by Metropolitan Epiphanius of Kiev, answering a question about the payroll of the clergy.
“So far, there is no salary for our clergy. We have been discussing this issue over the past few months. It is difficult because the Church is separated from the state,” Metropolitan Epiphanius stressed among other things.
At another point, the Head of the Autocephalous Church of Ukraine said that “financing is a difficult issue, because the structure of our Church depends on contributions from the Dioceses.”
“There are clergy who are financially comfortable, but there are also clergy who are on the brink of survival. We try to help these clergy in any way, but we cannot have a clergy payroll at this stage,” added Metropolitan Epiphanius.
Finally, Metropolitan Epiphanius said that the clergy are helped by contributions from simple parishioners, but this is not enough because each church has fixed costs.
