UOC bishop responds to Patriarch Bartholomew’s call for unity with Catholics
Metropolitan Boholep criticized the idea of uniting with Rome through doctrinal compromises for the sake of unity in name only.
Metropolitan Boholep of Oleksandriia and Svitlovodsk has commented on Patriarch Bartholomew’s efforts to pursue unity with the Catholic Church, stressing that truth must never be sacrificed for the sake of compromise.
The hierarch said that attempts to establish Church unity through administrative agreements without unity of faith were unacceptable. According to him, a model in which both sides retain their respective doctrines while beginning to celebrate services and receive Communion together has nothing to do with genuine unity in Christ.
“Church unity is possible only on the basis of unity in truth. We pray for unity, but I believe compromises made to achieve that unity are entirely inappropriate. Truth cannot be sacrificed even for the sake of the most universal unity.”
Metropolitan Boholep also raised several pointed questions about the prospect of union with Rome, citing serious doctrinal differences between Orthodox Christians and Catholics.
“Would the Roman pontiff be willing to relinquish his universal authority in pursuit of unity with the Orthodox? What should be done about the dogma of papal infallibility? Or the doctrine of the Filioque? Where will the Roman Church look for authority – to the pope or to the ecumenical councils?”
According to the hierarch, these straightforward questions “take the grand rhetoric out of discussions about unity.”
The metropolitan emphasized that genuine reunification is possible only through unity in the true faith and sacraments.
“The Church is not united simply because everyone has reached an agreement. It is united when we are all one in Christ, when we are all united in the true faith, when we are all united in the true sacraments, and when we are all united in the apostolic tradition. How we approach the truth will largely determine not only our spiritual future but also our salvation.”
Earlier, Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, speaking at the closing session of the 27th International Congress of the Society for the Law of the Eastern Churches in Budapest, expressed his desire to restore full communion with the Roman Catholic Church and revive the ancient Pentarchy together with Rome.
As the UOJ previously reported, American theologian Peter Heers described ecumenism as a heresy at the ecclesiological level and a direct path toward the religion of the Antichrist.
