IN RUN-UP TO SYNOD BARTHOLOMEW ACKNOWLEDGES THAT QUESTION OF AUTOCEPHALY IS NOT RESOLVED
Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew acknowledged three days before the Synod that the procedure for granting autocephaly has not been fully settled, inasmuch as they did not manage to discuss it at the Orthodox council on Crete in 2016 because of the absence of many local Orthodox churches, including the Russia, but he intends to bring to a finish the granting of a tomos to Ukraine.
Bartholomew spoke on Saturday at an extraordinary session of the Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church in his honor. The patriarch of Constantinople is now in Bucharest where a new cathedral church was opened. Patriarch Bartholomew spoke again about plans "to present in the near future the status of autocephaly to the church that has been subject to schism over the course of many years." He said the decision of the Constantinople church is "another sacrificial action for the benefit of many millions of Ukrainian believers."
Bartholomew repeated that he has the right to grant a tomos of autocephaly "to Kiev, an ancient ecclesiastical region of Constantinople."
He said that the preparation for the Crete Orthodox council in 2016 provided for another resolution of the problem of granting autocephaly, but the question was not discussed at the council because of the absence of four local churches, including the Russian Orthodox Church. "Until that point, however, we had not achieved unanimity on the responsibility of the ecumenical patriarchate and as a result autocephaly was not included in the final catalog of topics subject to study by the Holy and Great Council," Bartholomew said.
He also appealed for support to the Romanian Orthodox Church, which still has not announced its position regarding Ukraine.
"We are sure that the holy church of Romania also will facilitate the maintenance of church unity and order in the name of justice," Bartholomew said.
Until now, not one local church has supported the decision of the Phanar (the region in Istanbul where the residence of the patriarch of Constantinople is located—ed. note) regarding the removal of the anathema from the schismatic patriarch of the uncanonical UPTs of the Kiev Patriarchate, Filaret.
A Synod of the Constantinople church will be held in Turkey on 27-29 November. The main question there is expected to be the situation concerning separation of church and state in Greece, which directly involves the Constantinople patriarchate. At the same time it is proposed also to discuss the process of granting autocephaly to Ukraine. However they still have not managed to agree even on the date of a "unification council," which the local noncanonical church and the Kiev authorities want to conduct. . . . (tr. by PDS, posted 25 November 2018)
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