Kiev, December 14, 2021
Photo: cerkva.info
The “Kiev Patriarchate” (KP) headed by “Patriarch” Philaret Denisenko has received another Greek Old Calendarist diocese into its jurisdiction.
In October, Denisenko concelebrated with “Metropolitan” Auxentios (Marines) of Aegina of the so-called “Church of True Orthodox Christians of Greece,” one of the many schismatic Greek Old Calendarist groups, and later that month it was announced that his diocese, with 70 priests and 50 monks in 10 monasteries, was received into the KP.
And at the session of the KP’s Council of Bishops yesterday, it was announced that “Metropolitan” Chrysostomos Kallis’ request to join the KP was also granted, together with the parishes and clergy of his Old Calendarist diocese.
The report doesn’t clarify to which Old Calendarist group Kallis belonged.
Recall that although the Orthodox Church recognizes the excommunication and anathema placed upon the schismatic leader Denisenko by the Moscow Patriarchate, to which he formerly belonged, he is considered a true hierarch by Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople and his “Orthodox Church of Ukraine,” which considers Denisenko its “Honorary Patriarch.”
Denisenko briefly joined the “Orthodox Church of Ukraine,” created by Pat. Bartholomew, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, and the U.S. Department of State, though he soon left to revive his KP.
Archbishop Ieronymos, the primate of the Church of Greece, has recognized Constantinople’s self-declared right to rehabilitate the anathematized Denisenko and to create a new church in Ukraine on the basis of unordained schismatics. He has yet to comment on the Denisenko’s reception of Old Calendarists who operate on the territory of the Church of Greece.
The KP Council also announced the election of two new “hierarchs,” including “Hieromonk” Luke (Zgoba), the secretary of the KP’s vicariate in the U.S. and Canada, who has already been consecrated “Bishop of Philadelphia.”
Zgoba was taken on as the priest of St. Nicholas Church in Philadelphia after the community left the Eastern Pennsylvania Diocese of the Orthodox Church in America to join the schismatic KP. Interestingly, at that time, His Eminence Archbishop Mark of Philadelphia (OCA) noted that Bogdan himself had previously been defrocked by the KP.
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