Monday, October 14, 2019

Church of Greece recognizes EP's Ukrainian Church

(Orthodox Times) - The Ecumenical Patriarch welcomed the decision of the Hierarchy of the Church of Greece to recognise the autocephaly of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine.

“We thank the Sister Church, the Church of Greece, and we are grateful to the President of the Holy Synod, Archbishop Ieronymos of Athens and of all Greece, who took the initiative and brought this to a good conclusion,” the Ecumenical Patriarch said today during the Patriarchal Divine Liturgy at the Phanar.

The Ecumenical Patriarch said that it was a historic decision “that recognises and reaffirms the exclusive right of the Ecumenical Patriarchate to grant autocephaly, if necessary, and, thus, taking into consideration this right, the Church of Greece has recognised the autocephaly granted by the Ecumenical Patriarchate to the Church of Ukraine.”

The Ecumenical Patriarch trusted that “Finally, the church issue in Ukraine will be the starting point to strengthen the unity between the Orthodox Sister Churches.”

The Ecumenical Patriarch referred to today’s ordination of Metropolitan Ieronymos of Kalavryta and Aigialeia at the Metropolitan Cathedral of the Annunciation in Athens. He also referred to the two newly elected Metropolitans of Fthiotida and of Lemnos, and to the two new Auxiliary Bishops. He conveyed the congratulations and the best wishes of the Hierarchy of the Holy Synod of the Church of Greece.

4 comments:

  1. I think we have reached the point where everything that is relevant to this dispute has already been said, repeatedly. The Russians should just send a polite note announcing the break in communion and move on.

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  2. Not so fast. While this article remains on the website, all of the other articles pertaining to this have disappeared. There seems to be some dust up as to whether the OCU was actually recognized at all. We'll see what happens, I guess.

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  3. As seems to happen more and more, information was released in haste without proper checks and now things seem less certain. Now some Russian sources are writing about two Greek metropolitans who are indicating that the Church of Greece did not in fact recognize the OCU, but simply confirmed Constantinople's right to grant autocephaly.

    This really highlights the limits of our information age: so much information, so little time, so many passions!

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  4. Here is the article: https://orthochristian.com/124664.html

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