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(EP) - After journalists’ questions about offensive statements against the Ecumenical Patriarchate, which were allegedly made recently by a member of the autonomous presence of the Patriarchate of Moscow in Ukraine, the Director of the Press and Communication Office of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, Nikos Papachristou, said:
Allegations or information from anyone claiming that the Ecumenical Patriarchate, in order to grant the Tomos of Autocephaly to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, allegedly sought and received, or requested, any form of compensation, financial or other, whether from political or ecclesiastical persons, is absolutely false, unsubstantiated and slanderous. At the same time, such allegations are also highly offensive to the Mother Church of Constantinople, from which nine other local Churches, including Moscow, received their Autocephaly, through analogous and similar processes.
It is characteristic that the Ecumenical Patriarch, in a recent speech referring to the granting of Autocephaly to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, pointed out that “the proper ecclesiological response given by the Ecumenical Patriarchate was and is always based on the eternal tradition of the Church, inspired by the Gospel, with respect to the sacred canons and free from any political and diplomatic pressure. Indeed, this must be made clear in the light of the accusations and misinformation circulating on the Internet, the well known fake news, which is used against the canonical rights of the Ecumenical Patriarchate.”
It should also be recalled that on January 6, 2019, the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew handed the Tomos of Autocephaly to the Primate of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, His Beatitude Epiphanios, Metropolitan of Kiev and All Ukraine, which was formed by the Unification Synod of December 15, 2018. From that day on, the new Autocephalous Orthodox Church of Ukraine is completely self-sufficient and has the absolute freedom to manage its internal affairs through the judgment and decisions of its Holy Synod. Her relationship with the First-throned Church of Constantinople is a relationship of a Mother to her Daughter, a strong spiritual bond that has been preserved for centuries, from the time of St. Vladimir’s baptism to this day. A relationship that endures no matter how many people, obviously for their own purposes, have tried and continue trying to disrupt it, for the Mother Church of Constantinople always cares, with a sacrificial spirit and self-denial, for all her spiritual children.
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"From that day on, the new Autocephalous Orthodox Church of Ukraine is completely self-sufficient and has the absolute freedom to manage its internal affairs through the judgment and decisions of its Holy Synod."
ReplyDeleteWhich is why, just this week, Patriarch Bartholomew gave the OCU permission to canonize Saint Luke of Crimea, who by the way is already canonized in the UOC, the Moscow Patriarchate in general, and there are churches built in his honor in Cyprus (and even Greece if I remember correctly). But my point is, the OCU has absolute freedom to manage internal affairs like deciding who to canonize or for that matter making their own chrism...oh wait nope. Or dealing with their own internal schisms...
The canonization thing with st. Luke of Crimea is so bizzar. Does this mean that the EP doesn't recognize the legitimacy of the UOC-MP even before the so-called "unification council" or, more frighteningly, the legitimacy of the Moscow Patriarchate itself, at least insofar that it can canonize saints? Every day it gets wilder and more scandalous in the upper echelons of the EP. This behavior can't be sustained for much longer.
DeleteIt's called "Double-think". Or cognitive dissonance.
DeleteThis would almost be laughable if it weren't so tragic. I think that the "fake news" they cite in this article is boomeranging back to their own news dissemination.
ReplyDeleteWe need to all pray very sincerely for the healing within the Church at large and hope that sooner or later (before it's too late) a real council will be convened to resolve this ugly situation. The Gospel is not being preached at this point by these hierarchs, it is all self posturing and self aggrandizement, the EP included.
Kyrie eleison!
This rhetoric is not evening worth commenting on. Sadly, the Ecumenical Patriarchate is dying on the vine. It's just a matter of time before the branch completely withers & falls off and/or is pruned off.
ReplyDeleteI miss the old days when we knew who to hate: Arians, gnostics, latins. I wish we could just skip the bickering and jump to the part where I know for sure who I'm supposed to hate now.
ReplyDeleteEven back then there was plenty of confusion. Not only were many bishops self avowed arians, there were also weirdos who were semi-arians and pseudo-arians who mashed together elements of trinitarian and arian theology into some weird amalgam of the two. Many emperors did this as well. Not to even mention when the "council" of Florence" came about. The church will win out!
DeleteIn my opinion the EP has definitely been demanding money for their "tomos" in Ukraine. An unfortunate circumstance, but one that exists and is evidenced by past behavior well enough.
ReplyDeleteMany "priests" in the OCU have spoken out about the Constantinopolitan exarchs in Ukraine demanding a "tax" or "payment" to them. I could link you an article about it if you'd like.
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DeleteDavid, you're quite naïve about the inner workings of the Phanar and mixing realities (such as recognition of sainthood, the reception of Holy Chrism, etc.)
ReplyDeleteIf you read the tomos carefully, Ukraine has not received any autocephaly at all.
At least we can agree on that. The best thing we can do is pray. Pray for me friend, as I will pray for you. I think the response that the holy synod of the Russian church's response to the actions of the EP was justified, and I believe that the EP's actions are not. I think we are destined to repeat the same argument over and over until the end of time considering we have such fundamentally opposed points of contention here. I dont really think this is a political issue, as it is a crisis in our consensus on what ecclesiology means that has been going on since the day the church was founded. Ultimately, as my spiritual father says, the current situation is something that has been going on for ages, that being the argument over who leads the church and who gets power. The Roman Catholics had this discussion with us in 1054, and now were having it with the Patriarchate of Constantinople. Nothing new. Pray for me, pray for our bishops, and pray for all those who have fallen outside of the Canonical Ukranian Orthodox Church under Metropolitan Onufry! Pray for me as well, as I am a wretched pompous sinner.
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