Head of the Polish Church: Epiphany is not a member of the clergy

Metropolitan Sawa of Warsaw and All Poland

Metropolitan Sawa of Warsaw and All Poland did not congratulate newly elected "Metropolitan of Kiev and All Ukraine" Epiphany because he considers him a secular man. The Primate of the Polish Orthodox Church spoke about this in an interview with Polityka.

“This young secular man suffered great harm when he was appointed metropolitan,” answered the Primate to the journalist’s question. “In the light of canon law, he is not a priest. He is not ordained in the canonical Church.”

Metropolitan Sawa reminded that, according to church canons, only the Church from which they fell away from can return the schismatics to the bosom of the Church.

“Of course, provided that the schismatics repent,” he explained. “Later they can be ordained as priests and create an autocephalous Church in Ukraine.”

The Polish Primate expressed concern about the non-observance of canon law in the Ukrainian ecclesiastic issue.

“Violation of this (canon law – Ed.) is a bad precedent. It is possible that in Poland, where more than a million Ukrainians live, there will be a group of believers for whom Filaret will try to organize his parishes in Poland. I recently heard that the Right Sector had already studied the possibilities of Epiphany’s visit to Poland. Chaos awaits us,” the Archpastor noted.

He stressed that first the Ukrainian authorities need to unite the country and put an end to the war, and only then engage in ecclesiastic affairs.

“In Poland, relations with the state are regulated by law – Catholic Church has a Concordat, we use an act that regulates property issues. In Ukraine, all power is in the hands of the state, it may even deprive the Church of its registration. But the most important thing is that the Church should to be created by uniting believers. They must decide which church they want to belong to,” the head of the Polish Orthodox Church concluded.

Earlier, the Polish Orthodox Church gave a negative response to the letter with the proposal of Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew to recognize the OCU and its new leader. Copies of the letter of the reply to Constantinople were sent to the Primates of all Local Orthodox Churches, including His Beatitude Metropolitan Onufriy.

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