UPTs CALLS ITS PARTICIPATION IN UNIFICATION COUNCIL "ABSOLUTELY IMPOSSIBLE"
Interfax-Religiia, 9 November 2018
The chancellery of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UPTs) ruled out the possibility of participation in a unification council, whose goal is to create a new church in Ukraine that is independent from the Moscow patriarchate.
"It is absolutely impossible. The 'fathers' of this so-called council, as it is proposed, will be schismatics, people who named themselves priests and bishops. It is remarkable that even Patriarch Bartholomew himself, although he announced the removal of church discipline from Filaret, has until now not joined with him around the eucharistic chalice," the chancellor of the UPTs, Metropolitan of Borispol and Brovary Antony, declared in an interview with the Greek publication Ortodoxia.info.
Moreover, he said, the canonical church of Ukraine cannot join with Filaret, when he, for almost 30 years "persecuted [it] with the support of politicians, slandered its episcopate, blessed the seizing of its churches and beating of believers, for which there exists a mass of proofs."
The representative of the UPTs had difficulty saying how the tension over the church question in Ukraine can be reduced. "Unfortunately, today the Phanar is a blank wall through which the voice of millions of believers of our church is not being heard," the chancellor said.
In Metropolitan Antony's opinion, the cause of the church schism in Ukraine, which arose almost 30 years ago, is the personal ambition of Filaret, who did not become the patriarch of Moscow, and "the cause of all the present problems is the personal ambition of Patriarch Bartholomew."
Commenting on the aspirations of Patriarch Bartholomew for primacy in the Orthodox Church, the UPTs chancellor noted that "the church lives by the gospel and not by 'privileges' of a nonexistent empire," and that the gospel says: whoever calls himself the first will be last.
"And if someone dares to call himself the first, then the Lord points such people to his own example, which means that to be the first is not to send out directives about submission to one's self as Constantinople's bishops now interpret, but to serve all the others, washing their feet and being crucified for them. If the Phanar does not break down the blank wall in itself and will ignore in the future a pan-Orthodox dialogue on the Ukrainian question, then it is risking not only not hearing the voice of the believing Ukrainian flock but not hearing the voice of Christ Himself," the representative of the UPTs thinks. (tr. by PDS, posted 9 November 2018)
Editorial disclaimer: RRN does
not intend to certify the accuracy of information
presented in articles. RRN simply intends to certify the
accuracy of the English translation of the contents of the
articles as they appeared in news media of countries of
the former USSR.
If material is quoted, please give credit to the
publication from which it came. It is not necessary to credit
this Web page. If material is transmitted electronically, please
include reference to the URL,
http://www.stetson.edu/~psteeves/relnews/.