Kiev, November 10, 2020
spzh.news
The Patriarchate of Constantinople seems to be stuck in its Byzantine past and promotes a liberal ecclesiology, believes Archpriest Nikolai Danilevich, the Deputy Head of the Department for External Church Relations of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
It seems that the members and devotees of Constantinople “live in the past, in Byzantine history,” Fr. Nikolai said, but “you can’t turn the Church into a museum of Byzantine history,” the UOC speaker commented in a recent interview with the First Cossack channel.
According to Fr. Daniel, the statements of Patriarch Bartholomew not only compromise him, but are dangerous for the Church: “Such an ecclesiology, such an understanding of the Church, when schismatics can be declared a Church and the canonical Church is declared schismatic, is dangerous for the whole of world Orthodoxy.”
In fact, the Patriarch teaches “a perverse, distorted ecclesiology,” he reflected.
While Pat. Bartholomew and other hierarchs of Constantinople and the Greek Church have described the Church as divided along a Greek-Slavic line, Fr. Nikolai believes the present conflict is actually “between traditional ecclesiology and the liberal ecclesiology promoted by the Patriarchate of Constantinople.”
Pat. Bartholomew’s statements “testify to the great pride of the Patriarch of Constantinople. And for pride, the Lord humbles,” Fr. Daniel added, noting that he recently spoke to priests from the Church of Greece who also believe that the Patriarch’s statements hurt the entire Church.
“It is unfortunate that such things come from the Patriarch. You can’t turn a blind eye to millions of believers and thousands of parishes. We are a self-sufficient Church and such words of the Patriarch, who has 11 parishes in Turkey, less than in our deanery, are unworthy of the Patriarch,” the UOC representative lamented.
The Local Churches understand the situation with the distortion of Orthodox ecclesiology and are seeking to correct it on a pan-Orthodox level, Fr. Daniel noted.
Conversely, clear problems have arisen in those Churches where the primates have recognized the Ukrainian schismatics, he continued, because such a decision is “non-ecclesiastical.”
The Deputy Head of the DECR specifically pointed to the current situation in Cyprus, where several Metropolitans and hierarchs have spoken out against the Archbishop’s unilateral decision to recognize the schismatics while none have come to his defense, because “there is nothing to defend, since there are no arguments that could justify the non-canonical actions of Abp. Chrysostom.”
And those Cypriot hierarchs who have spoken out are the most respected and authoritative hierarchs of the Local Cypriot Church, he emphasized.
Finally, Fr. Nikolai responded to Pat. Bartholomew’s recent letter to the pro-schismatic Ukrainian outlet Cerkvarium in which he argued that His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry of Kiev and All Ukraine was automatically stripped of his title and position as Metropolitan of Kiev when Constantinople held the so-called “unification council” in Kiev on December 15, 2018.
As the Patriarch explained, he only “temporarily tolerates” the ministry of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Ukraine, who cannot be considered canonical hierarchs in his view.
“Ah, excuse me, on what grounds? Did Met. Onuphry commit some kind of ecclesiastical and canonical crime for which he lost the title of Metropolitan of Kiev? Was he tried somehow? No, this was not the case,” Fr. Nikolai emphasized.
Even during the Ecumenical Councils, when serious heretics and schismatics were being dealt with, they were summoned three times to give an account for themselves, the UOC representative noted. The same happened with “Patriarch” Philaret Denisenko, who was once the canonical Metropolitan of Kiev, Fr. Daniel adds. However, he chose not to come and was defrocked, excommunicated, and anathematized.
On the other hand, Pat. Bartholomew unilaterally decided to approve of Philaret’s departure from the Church and lifted the anathema against him in October 2018.
“But here,” Fr. Nikolai continued in regards to Met. Onuphry, “was a unilateral decision, absolutely not conciliar, of the Patriarch of Constantinople, who invaded the canonical territory of another Church.”
“This is all very strange,” he stressed.
Again, Fr. Nikolai emphasized that Pat. Bartholomew compromises himself with such statements. “What do we care what the Patriarch writes in his diptychs? We’re a real Church. It seems they don’t see or don’t want to see on the banks of the Bosporus that the UOC is one of the largest Churches in the world. More than 100 bishops, 12,500 parishes, millions of faithful…”
“It turns out that some ‘hierarch’ of the [schismatic] OCU, who has 20-30 parishes, is a ‘hierarch,’ and our hierarch, who has 300-400 parishes, isn’t a hierarch?” Fr. Daniel asked.
