Metropolitan of Piraeus thanks hierarch of Kythira for his position on OCU
According to the Greek hierarch, Church members who refused to recognize the illegal autocephaly of the schismatics were right.
Met. Seraphim of Piraeus has thanked Met. Seraphim of Kythira and Antikythera, as well as to all members of the Greek Orthodox Church who refused to recognize the autocephaly of the OCU - "schismatics, deposed, anathematized and non-ordained". This is stated in an open statement of the hierarch, the text of which was published by the information resource “Romfea”.
“I feel the moral obligation publicly to express my immense gratitude to the Metropolitan of Kythira and Antikythera, Seraphim for his overwhelming, profound and precise testimony of the events that took place during the extraordinary convocation of the Church of Greece on 12/10/2019, which demonstrates the adamantine ethos and the immense spiritual quality of His Eminence the Metropolitan of Kythira,” the hierarch of Piraeus writes.
Met. Seraphim of Piraeus thanks God that all the members of the Church who adhere to the holy canons and reject the “alleged” Metropolitan of Kiev Epiphany were vindicated the day after the Greek hierarchs met, as Epiphany and the other OCU hierarchs and clergy admitted the Roman Catholic “cleric” Vasily Plakhotka into the altar during a church consecration and Divine Liturgy, as evidenced by publications and photographs.
“Consequently, these people are not only unholy, they are heretical and lacking the fear of God. Therefore, to ask the autocephalous Orthodox Churches to recognize them is at least outrageous,” Met. Seraphim writes.
We recall that on October 12, the extraordinary Bishops' Council of the Greek Orthodox Church recognized the right of the Patriarch of Bartholomew of Constantinople to grant autocephaly and the privilege of Abp. Ieronymos of Athens and all Greece to further handle the issue on the OCU.
Following the results of the Council of the Greek Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Seraphim of Piraeus issued a statement stating that all decisions of Constantinople regarding former clergy of the Russian Orthodox Church are invalid, respectively, both the Ukrainian “Unification Council” and the bestowal of autocephaly to the OCU are invalid either. The hierarch emphasized the need for a broad discussion of the Ukrainian issue and suggested convening a pan-Orthodox Council for its solution.
Metropolitan Seraphim of Kythira and Antikythera expressed his disagreement with the decision of the Bishops' Council of the Greek Church regarding the OCU, saying that the Ukrainian “autocephaly” has terrible deviations from the Orthodox Tradition and will have detrimental and unpredictable consequences for the unity of the Local Churches.
