New Greek “bishop” of OCU meets with Patriarch Bartholomew

Patriarch Bartholomew and “bishop” Epifanios. Photo: Romfea

The new Greek “bishop” of the OCU arrived at Phanar, where on May 28, 2019, he met with Patriarch Bartholomew and received his blessing. This is reported by Romfea resource.

According to the publication, Epifanios, who for the world Orthodoxy is still the archimandrite of the Hellas Church, asked the head of the Patriarchate of Constantinople for patriarchal blessing for his "episcopal" activity in the OCU.

According to journalists, the "bishop of Olvia" "conveyed the respect, gratitude and love of His Beatitude Metropolitan Epiphany of Kiev and all Ukraine, as well as his hierarchs, to the Constantinople Mother-Church."

It is reported that the Patriarch of Constantinople "with his fatherly love wished Bishop Epifanios a successful mission for the benefit of the Ukrainian people of God, and especially the Greek Orthodox".

Recall, Archimandrite Epifanios (Demetriou), until recently, was a cleric of the Demetrias and Almuros Metropolis of the Greek Orthodox Church, headed by Metropolitan Ignatios (Georgakopoulos). On May 26, 2019, the "episcopate" of the OCU in the presence of the representatives of Phanar, Metropolitan Emmanuel (Adamakis) of France and Metropolitan Amphilochios of Adrianopolis, Epifanios was ordained "bishop of Olvia". It is still not clear how the cleric of the Church of Greece could relate to the structures of Phanar and the OCU, as well as what the position of his ruling Bishop Ignatios on this matter is. 

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