UOC comments on Constantinople’s communiqué on Tomos for SLOC
In the opinion of Protopriest Nikolai Danilevich, the Patriarchate of Constantinople intends to coordinate the issue of Ukrainian autocephaly with all the Local Orthodox Churches.
The Patriarchate of Constantinople being responsible for the Pan-Orthodox unity will not do anything to disturb this unity. This was written by deputy head of the Department for External Church Relations of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Protopriest Nikolai Danilevich on his Facebook page.
"Leaving behind the brackets the question of who to provide this autocephaly with as well as other issues, I would like to draw attention to two points in the text of the statement: 1. "...Ecumenical Patriarchate... which concerns itself with the preservation of All-Orthodox unity..." decided in view of this 2." to have a close contact with other Orthodox Churches for the purpose of communicating (them about this) and coordinating (with them this matter)" [the translation from Greek is mine]," writes father Nikolai.
According to him, this means that the Patriarchate of Constantinople, which concerns itself with the preservation of Pan-Orthodox unity,
"1. Will not do anything that would preclude this unity,
2. Has an intention to coordinate the issue of Ukrainian autocephaly with all the Local Orthodox Churches. Namely, this was the subject of yesterday's statement by the DECR of the UOC (hello to Mr. Evstratii Zorya, Yu. Chernomorets, and other commentators who criticized this point of the statement insisting that Constantinople is authorized to do it without other Churches."
"Thus, believers of the UOC can be calm. Other details will be added tomorrow. And today you can sleep peacefully – at least, believers of the UOC. Good night! ", wrote the deputy head of the DECR.
Earlier, on April 22, the Secretariat of the Constantinople Patriarchate announced that the Synod would examine the matters pertaining to the ecclesiastical situation in Ukraine, as it was done in previous synodal sessions.
In his turn, President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko reported on Facebook that “the Ecumenical Patriarchate had begun the procedures necessary to grant autocephaly to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.”
