Mass media: Patriarch Bartholomew might be dethroned because of Ukraine

The representative of the Antioch Patriarchate declared that the convocation of the Pan-Orthodox Council could take place without the participation of Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople

The Antiochian Church seeks a peaceful resolution of the Ukrainian church crisis, but Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople "makes a mistake" and the Orthodox Churches can convene a general Orthodox Council without him. This was said by the vicar of His Beatitude Patriarch John of X of Antioch, Bishop Qais (Sadek) of Erzurum in the commentary to RIA Novosti.

“We recognize with honor the Patriarch of Constantinople, but today the problem is that the Patriarch of Constantinople makes a mistake,” the publication reports the words of the representative of the Antioch Patriarchate. “If all Orthodox Churches convene a Pan-Orthodox Council without him and decide to depose the Constantinople Primate, it might happen.”

The Bishop explained that if the Orthodox world has a desire to convene a general Church Council, then “each Church makes a decision on its own and reaches an agreement on this issue”, and only then “sends a request to the Patriarch of Constantinople” to convene the Council.

“However, this is not a hard-and-fast rule. There is another possibility: any Orthodox Church has the right to reach an agreement with other Churches and convene a Council,” he noted.

Bishop Qais stressed that the Antiochian Church does not want any radical solution of the issue and advocates that "there should be peace in the Church".

“In order for the Patriarch of Constantinople to overhaul his decision and to resolve the church crisis in Ukraine peacefully so that schismatics could return to the canonical Church,” he added.

As the UOJ reported, earlier Patriarch Bartholomew rejected the proposal of the Primate of the Antioch Orthodox Church to hold a pan-Orthodox discussion of the religious situation in Ukraine, stating that he “has serious reasons” to refrain from a general Orthodox meeting, while the discussion of the religious situation in Ukraine itself was called “senseless”.

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