DECR UOC: Orthodox world sees it is not UOC that has changed but Phanar

Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople. Photo: golos.ua

The Ukrainian Orthodox Church has not changed – Constantinople has. The deputy head of the Department for External Church Relations, the spokesman of the UOC, Archpriest Nikolai Danilevich wrote about this on his telegram channel on Monday, August 23rd.

“In this whole story with the tomos and the role of Constantinople in it (which is topical again due to the arrival of Bartholomew to Ukraine), it is important to understand one simple thing: the UOC has not changed and has not changed its position over all this time. The UOC did not disappear to be announced as "defunct"; the UOC did not fall into heresy or schism to no longer be considered as the Church or canonically non-existent ," the priest noted.

He stressed that the UOC continues to follow the principles of Orthodox ecclesiology.

But the one who has changed, trampled on the canons and Orthodox ecclesiology is Constantinople, which first recognized the canonical Church in Ukraine, but then recognized the schismatics and created a parallel church structure.

“Patriarch Bartholomew is the one who changed himself and changed his position, turning everything in the Church upside down, calling black white and vice versa. And now he is trying to prove to everyone that he did everything right. In fact, this is not so, and the whole Orthodox world understands it and deplores it,” summed up Archpriest Nikolai Danilevich.

As reported by the UOJ, the hierarch of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church commented on the words of the head of Phanar that the UOC cares about foreign interests, rather than church criteria.

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