Serbian Church: Politicians backed by Phanar deepened the schism in Ukraine

His Holiness Patriarch Irinej of Serbia

If autocephaly was to be understood in a different way, as an element of state sovereignty, national distinction, or separation, then it does not contribute to unity and the building up of the Church, says the annual Nativity message of His Holiness Patriarch Irinej of Serbia and all the bishops of the Serbian Orthodox Church posted on the official Serbian Orthodox Church’s website on January 3.

Speaking of the Ukrainian autocephaly, the Serbian hierarchs noted that “in close and brotherly Ukraine, where angry chauvinists, the Russophobes, led by corrupted politicians, and with the assistance of Uniates, and unfortunately with the noncanonical participation of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, have deepened and spread the existing schisms and have seriously endangered the unity of Orthodoxy in its entirety”.  

The Serbian Church reminds that autocephaly is an ecclesiastical privilege that does not belong to the political sphere, which should enhance the development and strengthening of unity among the Local Orthodox Churches.

“If, according to the logic of this world, autocephaly was to be understood in a different way, as an element of state sovereignty, national distinction, or separation, then it does not contribute to unity and the building up of the Church, but encourages self-sufficiency and selfishness, it also becomes paradoxically blasphemy against the Holy Spirit,” reads the Nativity epistle of the Serbian Orthodox Church.

As the UOJ reported, earlier the head of the Serbian Orthodox Church, His Holiness Patriarch Irinej, condemned the Phanar’s decision to grant autocephaly to schismatic church structures in Ukraine, saying that Patriarch Bartholomew had a great temptation.

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