Cypriot hierarch: Each diocese is a full-fledged Church
Metropolitan Neophytos believes that the totality of believers with the ruling bishop can be regarded as a separate unit of Christ's Church.
Commenting to the UOJ on the legality of the decision of the Council in Feofania to no longer commemorate Patriarch Kirill, Metropolitan Neophytos said that each diocese of the Church should be considered as a self-sufficient unit.
“In my metropolis, the priests commemorate only me. I am their Archbishop (i.e. primate – Ed.). And although I am only a metropolitan, I am an Archbishop for the Metropolia of Morphou. Each diocese is a full-fledged Church. Is not it? When I serve, I commemorate Georgios, the Archbishop of Cyprus. And when Georgios serves, he commemorates all the primates of the Local Churches,” says the Metropolitan Morphou. According to him, "this is the canons and order" of the Church.
Earlier, the UOJ wrote that according to Metropolitan Neophytos, the decisions of the Council of the UOC in Feofania are canonical.