Bishop of BOC participates in liturgy with Phanariots commemorating Dumenko

Metropolitan Cyprian (left) and Metropolitan Emmanuel (right). Photo: fosfanariou.gr

On December 26, 2021, Metropolitan Cyprian of Stara Zagora of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church took part in the liturgy, at which Epifany Dumenko was commemorated as the “metropolitan” of Kyiv, according to the pro-Phanar edition fosfanariou.gr.

The Divine Liturgy in the church of St. Stephen, which belongs to the Bulgarian community of Istanbul (under the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Constantinople), was led by Metropolitan Emmanuel of Chalcedon.

During the reading of the diptychs at the worship, the deacon of the Patriarchate of Constantinople also mentioned “Epifaniy of Kyiv” among the names of the primates of the Orthodox Churches.

The Church of Bulgaria belongs to those Orthodox Churches that did not recognize the Tomos of "autocephaly" granted to the Ukrainian schismatics by Patriarch Bartholomew.

It is worth noting that at the beginning of 2019 Metropolitan Cyprian of Stara Zagora was the head of a special commission created by the Church of Bulgaria to study the issue of Ukrainian "autocephaly", and no decision was made at that time.

Earlier, the UOJ wrote that Metropolitan Cyprian of Stara Zagora categorically denied the information disseminated on Ukrainian Internet sites that the Bulgarian Church supported the autocephaly of the OCU.

Later, Metropolitan Cyprian said that the "Ukrainian issue" will be “resolved in a canonical manner with God's help, and "the Church will be one, apostolic and catholic" with His Beatitude Metropolitan Onufriy.

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