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15 May 2018, 11:58Granting Ukrainian splinter autocephalous church status would be legal nonsense - Metropolitan Hilarion
St. Petersburg, May 15, Interfax - The Holy Synod of the Moscow Patriarchate has expressed support for the canonical Orthodox Church of Ukraine and pointed to the unlawful nature of the current attempts to give its splinter the status of an autocephaly.
"Members of the Synod stressed that this issue lies outside the canonical Church's field: the autocephaly was petitioned by Ukraine's secular authorities with the support of schismatic, non-canonical communities. The church status of these communities, which broke away from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, is not recognized by the global Orthodoxy," the head of the Moscow Patriarchate's Department for External Church Relations Metropolitan Hilarion told journalists after a Synod meeting in St. Petersburg.
The Ukrainian Orthodox Church, led by Metropolitan Onufry, who attended today's meeting, did not refer the matter to the Patriarchate of Constantinople, he said.
"Decisions should not be allowed to be made on the basis of initiatives [emanating] from non-canonical communities and secular authorities, whose intervention in the affairs of the Church is unacceptable. Granting the status of a parallel autocephalous Church to a splinter, without the will of the canonical Church on whose grounds it is situated, that is an ecumenical legal nonsense," Metropolitan Hilarion said.
The meeting attendees expressed support for the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church, he said. |
