Vidin, Vidin Province, Bulgaria, June 27, 2024
Photo: ocl.org
The canonically dubious interference of the Patriarchate of Constantinople in ecclesiastical affairs in Ukraine only further divided the country, and the Orthodox Church worldwide, says His Eminence Metropolitan Daniil of Vidin, one of the three candidates for the Bulgarian Patriarchal throne.
Met. Daniil was chosen by the Bulgarian Holy Synod, together with Their Eminences Metropolitan Gregory of Vratsa and Gabriel of Lovech, on June 20. A council of hierarchs, clerical, monastic, and lay representatives will choose the next Patriarch. from among the three candidates on June 30.
The outspoken hierarch’s has expressed his stance on the Ukrainian issue several times over the past few years, including in an open letter to the Metropolitans of the Church of Greece.
“The persecutions against the Church haven’t stopped,” says Met. Daniil in a new interview with bnr.bg. They began with the very birth of the Savior and accompany us down through the centuries and millennia. However, “When they endured persecutions, the first Christians remained in the teaching of the Holy Apostles and jealously guarded the faith.”
And through all of the trials the Church faces, we can always look to the Holy Fathers, the Metropolitan emphasizes. And turning to more recent persecutions, he recalls:
In the first years after the Bolshevik revolution, the persecutions against the Church in the former Soviet Union were also horrifying, perhaps the most cruel and massive in the entire history of the Church—the killing of priests, the destruction of hundreds and thousands of churches, an attempt to replace the institution itself through the Renovationist schism.
And unfortunately, this is not only an experience of the past century, His Eminence explains:
Today, something similar is happening in Ukraine. Now this attempt at replacement is through the creation of the so-called Orthodox Church of Ukraine by Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople in 2019, despite the existence of a universally recognized canonical church in Ukraine—the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, led by Metropolitan Onuphry of Kiev. This canonically unsound action by Patriarch Bartholomew has led to even greater division in Ukraine.
The canonical UOC is more numerous than the schismatic OCU, Met. Daniil notes. He continues:
The clergy of this structure essentially have problems with Apostolic Succession; among them are those ordained by civilians, meaning there’s a lack of succession of Apostolic grace. There are those who have been deposed and excommunicated for valid canonical reasons, who have been improperly accepted and reinstated without repentance. Despite this, Patriarch Bartholomew attempted to legitimize them by issuing the so-called tomos—the document establishing this non-canonical structure.
He signed and proclaimed two previously non-canonical structures, uniting them into the so-called Orthodox Church of Ukraine—the OCU, and recognized the newly created entity as the canonical Orthodox Church in Ukraine. We ask, however, what is the fate of the universally recognized Ukrainian Orthodox Church led by Metropolitan Onuphry, acknowledged by all local Orthodox Churches five years ago and to this day? Five years have passed, and Churches that are Greek-speaking, like the Albanian Church, or close to the Patriarchate of Constantinople like the Jerusalem Patriarchate and the Antiochian Patriarchate do not recognize these structures.
The primate of the Albanian Orthodox Church, His Beatitude Archbishop Anastasios, has worthily addressed the issues surrounding the OCU, recalls Met. Daniil:
There’s an excellent letter from Archbishop Anastasios of Tirana of the Albanian Church—he explained his views on the matter and pointed out that issuing this tomos to unrepentant schismatic groups with problematic clergy is unacceptable. Patriarch Bartholomew was convinced that this would bring millions of Orthodox Christians deprived of communion with the Church back into its fold. And instead of bringing peace as he assumed, he ignited an even more fierce division, in which literally these people he proclaimed canonical began to persecute the canonical Church. They seize churches, beat priests, and kill—are these Christians? It’s absurd, but the division is a fact.
And this division has spread throughout the Orthodox world, with some bishops recognizing the OCU, against the vast majority who do not. Moreover, the OCU tomos states that it recognizes Constantinople as its head, as supposedly do all other Orthodox Churches. But Orthodox teaching is quite clear that the head of the Universal Church is Jesus Christ Himself, emphasizes Met. Daniil. And we must hold onto sound doctrine, to help us through our many trials. The canons “categorically forbid the primate of one Church from interfering in the affairs of another autocephalous Orthodox Church.”
Asked what the future Bulgarian Patriarch should be like, Met. Daniil pointed to the example of His Holiness Patriarch Maxim (†2012), who “despite all difficulties, managed to preserve the unity of the Church not with force and fist-pounding, but with tact, patience, courage, and discretion.”
He continued:
When this unity is the personal conviction and self-sacrifice of each individual, then the Church is invincible. The Lord says: Where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them. And if the Lord is with us, no one can be against us, and we uphold it. So the Patriarch must be, first and foremost, Orthodox, keeping the mystery of faith in a pure heart himself and inevitably respecting his brethren. The 34th Apostolic Canon states that each nation should know its primate, and none of the bishops should do anything in common Church affairs without the consent of the primate, and he should do nothing in common Church affairs without the consent of the others; in this, love will be manifested, and the Son will be glorified in the Father through the Holy Spirit. When there is this agreement, it means the Patriarch is that figure who must embody and seek this agreement. That’s why our statutes say, “To be known for right thoughts about the faith.” This is very important. To be known for his life in the teaching of the Church and truly give the opportunity for this agreement to manifest for the glory of God.
His Eminence concluded with a blessing:
Let us remain Orthodox. It’s a great gift that we were born in an Orthodox country. Our ancestors fought to uphold the purity of the Orthodox faith—how many martyrs for the faith and how many saints our people have given! In cities and villages, on every holiday and Sunday, we hear the bell ringing in the church, and it awaits us there. Let us not pass by this call, let us know this treasure that we have near us. This is salvation and this makes us human.
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