UAPTs READY TO BECOME METROPOLIA OF CONSTANTINOPLE
The Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church is
ready to renounce its autocephaly and to become a part of the
Constantinople patriarchate with the right of a metropolia.
An appeal with such a request to Patriarch
Bartholomew was adopted by the delegates to the 5th local sobor
on 6 June in Kiev. The authors of the document consider that as
a part of Constantinople, UAPTs will not lose its "majestic and
martyr's" history.
"The local sobor before the face of the
Mother-Church of Constantinople, in the name of the entire
plenitude of our church, addresses to you a request: casting off
every prejudice restore historical justice by receiving our
Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church into the Ecumenical
Patriarchate as a metropolitanate with the rights of a
self-administering structure which it had before its accession
in 1686 to the Moscow church. This will give the possibility to
millions of Orthodox Ukrainians to enter into prayer and
eucharistic fellowship with world Orthodoxy, since the absence
of unity reflects hurtfully upon their spiritual condition," the
appeal says.
Delegates to the 5th local sobor of UAPTs note that
restoration of the Kiev metropolitanate will become a primary
model of the structure of canonical life in Ukraine. They even
have prepared a number of points with whose help the UAPTs and
Constantinople will be able to realize this "blessed" dream in
life. Among them are the involvement of leading theologians of
the Ecumenical Patriarchate in discussion of problems of the
division in Ukrainian Orthodoxy, the conduct of round tables,
and the opening of a representation of the Ecumenical
Patriarchate in Kiev or in Lvov, which will become the
organizational center of inter-church activity in questions of
involving unrecognized Orthodox parishes of Ukraine in a
full-fledged life within the world Orthodox Church.
"At the same time, in resolving the question of the UAPTs, we are not renouncing the majestic and martyr's history and traditions of our church. The strategic goal of our church remains unchanged—the creation of a united canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church," the participants of the UAPTs sobor write. (tr. by PDS, posted 8 June 2015)
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