Phanar head: Ukraine is at war, therefore Local Churches should recognise OCU

Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople said that Local Churches should recognize the autocephaly of the OCU if they want to support the Ukrainian people in the war with Russia.

At the same time, the head of the Phanar noted that there is no connection between the war in Ukraine and the granting of autocephaly to the OCU.

"We call on all Orthodox autocephalous churches that have not yet done so to proceed with the recognition, showing in this way their support to the suffering Ukrainian people, and the Church of Russia to apologize for what it has caused Orthodoxy," the Orthodox Times quoted the Patriarch as saying.

He said the Constantinople Church reached out to Russia when it granted autocephaly to the OCU, but Moscow has only deepened the chasm between the two nations:

"The leadership of the Church of Moscow is trying to impose a new ecclesiology which is overthrowing the ecclesiastical order on the basis of new data. But he must understand that the Ecumenical Patriarchate is the only guarantee for the unity of Orthodoxy. Without the Ecumenical Patriarchate, Orthodoxy will fall into the vortex of nationalism, into the introversion of self-sufficiency, into the contempt of the modern world.”

As earlier reported, the Synod of the Albanian Orthodox Church refused to recognise the autocephaly of the OCU.