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Moscow Patriarchate renews calls for Constantinople to refrain from steps undermining Church unity - Russian Synod

Minsk, October 15, Interfax - The Archbishops' Council of the Russian Orthodox Church back in 2008 urged the Patriarchate of Constantinople to refrain from steps undermining the unity of the Orthodox Church, the ROC Synod said in a resolution in Minsk on Monday.

"The Synod of the Church of Constantinople has no canonical right to cancel judgments issued by the ROC Archbishops' Council," the resolution said in reference to Constantinople's decision to acquit the Ukrainian schismatic leaders and "legalize" their hierarchy.

The appropriation of powers to overturn judgments and resolutions of the other local Orthodox Churches "is just one manifestation of the new false doctrine now being proclaimed by the Church of Constantinople and ascribing the title of the first without equals (primus sine paribus) to the Patriarch of Constantinople with universal jurisdiction," the Minsk resolution said.

"Such a vision by the Patriarchate of Constantinople of its own rights and powers is in insuperable contradiction with the centuries-long canonical tradition upon which rests the existence of the Russian Orthodox Church and of the other local Churches," the Archbishops' Council warned in 2008.

At the time the Council urged the Church of Constantinople "to exercise prudence until pan-Orthodox consideration of the aforesaid novelties and refrain from steps which might explode the Orthodox unity," especially the attempts to review the canonical limits of the local Orthodox Churches.

Today's Synod in Minsk also urged local Orthodox Churches to assess Constantinople's actions on Ukraine and together look for ways out of the "most serious crisis tearing up the body" of the Church.

On October 11 the Synod in Istanbul made a number of decisions which the Russian Church has already slammed as "robbery," namely: rehabilitation of the Ukrainian schismatic leaders, the announcement of opening its mission in Kiev, and the abolition of a 300-year-old decree transferring the Kiev metropolitanate to Moscow.

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