AT SYNAXIS, PATRIARCH BARTHOLOMEW DECLARES RIGHT OF MOTHER-CHURCH TO DECIDE UKRAINIAN ORTHODOX QUESTION
Patriarch Bartholomew delivered a speech at the Synaxis, whose session is proceeding on 1 to 4 September in the patriarchal cathedral of St. George in Constantinople (Istanbul) Turkey.
In his speech, greeting the hierarchs of the church, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew dwelt on the difficulties facing Ukrainian Orthodoxy, calling them difficulties not of the present day, difficulties not created by the ecumenical patriarchate, but which he should, and has the legal right to, resolve.
Patriarch Bartholomew made an excursus into history to the time when the joining of the Orthodox Kiev metropolitanate of the Constantinople patriarchate to Moscow occurred. He was talking about 1686, when Ecumenical Patriarch Dionysius IV and the Holy Synod of the Constantinople church, under pressure of difficult historical circumstances, issued a contradictory tomos about the transfer of the Kiev metropolitanate to the canonical jurisdiction of the Moscow patriarchate.
"Everything began in the early 14th century, when the throne of the Kiev metropolitanate was moved to Moscow without the canonical permission of the Mother-Church. And since that time, unremitting efforts have continued on the part of our Kievan brethren to gain independence from ecclesiastical control on the part of the Moscow center. Actually, the stubbornness of the Moscow patriarchate was the cause of the schism from which the people of Ukraine have suffered until the present," Bartholomew I noted in his speech.
The ecumenical patriarch said that a consideration of this question, taking into account the holy canons, does not justify any intervention on the part of the Russian church, since this is not the jurisdiction of the Moscow patriarchate. The Kiev metropolitanate, Patriarch Bartholomew noted again, "has remained constantly and without interruption within canonical dependence on the Constantinople Mother-Church."
The patriarch accentuated the fact that the Mother-Church (the Constantinople patriarchate) has not yielded its canonical rights over Ukraine, and in this situation, which has developed today within Ukrainian Orthodoxy, and developed because of Russia, which could not solve the problem, the ecumenical patriarchate has taken upon itself the initiative to decide the Ukrainian question. The Mother-Church has this responsibility, according to the authorization granted to it by the holy canons, and taking into consideration the jurisdictional responsibility of Constantinople over the Kiev metropolitanate.
Patriarch Bartholomew told the hierarchs of the ecumenical patriarchate about the request to grant a tomos of autocephaly to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church from the Ukrainian parliament and also about the periodic requests of Patriarch of Kiev Filaret to appeal his case (that is, to remove the anathema imposed by the Moscow patriarchate—ed.).
In his speech, Patriarch Bartholomew mentioned Bishop Professor Makary Kristopolis, who has studied the Ukrainian question for a long time and sent an official report of 90 pages on this matter to the Constantinople episcopate.
Having studied all relevant church canons, the canonists of the ecumenical patriarchate drew the conclusion that "only the Constantinople patriarch alone has the privilege to judge and decide the conflicts of bishops, clergy, and metropolitans of other patriarchs."
"The mission of the ecumenical patriarchate does not consist in imposing new ecclesiastical principles but in preserving the truths of the faith, traditions, and inspired patristic teachings that were created many centuries ago. The ecumenical patriarchate bears responsibility for resolving issues of ecclesiastical and canonical procedure, since it only has the canonical privilege to fulfill this supreme duty," Patriarch Bartholomew summed up. (tr. by PDS, posted 3 September 2018)
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