Met. Mitrofan: Phanar hierarch’s words about relations with UOC are untrue

Head of the Department for External Church Relations of the UOC Metropolitan Mitrofan of Lugansk and Alchevsk

Head of the Department for External Church Relations of the UOC Metropolitan Mitrofan of Lugansk and Alchevsk called false the words about the visit of Patriarch Bartholomew to Kiev without an invitation 10 years ago, reports the Information and Education Department of the UOC.

In response to the latest decisions of the Holy Synod of the UOC, the hierarch of the Constantinople Patriarchate, Archbishop Job (Getcha), stated that the UOC does not have the right to "expel" the exarchs of Constantinople from Ukraine, because "in inter-church relations, the UOC MP is not a stand-alone entity in dialogue and correspondence, in which only the ROC is involved".

"This is not true," said Metropolitan Mitrofan, "because we are in direct correspondence with the Patriarchate of Constantinople, the proof of which is numerous reciprocal letters that now lie in the archives of both Kiev and Constantinople. And His Grace Job cannot but know this, so it's strange for me to hear such statements of him."

Metropolitan Mitrofan reminded that according to the canon law, any bishop cannot take any actions in the territory of another eparchy without the permission of the local bishop.

"Translated into our situation, this means that the bishop of the city of Constantinople, that is Istanbul, which is Patriarch Bartholomew, cannot take any action on the territory of Kiev and Ukraine without the permission of the canonical bishop of Kiev, which is Metropolitan Onufry, who did not give permission for the visit of "exarchs". I have no doubt that if our Synod hypothetically appointed its exarchs to Turkey without the agreement with Patriarch Bartholomew, the reaction of the latter would be identical to ours. Therefore, there are double standards," the bishop explained.

The DECR chairman also denied the thesis of Archbishop Job that 10 years ago, namely in 2008, the Patriarch of Constantinople came to Kiev allegedly without the invitation of the UOC, and this did not cause any resistance from our Church at that time.

"This is also not true. There was an invitation from our Church then. Let me remind the words from the commentary on this topic by the then chairman of the Department for External Church Relations of the UOC Archimandrite Kirill (Govorun) who said that "the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew comes to Ukraine at a double invitation – from the Church and the state. In this, the church invitation for him has a priority, because he could come to Ukraine without an invitation from the President, but without a church invitation, such a visit would not be possible." It is a pity that today the Patriarchate of Constantinople behaves quite differently," the bishop said.

In his opinion, the representatives of the Patriarchate of Constantinople demonstrate inconsistency by their statements.

"Now they think that the UOC is not independent enough, then they say that our Church does not have the right to independently protect its canonical territory. I would very much advise Phanar to stop, and his representatives not to fuel the media and not compromise the Church with their actions and words. Unless there are anti-canonical, unfriendly and unilateral actions on their part against us, there won’t be such a sharp reaction from our side either," he stressed.

As reported earlier, the Holy Synod has called on Phanar to stop interfering in the internal affairs of the UOC.

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