the bishops of the three Orthodox churches in Ukraine have gathered in Kyiv on Saturday to the creation of an independent national Church. At the beginning of the Synod in the oldest Church in the city, the Saint Sophia Cathedral, also took part President Petro Poroshenko. “We stand here and pray that the Ukrainian Church is a reality today,” he said. In front of the Cathedral several Hundred people with Ukrainian flags, expressed their support for a Church’s detachment from Russia. The police secured the center of the capital, with about 4,000 men.
Because of the Church establishment in Ukraine of a bitter dispute between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople for months. The ecclesiastical and political consequences of this deep division is not yet in sight.
Ukraine wants to cut the cord, given the military and political Attacks from Russia, the religious from the neighboring country. The Moscow Patriarchate sees the Ukraine but as his ancestral Church. The head of the Moscow-loyal Orthodox in Kiev, Metropolitan Onufri, spoke on Saturday of an attempt to divide the Church. “There is already a country Church. We have enough of that. We have a lot more than promises of those who participate in this Synod,“ he said. Among the approximately 200 participants of the Assembly, only 2 bishops of the Moscow-loyal Church.
in Contrast, the Supreme authority of world Orthodoxy, the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew in Istanbul, want to recognize, an independent Church in Ukraine. His staff have worked out a Statute for you. On 6. January, he wants to hand over to the elected head of a Ukrainian Church, the decree on the Church’s legal autonomy (autocephaly).
in fact, to be close, especially the first, founded in 1992, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kiev Patriarchate, and the smaller Autocephalous Church. In front of the dioceses of the Moscow Patriarchate, but to count more priests, churches and monasteries remain. In order for conflicts to be important Orthodox shrines such as the famous cave monastery in Kiev.
The Kiev Patriarch Filaret appeared to the Synod, with the headdress of a Metropolitan. He showed that he acknowledges the sovereignty of Bartholomaois on the future of the Church. In the case of the election of the new head Filarets protege Epifani, the 39-year-old Metropolitan Bishop of Pereyaslavl, as a candidate.
another Consideration is that in Church circles, to select Metropolitan Simeon of Vinnytsia. He is a Trusted Poroshenko and belongs to the Moscow Patriarchate Church. His election would be a Signal to the Moscow faithful clergy. Poroshenko has driven the Church plans as part of his election campaign for 2019.
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The threat of loss of Orthodox believers and churches in the Ukraine complains in the Russian policy. The opposition leader Alexei Navalny took to Twitter, the guide to President Vladimir Putin for the withdrawal of Ukraine: “What was created in hundreds of years, Putin and his idiots destroyed in just four years.” (dpa)