Patriarch Bartholomew: Despite the Tomos, Ukrainians must unite once again

Patriarch Bartholomew. Photo: French television

The Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople gave a landmark interview to French television. At first glance, his stance on Ukraine seemed unchanged – he refused to revoke the Tomos. Yet much in his tone and message has indeed shifted.

1️⃣. Whereas he once declared that the OCU had united all Orthodox Ukrainians, for the first time he publicly admitted that the Tomos brought no unity. He did not dispute the interviewer’s statement that two parallel jurisdictions exist in Ukraine – the UOC and the OCU.

2️⃣. In 2019, Patriarch Bartholomew officially stated that he was “temporarily tolerating the existence of Ukrainian hierarchs (i.e. the UOC – Ed.) not as ruling bishops, but merely as titulars, or as hierarchs of the Russian Church residing in Ukraine.” Now he effectively acknowledges that the UOC, under Metropolitan Onuphry, truly exists. Consequently, both its Primate and all its bishops are no mere “titulars.”

3️⃣. In a statement that borders on irony, the Patriarch proclaimed a new “goal” for Constantinople in Ukraine: “Our goal is to unite all the Orthodox Churches of Ukraine: both Metropolitan Onuphry and Metropolitan Epiphany, so that they may be united not only in theory, but in practice.”

4️⃣. Most striking of all: Bartholomew now speaks of recognition of Ukrainian autocephaly by the Local Churches not in the context of the OCU, but of some future united Church comprising both the UOC and the OCU.

And whereas the Phanar initially claimed that recognition would take only months, the Patriarch now speaks in the language of decades: “I believe that with God’s grace and the goodwill of the sister Orthodox Churches, this will happen in the coming years or decades.”

The one point on which Bartholomew remains unyielding is his claim to the status of “first without equals.” Neither he nor his successors, he insists, will ever renounce their command over Orthodoxy.

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