Warsaw, November 10, 2025
Photo: polityka.pl
His Beatitude Metropolitan Sawa of Warsaw and All Poland has lodged a formal complaint with Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople regarding activities of the schismatic “Orthodox Church of Ukraine” on the canonical territory of the Polish Orthodox Church.
The complaint was revealed in the report from the most recent session of the Synod of Bishops of the OCU. According to the report, the “bishops” heard a report concerning the letter from Constantinople, informing them of the complaint that Met. Sawa had sent to Pat. Bartholomew, who created and exercises oversight over the OCU.
The OCU Synod also heard a report from “Metropolitan” Hilarion of Rivne and Ostroh, head of the OCU Chaplaincy Mission, regarding its activities in Poland. The Synod approved a letter addressed to Met. Sawa and the Polish Synod of Bishops, justifying the OCU’s actions as occurring “in a state of extreme necessity” due to what they characterized as “anticanonical and even anti-Christian treatment by the Polish hierarchy toward the clergy and faithful of the OCU who found themselves in Poland fleeing Russian armed aggression.”
The current situation stems from events beginning on Sunday, July 27, when the aforementioned Hilarion and other OCU “clergy” served in Warsaw. Regular services of the chaplaincy have been held in Poland since then.
The OCU clergy are serving in Warsaw without the blessing of Met. Sawa, who, together with his entire Local Church, does not recognize the OCU or the ordinations of its clerics, as is true of the majority of the Orthodox world.
OCU leadership has repeatedly complained about the fact that the Polish Church does not recognize its organization, while simultaneously encroaching upon Polish Church territory without a blessing. In January 2022, Alexander Drabinko, a formerly canonical bishop who joined the OCU, served in Poland. The Polish hierarchs also protested this uncanonical action to the Patriarchate of Constantinople at the time.
Despite these previous appeals and repeated calls for a Pan-Orthodox Synod to address the matter of the OCU, Constantinople has not taken action to resolve the issues.
The OCU has violated the canonical territory of several Local Churches, including the Serbian Orthodox Church and the Orthodox Church of the Czech Lands and Slovakia, even though the tomos it received from Constantinople defines its activities as limited to Ukraine.
The Polish Orthodox Church’s aid to Ukrainian refugees
The OCU complains of the Polish Church’s “anti-Christian treatment” of its clergy and people. However, the clergy of the Polish Church cannot concelebrate with or allow OCU “clerics” to serve in their churches, as they are schismatics, outside the Orthodox Church. Likewise, concerning OCU parishioners, they are unable to participate in the Sacramental life of the Polish Church unless they are received canonically into the Church.
However, all are welcome to benefit from the Church’s far-reaching charitable and social initiatives.
The Polish Church has been actively supporting Ukrainian refugees through its ELEOS charitable foundation since the war began in February 2022, including through close collaboration with International Orthodox Christian Charities (IOCC) from the United States.
ELEOS has been providing comprehensive assistance including sending humanitarian aid directly to Ukraine, offering financial and material support to refugees in Poland, organizing accommodation, running therapeutic and developmental centers, and facilitating Polish language courses to help refugees integrate into their new environment. The organization has also supported refugees in establishing businesses, provided educational assistance, and operated integration programs through various Orthodox parishes across Poland. In recognition of these extensive humanitarian efforts, ELEOS employees have been formally honored by the Polish president for their service.
Over the past four years of cooperation with IOCC, ELEOS has helped tens of thousands of people in need, both within Poland and beyond its borders in Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, and Slovakia. The support has particularly focused on war refugees from Ukraine and Polish host families. Notable examples of this international partnership include a spring 2022 fundraising campaign by the Orthodox Church in America that raised hundreds of thousands of dollars donated to ELEOS for Ukrainian aid.
The foundation also maintains an information portal for Ukrainian refugees offering guidance on legal matters, healthcare, education, employment, social benefits, and daily life in Poland, while parishes continue to operate language courses, community centers, and integration events that help refugees build new lives while preserving connections to their Orthodox faith community, including through Ukrainian-language services, which are offered weekly at the cathedral in Warsaw and other parishes.
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