RUSSIA RELIGION NEWS


Constantinople patriarchate sends message to Ukrainian president

CONSTANTINOPLE IS READY TO HELP CREATE A UNITED LOCAL ORTHODOX CHURCH IN UKRAINE

RISU, 20 February 2015

 

The Constantinople patriarchate is ready to held Orthodox Ukrainians to unite and it is waiting for representatives of the churches and the president of Ukraine to turn to it with this request. This was declared by the primate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Canada, Metropolitan Yury, during a round table in Ukrinform.

 

"I would like first of all to greet you from His Holiness Patriarch Bartholomew. The patriarch emphasized that the Constantinople patriarchate has never forgotten that it is the mother church of Ukrainian Orthodoxy. This has been said many times now. The patriarchate is observing the situation in Ukraine and it thinks that the ideal outcome is the unification of Orthodoxy. And it will work so that Orthodoxy in Ukraine will be united. This is the ideal position," he said.

 

Metropolitan Yury noted that among Orthodox believers of Ukraine there are various attitudes: pro-Ukrainian and pro-Moscow. However the flexibility of the church makes it possible to satisfy the requirements of people with various views.

 

"The patriarchate of Tsargrad awaits the request from the leadership of the Ukrainian Orthodox jurisdictions here, but chiefly it is waiting for the step by the president of Ukraine, expressing his desire that the patriarchate of Tsargrad would help in this situation," the primate of the UPTs of Canada emphasized. (tr. by PDS, posted 20 February 2015)

 

DELEGATION FROM UKRAINIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH OF CANADA AND PATRIARCH FILARET DISCUSS HOW TO OVERCOME SPLIT

RISU, 20 February 2015

 

On 16 February 2015, at the invitation of Patriarch of Kiev and all-Rus-Ukraine Filaret, a delegation from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church [UOC] in Canada (under the omophorion of the patriarchate of Constantinople) led by His Beatitude Metropolitan of Winnipeg and all-Canada Yury visited the Kiev patriarchate. This is the first time since 1993, when the late Metropolitan Vasily visited the native soil, that the leadership of the UPTs in Canada has visited Ukraine on an official visit.

 

Besides Metropolitan Yury, the members of the delegation included both active bishops of UOC in Canada, Bishop of Edmonton Ilarion and Bishop of Toronto Andrei; the chancellor of the church, Archpresbyter Viktor Lakusta; and a group of laity--10 persons in all.

 

On the part of the Kiev patriarchate, besides the primate, participants in the conversation included also the patriarchal vicar, Metropolitan of Pereyaslav-Khmelnitskii and Belaia Tserkov Epifany; the secretary of the Holy Synod, Archbishop of Chernigov and Nezhin Evstraty; and the chancellor of the Kiev patriarchate, Bishop of Vyshgorod Agapit.

 

During the previous week, the leadership of the UOC in Canada visited the Constantinople patriarchate, where it held a series of meetings with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, members of the Holy Synod, and personnel of the patriarchate.

 

According to a report from the press service of the Kiev patriarchate, the immediate occasion for the visit to Ukraine was the desire of the UOC in Canada to show moral support to the fatherland during the undeclared war and Kremlin aggression, and on the anniversary of the shootings on Institute Street to honor the memory of the heroes of the Celestial Century and to become more closely acquainted with contemporary religious life of Ukraine.

 

During the conversation with Metropolitan Yury, Patriarch Filaret described the current state of the church in Ukraine, relations with the Moscow patriarchate, and the position of the Kiev patriarchate relative to the Russian aggression. They also talked about possible paths to overcoming the church division, the creation in Ukraine of a united local Orthodox church, and extracting the Kiev patriarchate from its external isolation that was artificially created by Moscow.

 

The patriarch thanked the UOC in Canada, in the person of Metropolitan Yury, for organizing and conducting in Toronto in May 2014 an academic theology symposium in which representatives of all branches of Ukrainian Orthodoxy in the motherland and in the diaspora participated. In his turn, Metropolitan Yury described the visit to Constantinople by the delegation of UOC of Canada.

 

The meeting's participants also shared thoughts relative to cooperation of the churches in providing humanitarian aid for residents of the Donbass and defenders of the fatherland from Ukrainians of the diaspora.

 

At the conclusion of the meeting, its participants exchanged gifts as mementos and took a group photograph.

 

As is said in the report of the UPTsKP, "the meeting took place in a fraternal atmosphere and gave evidence of a substantial expansion and intensification of mutually beneficial cooperation between the Kiev patriarchate and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Canada (under the omophorion of the Constantinople patriarchate)." (tr. by PDS, posted 20 February 2015)



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