Kiev, June 17, 2019
Photo: pravoslavie.ru
On May 25, the “Orthodox Church of Ukraine” (OCU) celebrated the 19th anniversary of the restoration of St. Michael’s Golden-domed Cathedral in Kiev. The Liturgy was celebrated by a number of OCU hierarchs, about 100 priests, and two hierarchs of the Patriarchate of Constantinople: Metropolitan Emmanuel of Gaul and Metropolitan Amphilochios of Adrianople.
As OrthoChristian reported on Thursday, also concelebrating was “Archimandrite” Boris Bojovic of the “Montenegrin Orthodox Church,” an unrecognized breakaway from the Serbian Orthodox Church that has long had relations with and enjoyed the support of the Ukrainian schismatics.
The head of the Patriarchate of Constantinople’s public relations office told the French outlet Orthodoxie that given the large number of clergy present at the Liturgy, it was impossible for Met. Emmanuel to know who all of them are.
While Constantinople was not responsible for Bojovic’s presence, it remains to be seen how the Patriarchate will deal with the fact that the OCU invited a schismatic cleric, causing the Constantinople bishops to inadvertently serve with him.
Moreover, the “Montenegrin Church” is currently headed by “Metropolitan” Mihailo Dedeić, who was defrocked, excommunicated, and anathematized while serving as a priest of the Patriarchate of Constantinople in Italy.
Although President Milo Đukanović of Montenegro has publicly declared his intent to achieve autocephalous status for the tiny “Montenegrin Orthodox Church,” the public relations head stressed that Constantinople is in canonical unity with the Serbian Orthodox Church and recognizes only its jurisdiction on the territory of Montenegro.
However, Constantinople also used to declare that it recognized only the jurisdiction of the Russian Orthodox Church and its canonical Ukrainian Church on the territory of Ukraine, while the events of the past year have shown that Constantinople can change its mind dramatically.
The press service of Kiev Metropolia of the OCU has also responded to the reports about them serving with the schismatic “Archimandrite” Boris. Revealing a glaring lack of understanding about the Eucharist and the unity of the Church, the OCU explains that it has good relations with the “Montenegrin Church,” but argues that concelebrating and sharing the Eucharist with representatives of that church does not mean it has Eucharistic communion with that church.
The OCU statement (published in Ukrainian and English) reads:
Before receiving the Patriarchal and Synodal Tomos of autocephaly, the Church in Ukraine had a communication with those, who among the Orthodoxy wanted to communicate with it. Upon receiving Tomos, the Orthodox Church of Ukraine has and maintains church-canonical communication with the Ecumenical Patriarchate and only with the Churches with which the Ecumenical Patriarchate communicates. The participation of the aforementioned person in the Liturgy does not mean that the Orthodox Church of Ukraine will recognize the jurisdiction to which it belongs or whether the OCU has church-canonical communication with this jurisdiction. If someone was harmed by this event, then we assure you that this did not happen intentionally.
In contradiction to the OCU’s argument, it is proper Orthodox practice to only share the Eucharist with those with whom there is Eucharistic communion.
Further, the message states that the OCU hopes that all ecclesiastical questions in Montenegro will soon be resolved with the participation of Constantinople, and that the Serbian Church will soon recognize the OCU, “to which it is called by the Tomos of the Ecumenical Patriarch.”
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