At the invitation of His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, who is also presiding over deliberations, the Synaxis of Heads of the Ancient Patriarchates and the Autocephalous Church of Cyprus convened at the Phanar from September 1-2, 2011 (see here). The below is one of the results of that meeting as reported by RISU. A few points: RISU is a news arm of the Greek Catholic Church, so some measure of bias is to be assumed. Also, I have no corroborating story as of yet - when I do I'll publish it. That said, if this story proves to be untrue that would mean it was completely made up; I have yet to read a made-up story from them so assume the Russian Church must have been mentioned in some fashion during this meeting.
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(RISU) - Patriarchs of the four oldest churches of the world and the primate of the Cyprian Autocephalous Church called the Russian Orthodox Church to observe its canonical territory.
“Due to the events which have recently taken place in the Orthodox Church,” the council stressed the necessity that the Orthodox Churches should respect and strictly observe the geographical borders of their jurisdictions “as defined by the holy canons and Tomoses on the foundation of these churches.”
With these words the pentarchy hinted at nonrecognition of a canonical status of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Moscow patriarchate as an “integral part” of the Moscow Patriarchate since the Constantinople Patriarchate stated in the Tomos on the autocephaly of the Orthodox Church in Poland issued in 1924 that it never legally renounced its jurisdiction over the Kyivan Metropolitanate. As for the whole Moscow Patriarchate and its canonical borders, the Constantinople Council observes the Thomos of 1589 according to which the territory of the present-day Ukraine is not part of the Moscow Patriarchate.
One should mention in the context of the above the commentary of the Kyivan Patriarchate saying that the Pentarchy is the way of the Constantinople Patriarchate to show the Russian Orthodox Church “who is the boss” kyrios.org.ua reported.
Pentarchy (from Greek pente, five, and arche, rule) is a system of the superiority in the Christian Church of the five patriarchates (Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem) with the primacy of Rome, which came into effect after the Fourth Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon (451) when the Jerusalem Patriarchate was established.
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Whoa.
ReplyDeleteCos a resurgent Russian Church is trying to get supremacy in the proposed All Orthodox Council where as the Church with the largest contingent of presiding diocesan bishops, they can vote Moscow into primacy. Hilarion has already struck the first blow by suggesting that representation at the council shld be commensurate with the size of the Church. But from this statement, it looks like his previous trip to the Eastern Patriarchs before this synaxis was fruitless.
ReplyDeletePlease, do not repost that RISU manipulation. They said nothing about Ukraine.
ReplyDeleteI seriously doubt that whatever was said had anything to do with Ukraine, which all canonical churches recognize to be Moscow's territory. The only quote given in the article was probably aimed at Romania more than anyone else....
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me that if these Patriarchates would accept the MP as an interested sister Church, rather than an interloper, they would be a lot better off. If they really believed that the MP was their sister, would they not welcome them with open arms? Is it more about protecting what's theirs than accepting help from a much stronger Patriarch?
ReplyDeleteI know very little about Patriarchal politics, but it always seems to boil down to who is insulting who.
I just skimmed through some of RISU's other articles on the Moscow Patriarchate and it does appear as though they have a very biased outlook.
ReplyDelete