UPTs REMINDS CONSTANTINOPLE THAT IT HAS NOT EXISTED FOR A VERY LONG TIME
Interfax-Religiia, 2 November 2018
The Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (UPTsMP) treated ironically the words of a representative of Constantinople to the effect that the Ukrainian Orthodox Church is no more, inasmuch as it [i.e. Constantinople—tr.] annulled the order concerning the transfer of the Kievan metropolitanate to Moscow.
"The UPTs is definitely certain that Constantinople has not existed for 565 years. This is a historical fact. But, it seems, on the Phanar (the district of Istanbul where the patriarch's residence is located—IF) this has still not been noticed," the vice-chairman of the Department for External Church Relations of the UPTs, Archpriest Nikolai Danilevich, told Interfax on Friday.
"But the UPTs exists," he added. "And this also is a historical fact. And it is obvious. Therefore such statements by individual representatives of the patriarchate of Constantinople seem to be some kind of canonical surrealism."
This is the way that Father Nikolai commented on the words of the representative of the patriarch of Constantinople to the World Council of Churches, Archbishop Job, regarding the fact that the recent Synod in Istanbul effectively liquidated the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
"The repeal of the act of 1686 annulled the administration of the Kievan metropolitanate and all dioceses in Ukraine by the Moscow church. From a canonical point of view, this means that today the UPTsMP does not exist any longer in Ukraine. All bishops now in Ukraine de facto, according to this decision by the Synod, are bishops of the ecumenical see," the archbishop said in an interview on BBC Ukraine.
On 11 October, the Synod in Istanbul cancelled the legal force of its order of 1686 regarding the transfer of the Kievan metropolitanate to Moscow, announced the creation of its own annex in Kiev, and rehabilitated the leaders of the self-proclaimed Orthodox churches in Ukraine. In response, the Synod of the patriarchate of Moscow announced the complete severance of relations with the Constantinople church. (tr. by PDS, posted 2 November 2018)
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