Washington, D.C., October 23, 2019
Photo: cerkva.info
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met with His Eminence Metropolitan Hilarion (Alfeyev) of Volokolamsk, the Chairman of the Russian Church’s Department for External Church Relations, in Washington D.C. yesterday.
Today he will meet with Epiphany Dumenko, the primate of the schismatic “Orthodox Church of Ukraine.”
The press page on the Department of State website reports: “9:30 a.m. Secretary Pompeo meets with Primate of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine Metropolitan Epiphany, at the Department of State. (CLOSED PRESS COVERAGE).”
Epiphany arrived in America last week to receive the Athenagoras Human Rights Award from the Constantinople-backing Order of St. Andrew-Archons, while his church continues to physically and legally persecute the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church under His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry of Kiev and All Ukraine, as recognized by the United Nations’ Office for Human Rights.
Pompeo openly supports Epiphany and his nationalistic OCU. The Secretary called the “metropolitan” just days after the “unification council” in December to ensure him of the U.S.’s support for his church. The State Department also issued a message on the “momentous occasion” of the OCU receiving a tomos of autocephaly from Constantinople in January, and Pompeo and the Department have issued several other statements of support.
Secretary Pompeo was also recently in Greece, where he signed a new defense pact, allowing the U.S. to expand militarily in Greece. A few days after his visit, the Greek Church suddenly announced that it would hold an extraordinary session of the Bishops’ Council to address the Ukrainian issue, at which the bishops recognized Pat. Bartholomew’s right to grant autocephaly in Ukraine.
Pompeo also met with the primate of the schismatic “Macedonian Orthodox Church” earlier this month.
