Piraeus, Greece, December 1, 2020
Photo: vimaorthodoxias.gr
The creation and “autocephaly” of the so-called “Orthodox Church of Ukraine” (OCU) is the most tragic event in recent years, believes His Eminence Metropolitan Seraphim of Piraeus of the Greek Orthodox Church, and it is absurd to think that 10 Local Churches are mistaken in their stance against Constantinople’s invasion of Ukrainian Church territory, while only those who bow to Constantinople are supposedly doing the will of God.
“Ukrainian autocephaly not only cannot be considered the ‘greatest ecclesiastical event of recent decades,’” as the Athonite Monk Nikitas of Pantocrator Monastery wrote in a recent propaganda brochure, “but just the opposite—it is the most tragic ecclesiastical event of recent decades,” the Metropolitan writes in a report published on Vima Orthodoxias.
While Fr. Nikitas’ brochure is entitled “The Whole Truth About the Ukrainian Question,” it in fact represents a “ruthless war against the Russian Patriarchate,” taking great pains to justify everything Constantinople has done and present Ukrainian autocephaly as a “miracle of God,” the hierarch of Piraeus comments.
The granting of a tomos of autocephaly to the OCU has caused a pan-Orthodox split, and it was not only the Russian Church that reacted to it, as the Monk Nikitas falsely writes, but in fact the majority of the Local Churches, Met. Seraphim emphasizes. However, nowhere in his text does Fr. Nikitas deal with this opposition of the Local Churches to Constantinople’s unilateral act, the Greek hierarch notes.
In fact, it was the Patriarchate of Constantinople, acting according to the geopolitical interests of the United States and other countries, that created the schism, Met. Seraphim underlines. This is not the first time that the outspoken Greek hierarch has pointed to the geopolitical foundations of the Ukraine crisis.
“Everyone sees the fact that, unfortunately, the Ecumenical Patriarchate colluded with foreign states for geopolitical reasons on this issue,” the Greek hierarch writes, which is clearly evidenced by statements from Poroshenko and the U.S. State Department openly acknowledging the U.S.’s role in the creation of the OCU.
Elsewhere, the Metropolitan notes that the Russian Church is not to blame for the schism, but rather the schismatic groups led by Philaret Denisenko and Makary Maletich, which represent a small minority of the Ukrainian population.
Fr. Nikitas’ text also conveniently passes over the fact that the Patriarch of Alexandria decided to recognize Epiphany Dumenko completely without a support from his Holy Synod, probably because he knew that if he called a Synod, the majority of hierarchs would reject the tomos of the OCU. “Therefore, the Patriarch of Alexandria himself made the decision to recognize it, but at the same time he trampled on the Synodal system and acted like a little Pope.”
Met. Seraphim also recalls that the Holy Synod of the Greek Church empowered its primate, Archbishop Ieronymos, to deal with the Ukrainian question, though without the necessary roll-call vote that would have allowed all hierarchs to express their opinion. Again, Fr. Nikitas and Constantinople’s backers gloss over this fact. Both Met. Seraphim of Piraeus and Met. Searphim of Kythira have already emphasized that there was no vote.
“And, in the end, the opinion of the primate, Abp. Ieronymos, prevailed in an unacceptable and anti-Synodal way,” Met. Seraphim emphasizes.
However, 10 Local Churches continue to stand against the OCU and Constantinople’s actions, though, according to Fr. Nikitas, they are following the wrong path, selectively choosing which canons to pay heed to. It turns out, Met. Seraphim writes sarcastically, that only Fr. Nikitas has managed to evaluate the issue with fidelity to all the canons, and thus if the Local Churches want to find “the whole truth,” all they have to do is read the brochure of Fr. Nitikas!
Any stances against the OCU are only temporary, because they are against the will of God, “while the actions of the Ecumenical Patriarchate are holy, revered, and in accordance with the will of God,” Met. Seraphim writes of Fr. Nikitas’ argument.
If Fr. Nikitas’ line of argumentation is correct, Met. Seraphim writes, then pan-Orthodox councils are no longer necessary, since the Patriarch of Constantinople can make such pious decisions on his own. “All Churches should only obediently rely on the will of the Holy Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate,” the hierarch of Piraeus writes.
In fact, Pat. Bartholomew told Archbishop Anastasios of Albania this in a letter, that the Churches’ role is to simply acknowledge what Constantinople has done.
However, all Local Churches have for three and a half centuries recognized that the Ukrainian Church, today led by His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry of Kiev and All Ukraine, has been part of the Russian Church, despite Constantinople’s recent theories to the contrary, Met. Seraphim writes.
This Church has nothing to do with the schismatic structures made up of men with no ordinations, he writes. Philaret Denisenko is a defrocked, excommunicated, and anathematized former metropolitan, while Makary Maletich was never defrocked from the episcopacy because he was never a real bishop in the first place. He was only a priest when he departed into schism.
And Met. Seraphim again recalls that the canonical penalties against Denisenko were once recognized by Pat. Bartholomew, who acknowledged that the Russian Church had full rights and authority to deal with the matter.
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