ROC hierarch: Unity of Orthodoxy is broken due to actions of Phanar Head

Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk. Photo: mospat.ru

On July 4, 2020, the Head of the Department for External Church Relations of the Russian Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, declared that the unity of Orthodoxy was broken today due to the actions of Patriarch Bartholomew. This was reported by the ROC DECR website.

“The Ukrainian schismatics are completely entangled in the gamble that was implemented with the help of the then President of Ukraine Poroshenko, who received the Tomos from Patriarch Bartholomew. But in effect, this Tomos creates a kind of defective semi-autocephalous church on the basis of schismatics who do not have canonical ordination. Accordingly, everything that is happening in this community now is a natural consequence of what happened. Non-canonical schismatic communities elsewhere tend to split. At first, one group may exist, then it gets split into two, then three, etc.,” the hierarch noted.

He emphasized that the head of the UOC-KP Filaret Denisenko “fought for the so-called autocephalous church for more than a quarter century, but when it came to the granting of the Tomos, he was simply discarded. He was allegedly promised something verbally, but it was not fulfilled afterwards. Another person became the head of this structure, Filaret was offended and proclaimed his former structure as existing, i.e. we have already a split in the split. However, we know from history many situations when there were splits which would splinter further on. There was once an old-style schism in Greece, but now there are already eight or nine groups of schismatics there, so this is no wonder at all.”

“I think this story is closed to the Patriarchate of Constantinople, but it not closed to the Orthodox Church worldwide, because under the pressure of Constantinople, some hierarchs of the Patriarchate of Alexandria and the Hellenic Orthodox Church recognized this structure, while the other Orthodox Churches do not recognize it. Consequently, the split that was caused in Ukraine for purely political reasons, due to the actions of Patriarch Bartholomew, is now becoming a pan-Orthodox split, and this is a problem that we all will have to deal with until it is resolved.

The unity of universal Orthodoxy today is broken due to the anti-canonical actions of Patriarch Bartholomew, and we pray and hope for this split to be repaired,” he added.

As reported by the UOJ, previously Deputy Chairman of the Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate, Archpriest Nikolai Balashov, said that attempts to convince the Orthodox people of Ukraine that the Tomos is exactly what they needed to be totally happy were initially deceitful.

Read also