Patriarch Bartholomew: I will always stand with Ukraine’s Gagauz

Patriarch Bartholomew meeting with Gagauz representatives. Photo: Association of Gagauz Societies of Ukraine

Patriarch Bartholomew has said he will always stand with the Gagauz of Ukraine. He made the statement during a meeting with Gagauz representatives at the Phanar, participants reported in a Facebook post.

The meeting was held in the Gagauz-Turkic language. The Patriarch also said he prays every day for an end to the war in Ukraine. The meeting was organized by Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry and personally by Roman Nedilskyi, Consul General in Istanbul.

Ukraine is home to around 30,000 Gagauz, most of whom live in Odesa region near the Moldovan border. The ancestors of today’s Ukrainian Gagauz resettled in Bessarabia from the Balkans in the early 19th century.

As the UOJ reported, Patriarch Bartholomew earlier said that he had made a mistake with Ukraine but would not correct anything. The Constantinople Patriarchate remains one of the key actors in the country’s church life after granting the Tomos of Autocephaly to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) in 2019.

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