Metropolitan Alexander (Drabinko) explained his participation in the "Council"
Drabinko stated that the decisions of the UOC Council are uncanonical and he is now awaiting the presentation of the Tomos to the new "primate."
Metropolitan Alexander (Drabinko) expressed full support for the decisions of the Synod of the Patriarchate of Constantinople and also accused the Moscow Patriarchate of unwillingness to resolve the issue of the Ukrainian schism. This is stated in the official statement of Metropolitan Alexander (Drabinko), published on his Facebook page on December 16.
"To great regret, over 27 years of independent Ukraine's existence, the Moscow Patriarchate has not found within itself the desire to overcome the schism among Orthodox Christians in Ukraine, and so the President and parliament, as representatives of the Ukrainian people, appealed to His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I with a request to intervene and reconcile the Orthodox confessions of Ukraine, as well as to grant a tomos of autocephaly," the text states.
According to Metropolitan Alexander, the subordination of the Kyiv Metropolitanate to the Moscow Patriarchate in 1686 was "absolutely unlawful."
"In such a situation, the decision to cease Eucharistic communion with the holy Church of Constantinople is groundless and illogical, for, apart from being completely unjustified, it reveals a clear attempt to exert pressure through the Cup of Christ's Unity, which in itself is entirely inadmissible and sinful," Drabinko stated.
According to him, the purpose of Constantinople's decisions is to heal the wounds of the schism on the body of the Orthodox Church in Ukraine.
"That is precisely why we took part in the unifying Local Council. We await the presentation by His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of the Tomos of Autocephaly to the newly elected primate of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine," Metropolitan Alexander concluded.
As a reminder, Metropolitan Alexander is one of two hierarchs of the UOC (along with "Metropolitan" Simeon) who were present at the "unifying Council." Their participation was commented on by the head of the Synodal Information and Education Department of the UOC, Archbishop Kliment. According to him, these hierarchs no longer have any relation to the UOC: "We merely note that they have joined the schism, and we will inform the Local Churches that they are no longer listed in the diptych of canonical bishops of Ukraine," Archbishop Kliment emphasized.
Also, Metropolitan Alexander claimed in 2010 that he himself was the creator of the ideology of the "Russian World."
