[Response of the Kyiv Patriarchate to the Great and Holy Council]
From June 16 to 26, 2016, the Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox
Church convened on the Greek island of Crete, chaired by His
All-Holiness Bartholomew, Ecumenical Patriarch. This Council was held
subsequent to decisions of the Synaxis (assembly) of the heads of the 14
universally-recognized autocephalous Orthodox Churches meeting in
Chambesy, Switzerland in January 2016, while preparation for the
Council, including selection of topics for consideration and creation of
draft documents, was conducted over 55 years, since the 1961
Pan-Orthodox Conference in Rhodes.
Regretfully, under the
influence of external secular considerations, the Churches of first
Bulgaria, then Antioch, Moscow, and Georgia, announced just days prior
to the Council the impossibility of their participation, demanding
postponement of the Council for “further preparation”. Although the
Churches of Bulgaria, Georgia, and Antioch each expressed somewhat
different grounds for their withdrawal, there is little question that
the position of the Moscow Patriarchate was a main factor in their
decisions.
Despite official assurances of wishing to gather the
Council, the Moscow Patriarchate was not, and is not, interested in
this. The Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church meeting on the
island of Crete established a precedent and mechanism for conciliar
decisions within not just one local church or group of local churches,
as has been the case over recent centuries, but within a Pan-Orthodox
context. This mechanism confirms in our age a special ministry for the
Ecumenical Patriarch as first among equal primates of the Orthodox
Church, that of Chair of the Pan-Orthodox Council. The Moscow
Patriarchate, wishing to dominate World Orthodoxy, fights against this.
This confrontation of Moscow towards Constantinople, the effort by the
Moscow Patriarchate to dominate World Orthodoxy as the "Third Rome", was
the main cause for both the drawn out preparations for the Council and
the attempts to postpone it at the last moment.
The Kyiv
Patriarchate joyfully welcomes the successful convening as scheduled of
the Holy and Great Council as a witness that most of the Local Churches
are not subject to manipulation and blackmail. We share the hope of the
hierarchs at the Council that such Councils will continue to convene
regularly, perhaps every 5 to 10 years, to attest that the Orthodox
Church, as emphasized by the Ecumenical Patriarch, exists not as a
confederation, but truly as one Church.
The Kyiv Patriarchate is
sensitive to the fact that we were not invited to join or send delegates
to the Council because the question of recognition of the autocephalous
status of the Church of Ukraine by other Local Churches must still be
addressed. However, the Kyiv Patriarchate, with trust and love for our
Mother Church of Constantinople and in one mind with the Local Orthodox
Churches, considers the matters agreed upon by the Council to have been
sufficiently established for the Orthodox Church.
The position
and response of the Kyiv Patriarchate to the Holy and Great Council and
its decisions will be formally certified at the next meeting of the Holy
Synod of the UOC-KP, but we can today attest that our attitude towards
them is positive, and that we accept the documents adopted by the
Council as an expression of the position of the entire Orthodox Church.
Regarding the issue that is of greatest immediate concern to most
Orthodox Christians in Ukraine, the recognition of the autocephaly of
our Church, we emphasize that this decision is within the jurisdiction
of the Ecumenical Patriarch and our Mother Church of Constantinople. It
is to them, not to the Great Council, that appeals from both the Kyiv
Patriarchate and the Verkhovna Rada (national parliament) of Ukraine
were addressed. Having received confirmation from an official
representative of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, Archbishop Job of
Telmessos, that these appeals for issuance of a Tomos of Autocephaly
will be considered by the Ecumenical Patriarch and the Synod of the
Ecumenical Patriarchate, we anticipate this review and are prepared to
work towards a positive decision.
The Kyiv Patriarchate expresses
great joy that World Orthodoxy, in convening the Holy and Great Council
in spite of efforts by the Moscow Patriarchate to disrupt it, has
rejected the dictates of the Moscow Patriarchate. In turn, we deeply
regret the response of the Church of Moscow, to employ ethnophyletism
(the primacy of ethnical issues over church matters) and etatism
(servility to state power) to divide and separate, to the harm of its
own flock and the entire Orthodox Church. We pray that with the help of
God and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit this challenge will be
overcome, and the unity of the Orthodox Church preserved and firmly
established.
Press Center of the Kyiv Patriarchate
English:http://www.cerkva.info/…/local-church…/8618-holycouncil.html
Ukrainian:
http://www.cerkva.info/uk/news/pomisni/8618-holycouncil.html
Russian:
http://www.cerkva.info/…/news/pomesnye/8618-holycouncil.html