UPTs PASTORS SAVED ORTHODOXY, UKRAINE, AND RUSSIA
The Council of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UPTs) rejected the autocephaly of Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew. This is a historic decision which will save Ukraine, Russia, and Orthodoxy.
What did UPTs bishops decide?
At the council on Tuesday, 13 November, 83 of 90 bishops of the UPTs were present. All signed the decision, except for one. In the opinion of the pastors of the UPTs, autocephaly "does not reflect a necessity within the church, will not bring real church unity, and will deepen the division and intensify the conflicts among the people of Ukraine."
The Council also declared invalid the decision of the Synod of the patriarchate of Constantinople of 11 October 2018 regarding the Ukrainian church question and severed eucharistic communion with it. The removal of the anathema from the schismatics is "a consequence of a distorted interpretation of Orthodox canons," the decision says.
It is noted that "having recognized the schismatics as of valid clerical rank, the patriarchate of Constantinople, according to church rules, has placed itself on the path of schism." The bishops of the UPTs considered "as impermissible the illegal interference of the patriarchate of Constantinople in the internal affairs of another local church and the attempts to resolve the Ukrainian church question with the participation of governmental authorities and schismatics, ignoring the voice of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church."
"In the event of the adoption of corresponding draft laws by the Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada (concerning autocephaly), the Ukrainian Orthodox Church will protect its rights by all legal means, which are provided by the foundations of the social concept of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and by legislation of Ukraine and the European Convention on Human Rights," the communication says.
This was a historic decision
As Roman Lunkin, the director of the Center for the Study of Problems of Religion and Society of the Institute of Europe of the Russian Academy of Sciences, told Pravda.ru, the council confirmed the decision of the Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church (RPTs) and the decision of the Synod of the UPTs assessing the actions of the Constantinople patriarchate as contradicting canonical traditions. "Representatives of the government and schismatics were assured that they had already introduced schism into the rank of the Ukrainian episcopate, but it turned out that this is not so," Roman Lunkin told Pravda.ru.
Only two apostate bishops arrived for a meeting with Poroshenko, he noted. In the Pravda.ru expert's opinion, Metropolitan Onufrey demonstrated a strong and balanced position and his influence among the episcopate of the UPTs, "which terribly annoys the authorities and Poroshenko himself, because it shows the senselessness and futility of the process that they began in the spring."
Today the Ukrainian Orthodox Church is the most civically and politically active structure in Ukraine, which is not subject to massive pressure from politicians, Roman Lunkin added in his Pravda.ru interview. The UPTs is absolutely independent from Moscow and from the Russian Orthodox Church, and, in the expert's opinion, the events in Ukraine in the future will exert much more influence on Russia "than the influence that Russia now exerts on Ukraine."
The unified position of the UPTs and the RPTs with regard to Bartholomew's initiative guarantees the unity of Orthodoxy and the Russian and Ukrainian peoples. This is the base, which will not allow the U.S.A. to destroy Russia with the help of Ukraine and will bring capable politicians to power, since the ideology of Orthodoxy differs from the ideology of Catholics and protestants. It is the ideology of negotiations and the search for compromises and not bombast and sanctions.
The role of the U.S.A. in the murder of Orthodoxy and Slavic statehood
It is accepted that the American politician Zbigniew Brzezinski did not say that the West's next enemy after communism is Orthodoxy. Just like the European bureaucrat Carl Bildt, that Putin is dangerous inasmuch as he promotes his values with the help of "Eastern Orthodoxy."
But here, reader, for you is the testimony of an Orthodox priest from England, Archpriest Andrew Phillips, who on the website Orthodoxengland.org.uk writes in an article "What I could not say in a VSS interview" about the editorial policy of this "independent" publication. "President Putin and the government of the Russian Federation are evil"—that is the first criterion. "The 164-million-strong Russian Orthodox Church is a plaything in their hands"—that is the second.
"These criteria proceed from the fact that the Russian authorities do not agree with the cultural and political imperialism of the U.S.A., and the Russian Orthodox Church, like the Russian Orthodox people, think that way too." This unites them, and they "should be attacked and destroyed in an organized campaign, just as the western states did with the Russian imperial government and the church in 1917," Andrew Phillips writes.
He continues: the RPTs "is supposed to become a hand-made colony of the U.S.A. like the tiny and impoverished patriarchate of Constantinople, dependent on the humiliating political and financial support of the U.S.A. for survival in hostile Turkey." The archpriest points out that the American ambassador in Kiev, John Herbst (2003-2006) "openly advocated schism and church dissolution. And his efforts at sectarian schism had some success in Ukraine, thanks, naturally, to American dollars."
Today we understand that in six years after the writing of the article, Washington's successes from some have become significant. The U.S.A. has come close to its intended goal—the destruction of Orthodoxy and the statehood of Slavic peoples based upon it and their morality and culture.
It was for this reason that Yugoslavia was dismembered and Bulgaria and Romania were enslaved, and Serbia almost and Ukraine almost. From this point of view, the Ukrainian pastors, by their firm position, give us hope in the fact that they refused to budge and turned the planet back like that battalion commander that Vysotsky sang about. (tr. by PDS, posted 17 November 2018)
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