Polish autocephalous model cannot be implemented in Ukraine, – expert

Aleksey Smirnov on the air of the radio Vesti

This was stated by the religious expert in the interview to Argumenty i Fakty.

"There is one significant obstacle that does not allow us to identify the Polish model for obtaining autocephaly and today's attempts by Phanar to grant a canonical status to unrecognized Orthodox faiths in Ukraine," the expert said. “The fact is that the hierarchs of the UOC-KP do not have canonical ordinations, unlike the episcopate of the Polish Church of the 20s of the last century. They tend to hide this point in every possible way. The Kyiv Patriarchate emerged from scratch, as a parallel hierarchy in relation to the existing Ukrainian Orthodox Church. Thus, the only historical and canonical successor to the Kiev Metropolis is the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, headed by Metropolitan Onufriy."

The religious expert reminded that Tomos, which Constantinople gave to the Polish Church, did not bring about any positive result.

"1/3 of all Orthodox churches in Poland, including the monumental Cathedral of Alexander Nevsky, were destroyed," Smirnov said. “Many churches were handed over to Catholics. Such results cannot be considered success of the ecclesiastic diplomacy of the Patriarchate of Constantinople."

The expert suggested that even now, in the case of harsh steps of Constantinople, everything will end miserably now for Ukrainian Orthodoxy.

"In our case, whatever Constantinople and the self-proclaimed Kyiv Patriarchate might undertake, all sooner or later will come to realize the need for a dialogue with the UOC and the ROC," the expert believes. "Without this, the canonicity of the newly created structure remains questionable."

In 1924, Patriarch Gregory VII of Constantinople, in circumvention of the opinion of the Moscow Patriarchate, signed the Tomos on granting autocephaly to the Polish Church. In 1948, the delegation of the POC led by Archbishop of Białystok and Belsk Timothy appealed to the Russian Church with a petition for the creation on the territory of Poland of the canonical autocephalous Orthodox Church. As a result, the "Act on the reunification of the Polish Church with the Russian Orthodox Church and on granting autocephaly to the POC" was signed.

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