Serbian Church rejects Constantinople’s rehabilitation of Ukrainian schismatics

Belgrade, November 12, 2018

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The Serbian Orthodox Church has published its position on the Church crisis in Ukraine following the latest decisions of the Patriarchate of Constantinople on October 11.

The bishops of the Serbian Church met in Belgrade on November 6-7, addressing several pressing issues in the life of the Serbian Church and the Orthodox Church as a whole, including the ongoing crisis situation and persecution in Kosovo and Metohija, and the improvement of education in the Serbian Church.

The Communique of the Holy Assembly of Bishops of the Serbian Orthodox Church on Kosovo and Metohija can be found on the Serbian Church’s official site.

Regarding the situation in Ukraine, the Council of Bishops first “notes with regret that the Patriarchate of Constantinople made a canonically unfounded decision to rehabilitate as bishops and recognize the two leaders of the schismatic groups in Ukraine, Philaret Denisenko and Makary Maletich, together with their episcopate and clergy.”

The Serbian hierarchs note that the former was canonically defrocked and anathematized and the latter is deprived of all apostolic succession, being the head of a branch of the so-called “self-sanctifiers,” whose episcopacy was created, rather than received, in Canada in the 1920s.

Denisenko was defrocked by the Moscow Patriarchate in 1992 and anathematized in 1997. At those times, the Ecumenical Patriarchate recognized the Moscow Patriarchate’s “exclusive competence” to deal with these matters and accepted its decisions.

Thus, “the holy Bishops’ Council resolved that the decision of the Synod of Constantinople is non-binding for the Serbian Orthodox Church.”

“The Assembly does not recognize the mentioned figures and their followers as Orthodox bishops and clergy and, consequently, does not accept liturgical and canonical communion with them and their supporters,” the statement continues.

Finally, the Serbian Council proposes to the Patriarchate of Constantinople and all the other autocephalous Churches that the issue of autocephaly and the Orthodox diaspora should be taken up as soon as possible at a pan-Orthodox Council, “in order to confirm and strengthen the catholicity and unity of the Orthodox Church and to in the future avoid the temptation that holy Orthodoxy is going through now.”

A joint statement between His Beatitude Patriarch John X of Antioch and His Holiness Patriarch Irinej of Serbia signed in late October also called for a pan-Orthodox Council to deal with the Ukraine issue on a conciliar, rather than unilateral, basis.

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11/12/2018

See also
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While not addressing the canonical implications of the historical documents surrounding the 1686 submission of Ukraine to Moscow, it emphasizes two much more fundamental and serious issues that he sees as present in this situation.
Serbian-Antiochian joint statement calls for pan-Orthodox resolution to Ukrainian crisis Serbian-Antiochian joint statement calls for pan-Orthodox resolution to Ukrainian crisis Serbian-Antiochian joint statement calls for pan-Orthodox resolution to Ukrainian crisis Serbian-Antiochian joint statement calls for pan-Orthodox resolution to Ukrainian crisis
The statement addresses a number of pressing issues facing the Orthodox Church today, in particular in Kosovo, Syria, and Ukraine, but which effect the entirety of the Orthodox Church. The statement places heavy and continuous emphasis on the need for the Churches to act by consensus rather than unilaterally.
August 2018 Letter from Serbian Patriarch Irinej to Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew August 2018 Letter from Serbian Patriarch Irinej to Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew
Patriarch Irinej of Serbia
August 2018 Letter from Serbian Patriarch Irinej to Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew August 2018 Letter from Serbian Patriarch Irinej to Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew
Patriarch Irinej of Serbia
They do not seek an autocephalous Church because, allegedly, they are its faithful members, but they use it as suitable, but rather unsuitably , for the purpose of strengthening their worldly and essentially atheistic ideology, power and vulgar interests. In the last analysis, it is a question of an abuse of the Church and of the Faith.

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