Nicosia, Cyprus, November 3, 2020
Photo: romfea.gr
In a telephone conversation yesterday, Epiphany Dumenko, the head of the schismatic “Orthodox Church of Ukraine” (OCU) expressed his gratitude to Archbishop Chrysostomos of Cyprus for having recognized the OCU, and the Cypriot primate invited him to come to Cyprus and concelebrate.
“We are all happy to establish the fullness of prayerful and Eucharistic communion between our Local Churches,” Epiphany told the Archbishop, as reports the OCU press service.
Recall that the decision to commemorate Epiphany Dumenko in the Liturgy was not a synodal decision of the Cypriot Church, but a unilateral decision of the Archbishop alone, which has created a great scandal in the Church of Cyprus.
Abp. Chrysostomos stressed that all new Local Churches receive their tomos of autocephaly from the Patriarchate of Constantinople, and thus there is no reason not to accept the tomos granted to the OCU on January 6 of last year.
“We commemorate your holy name during the Liturgy among the names of the primates of the autocephalous Churches after the Metropolitan of the Czech Land and Slovakia, and we wish you, our beloved brother, a successful ministry,” the Cypriot primate said.
He then invited Dumenko to visit Cyprus and “offer prayers” together once the pandemic has subsided.
Dumenko thanked the Archbishop for the invitation and assured him that “Ukrainian society is very happy to hear that Your Beatitude began to mention the name of the Primate of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine in the diptychs, which testified to the full communion between the two Churches.”
Besides the Patriarchate of Constantinople that created the OCU and Abp. Chrysostomos, Dumenko has also been recognized by Patriarch Theodoros of Alexandria and Archbishop Ieronymos of Athens, though none of these primates have yet served with him besides Pat. Bartholomew.
In August of last year, several hierarchs of the Greek Church concelebrated with schismatic OCU hierarchs even before Abp. Ieronymos recognized Dumenko, and last December, Patriarchs Bartholomew and Theodoros and Metropolitan Vasilios of Constantia and Ammochostos of the Cypriot Orthodox Church all concelebrated in Istanbul together with the schismatic Evstraty Zorya. This was also well before the Cypriot primate began to commemorate Dumenko.
