London, March 29, 2024
Patriarch Bartholomew with “Metropolitan” Epiphany Dumenko, head of the schismatic OCU which openly persecutes Orthodox Christians in Ukraine. Photo: spzh.news
“The Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople is obligated to make his voice heard on the persecution of Orthodox believers in Ukraine and to weigh in on the proposed legislation which aims to ban the country’s oldest church,” says the Ukrainian Orthodox Church’s lawyer.
Robert Amsterdam, who is representing the persecuted UOC pro bono, penned an open letter to Pat. Bartholomew this week, noting that his granting of a tomos to the “state-sponsored Orthodox Church of Ukraine … opened a Pandora’s box” against the canonical Church, reads a press release concerning the open letter.
In an interview in February, Amsterdam revealed that his team recently learned from the Assistant Secretary of State under President Trump that the destruction of the UOC was a point of U.S. policy, which involved former Ukrainian President Poroshenko and Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople.
Now, thanks to Pat. Bartholomew and others, the UOC has become the “target of a vicious and unlimited campaign of intimidation, perpetrated by the Ukrainian authorities.”
Amsterdam notes that independent third parties, such as the UN, have reported on the violence and persecution against the UOC.
“With a view of his role in Orthodoxy and his previous action of having supported the creation of the new state-sponsored Church in Ukraine, Patriarch Bartholomew has a moral duty to speak up against ‘dividing Christ’, banning the UOC and prosecution of Orthodox believers in Ukraine, stated Robert Amsterdam.”
Amsterdam’s firm, AMSTERDAM & PARTNERS LLP, has launched a site entirely dedicated to the plight of holy Orthodoxy in Ukraine.
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