Patriarch Bartholomew: Disputing Phanar primacy disrupts unity of Churches

Patriarch Bartholomew. Photo: Ecumenical Patriarchate/orthodoxtimes.com

The Ecumenical Patriarchate was and remains the First Throne in the Orthodox Church, and challenging the role of the Great Church of Christ brings instability and disrupts the unity of Orthodoxy. Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople spoke about it on Sunday, November 8, 2020, having performed episcopal ordination for the Exarch of Phanar in Ukraine, reports Orthodox Times.

According to the head of the Patriarchate of Constantinope, “The care of the Ecumenical Throne was the motive and firm criterion for its decision to grant autocephaly to the Church in Ukraine, which suffered as a result of the schism and longed for communion and unity. What is said and written shamelessly about other motives in the relevant decision of the Ecumenical Patriarchate is false.”

In addition, Pat. Bartholomew stressed that “the Ecumenical Patriarchate has long held a dialogue with the Moscow Patriarchate on the church situation in Ukraine. However, Moscow has constantly hampered the progress and was the stumbling block to the positive outcome of this dialogue.”

“That is why we have been led to the Ukrainian autocephaly, which no dispute or any effort by any Church can cancel,” upheld the Phanar head and added that “any attempt, whether it is called a unilateral break of Eucharistic communion, or a 'fraternal meeting', as had been the case months ago in Amman, Jordan, or an attempt to discredit the Ecumenical Patriarchate and its primate by falsely blaming them for creating the problems in Orthodox relations, not only they do not lead to a positive result, but cause further tensions, tarnish the image of Orthodoxy in the eyes of other Christians, and weaken its testimony in the modern world.”
 
The head of Phanar reiterated that “the Ecumenical Patriarchate was and remains the First Throne in the Orthodox Church.”

“The power of the Great Church is not secular. The logic of power prevails in the secular institutions, but the Church is governed by non-negotiable divinely written and given spiritual laws. The Church of Constantinople was blessed by God to be the guardian of the Tradition of the Apostles and the Fathers,” declared Patriarch Bartholomew.

It will be reminded that on November 8, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew presided over the Divine Liturgy at Phanar and was concelebrated by the “hierarchs” of the OCU. The ordination of the newly elected Bishop of Komana and Exarch of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Kyiv, Michail, took place during the Divine Liturgy.

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