UKRAINIAN QUESTION WILL BE CONSIDERED AT SYNOD IN ISTANBUL, 19-21 OCTOBER
Interfax-Religiia, 4 September 2018
The session of the Constantinople synod, at which it is expected that the "Ukrainian question" will be discussed, will occur in Istanbul on 19-21 October. These dates were announced by the vice-chairman of the Department for External Church Relations of the UPTs [of the Moscow Patriarchate--tr.], Archpriest Nikolai Danilevich.
"The next synod of the Constantinople church will be on 19-21 October and the following session of the synod will be in November. I note immediately that the order of the sessions of the synod was determined near the start of the year," the priest, who was quoted by the Information and Enlightenment Department of the UPTs, said.
Earlier, as reported, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko declared that the Constantinople patriarchate had made a decision to grant to all states the right to create a local church. In their turn, a number of Ukrainian news media stated that the Synaxis of the Constantinople church, which is now going on, would supposedly make a decision to grant autocephaly to Ukraine.
Meanwhile, the representative of the UPTs pointed out that the Synaxis, that is a bishops' council, does not make decisions and has a consultative character.
"That is, in the course of these three days, during the meeting, the hierarchs give attention to various questions. When we hear that the Synaxis has decided something, there is nothing of the sort. The bishops of the Constantinople Orthodox Church will decide nothing now," the priest explained.
In his opinion, the reason for the appearance of all sorts of conjectures on this topic is the "vacuum of information" about the Synaxis and about the meeting of patriarchs Kirill and Bartholomew in Istanbul. In this regard, the representative of the UPTs urged everybody "to believe only official information and not to believe rumors." (tr. by PDS, posted 4 September 2018)
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