Metropolitan Anthony: Who recognizes OCU recognizes de facto Phanar’s rule
By recognizing OCU, Local Churches will inevitably agree with the thesis in the Tomos that the Patriarchate of Constantinople has primacy over all.
The Phanar’s strategy of establishing its power over other Local Churches is clearly traced in the recognition of the OCU by the Patriarchate of Constantinople,” Metropolitan Anthony of Borispol and Brovary, Chancellor of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, said in an interview with “Orthodox Interlocutor” newspaper of the Estonian Orthodox Church.
The hierarch points out what the Tomos states in black and white – the OCU recognizes the Constantinople Patriarchate as its head.
“It recognizes inasmuch as other Patriarchs and Primates – which is particularly underscored in the document”. This semantically significant wording prompts an idea that the situation with the OCU can serve as a prologue to the full-scale legalization of Phanar’s claims to lead other Local Churches. After all, those Churches that will choose to recognize the OCU and consider the Tomos granted to it legitimate will de facto agree that the Patriarchate of Constantinople is also their head,” noted His Eminence Anthony.
As a result, the Metropolitan assures, total zeroing and erosion of the very concept of “autocephaly” can follow.
“Nominally, all the churches will remain supposedly independent, but in reality all the real administrative powers will be assigned to the Ecumenical Throne,” the UOC Chancellor considers.
Also, the Metropolitan refuted the information that more than 200 UOC communities have been transferred to the OCU.
“In reality, about 40 temples have passed to the OCU; almost as many were taken away from us as a result of raider seizures. In the remaining cases, there are various conflict situations that are inspired from the outside rather than within religious communities,” underlined His Eminence Anthony.
In his opinion, there is one global task behind this process, namely, transferring as many of the parishes of the UOC as possible to the OCU.
“The successful implementation of this strategy will allow its initiators to then manipulatively assert that the majority of Orthodox believers in Ukraine supported the autocephaly having been granted by Phanar. And what happened was not the legalization of the split, but on the contrary – the long-awaited unification of Ukrainian Orthodoxy,” said His Eminence.
Predicting further development of events, Metropolitan Anthony expressed hope for the settlement of contradictions and the preservation of the unity of world Orthodoxy.
“Now the question of preserving the unity of world Orthodoxy comes to the fore. We very much hope that the current contradictions will be resolved with God's help. And all the Orthodox Churches will invest all the efforts and opportunities they have to accomplish this task,” concluded the Chancellor of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Anthony (Pakanich) of Borispol and Brovary.
As the UOJ reported, in an interview with the Bulgarian edition pravoslavie.bg, Metropolitan Anthony emphasized that the canonical Church, which has been pursuing its ministry in Ukraine for more than 1000 years and has always been the only true Church, is being subjected to a special form of persecution.
