From
June 16 to 26, 2016, the Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church
convened on the Greek island of Crete, chaired by His All-Holiness
Bartholomew, Ecumenical Patriarch. This Council was held subsequent to
decisions of the Synaxis (assembly) of the heads of the 14
universally-recognized autocephalous Orthodox Churches meeting in
Chambesy, Switzerland in January 2016, while preparation for the
Council, including selection of topics for consideration and creation of
draft documents, was conducted over 55 years, since the 1961
Pan-Orthodox Conference in Rhodes.
Regretfully, under the influence
of external secular considerations, the Churches of first Bulgaria, then
Antioch, Moscow, and Georgia, announced just days prior to the Council
the impossibility of their participation, demanding postponement of the
Council for “further preparation”. Although the Churches of Bulgaria,
Georgia, and Antioch each expressed somewhat different grounds for their
withdrawal, there is little question that the position of the Moscow
Patriarchate was a main factor in their decisions.
Despite official
assurances of wishing to gather the Council, the Moscow Patriarchate was
not, and is not, interested in this. The Holy and Great Council of the
Orthodox Church meeting on the island of Crete established a precedent
and mechanism for conciliar decisions within not just one local church
or group of local churches, as has been the case over recent centuries,
but within a Pan-Orthodox context. This mechanism confirms in our age a
special ministry for the Ecumenical Patriarch as first among equal
primates of the Orthodox Church, that of Chair of the Pan-Orthodox
Council. The Moscow Patriarchate, wishing to dominate World Orthodoxy,
fights against this. This confrontation of Moscow towards
Constantinople, the effort by the Moscow Patriarchate to dominate World
Orthodoxy as the "Third Rome", was the main cause for both the drawn out
preparations for the Council and the attempts to postpone it at the
last moment.
The Kyiv Patriarchate joyfully welcomes the successful
convening as scheduled of the Holy and Great Council as a witness that
most of the Local Churches are not subject to manipulation and
blackmail. We share the hope of the hierarchs at the Council that such
Councils will continue to convene regularly, perhaps every 5 to 10
years, to attest that the Orthodox Church, as emphasized by the
Ecumenical Patriarch, exists not as a confederation, but truly as one
Church.
The Kyiv Patriarchate is sensitive to the fact that we were
not invited to join or send delegates to the Council because the
question of recognition of the autocephalous status of the Church of
Ukraine by other Local Churches must still be addressed. However, the
Kyiv Patriarchate, with trust and love for our Mother Church of
Constantinople and in one mind with the Local Orthodox Churches,
considers the matters agreed upon by the Council to have been
sufficiently established for the Orthodox Church.
The position and
response of the Kyiv Patriarchate to the Holy and Great Council and its
decisions will be formally certified at the next meeting of the Holy
Synod of the UOC-KP, but we can today attest that our attitude towards
them is positive, and that we accept the documents adopted by the
Council as an expression of the position of the entire Orthodox Church.
Regarding
the issue that is of greatest immediate concern to most Orthodox
Christians in Ukraine, the recognition of the autocephaly of our Church,
we emphasize that this decision is within the jurisdiction of the
Ecumenical Patriarch and our Mother Church of Constantinople. It is to
them, not to the Great Council, that appeals from both the Kyiv
Patriarchate and the Verkhovna Rada (national parliament) of Ukraine
were addressed. Having received confirmation from an official
representative of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, Archbishop Job of
Telmessos, that these appeals for issuance of a Tomos of Autocephaly
will be considered by the Ecumenical Patriarch and the Synod of the
Ecumenical Patriarchate, we anticipate this review and are prepared to
work towards a positive decision.
The Kyiv Patriarchate expresses
great joy that World Orthodoxy, in convening the Holy and Great Council
in spite of efforts by the Moscow Patriarchate to disrupt it, has
rejected the dictates of the Moscow Patriarchate. In turn, we deeply
regret the response of the Church of Moscow, to employ ethnophyletism
(the primacy of ethnical issues over church matters) and etatism
(servility to state power) to divide and separate, to the harm of its
own flock and the entire Orthodox Church. We pray that with the help of
God and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit this challenge will be
overcome, and the unity of the Orthodox Church preserved and firmly
established.
Press Center of the Kyiv Patriarchate
http://www.portal-credo.ru/site/?act=news&id=121255
http://risu.org.ua/en/index/all_news/orthodox/uoc_kp/63852/
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