The arrival of Phanar to Ukraine will petrify schism for centuries, – UOC

Deputy Head of the Department for External Church Relations of the UOC, Protopriest Nikolai Danilevich

According to the deputy head of the Department for External Church Relations of the UOC, Protopriest NIkolai Danilevich, the arrival of Constantinople in Ukraine preserves separation for centuries.

"The creation of parallel jurisdiction in Ukraine will mean the end of any dreams of the unity of the Church,” noted Danilevich in the second issue of the magazine "Shepherd and Flock". “The arrival of Constantinople in Ukraine will petrify this legal division for centuries. Therefore, in this situation, when our Church opposes another jurisdiction on its territory, this is not due to the fact that it defends the "interests of Moscow", but because we really want a single Church with a canonical basis. Otherwise, they will simply divide us for a long time, if not forever."

In the opinion of the deputy head of the DECR, those who "allegedly" stand for a single Church, in fact, want to resolve questions with their own canonicity and their global unity either does not interest them, or they do not fully understand the consequences.

The priest noted that attempts by dissenters contradict ecclesiastic principles, according to which in one place there should be one bishop, not two.

"The principle of organization of the Church is territorial, not national. If several nationalities live in one territory, they must in any case have one bishop, rather than several bishops for each nationality," the UOC representative explained.

Earlier Protopriest Nikolai Danilevich said that Constantinople did not assume any obligations in relation to granting autocephaly to the Ukrainian Church.

On April the Verkhovna Rada approved ”church-related initiatives” by President Poroshenko on creating a Single Local Church in Ukraine. 268 MPs voted for the President’s Address to Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople.

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