Bucharest, October 28, 2025
Photo: basilica.ro
Although the Romanian Orthodox Church’s Holy Synod has repeatedly rejected calls to recognize the schismatic “Orthodox Church of Ukraine,” Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople commemorated its head, Epiphany Dumenko, during the Divine Liturgy in Bucharest yesterday.
The Patriarch was invited to Romania to participate in the consecration of the mosaics of the People’s Salvation Cathedral, which was celebrated on Saturday. He remained to concelebrate with His Beatitude Patriarch Daniel and a host of Romanian hierarchs today for the feast of St. Demetrius the New, the patron saint of Bucharest.
And despite the Romanian Church’s stand on Ukrainian ecclesiastical issues, Pat. Bartholomew commemorated Epiphany Dumenko of Kiev during the reading of the diptychs at the Great Entrance. Dumenko’s organization, the OCU, was created by Constantinople and the Ukrainian and U.S. governments in December 2018.
When the schismatic head was commemorated by Pat. Bartholomew yesterday, a very clear shout of “Anathema!” was heard from either a cleric or layman attending the service:
Patriarch Theodoros of Alexandria behaved similarly in November 2019, when he commemorated the schismatic Dumenko during a Liturgy in the Limassol Metropolis of the Church of Cyprus, despite actually promising the local hierarch, His Eminence Metropolitan Athanasios, that he would not do so.
In March 2024, Pat. Bartholomew brought Dumenko and another schismatic hierarch to the funeral of His Holiness Patriarch Neofit of Bulgaria although they weren’t invited, inasmuch as the Bulgarian Church also has not recognized the OCU.
Watch the full video of yesterday’s Liturgy in Bucharest:
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