Source: Interfax-Religion
Moscow, August 5, 2016
The Constantinople Patriarchate, despite the rumors, is not going to create its own jurisdiction in Ukraine, Archbishop Job of Telmessos, a representative of Constantinople in the World Council of Churches, said.
"The Ecumenical Patriarchate does not plan to create another parallel jurisdiction in Ukraine because such a non-canonical situation will only aggravate the problem," he said in an interview with the website Orthodox Life.
The main goal of the Constantinople Patriarchate is "the unity of the Orthodox Church in Ukraine" and Patriarch Bartholomew "is ready to help cure the Church division" following the recent example in the Bulgarian Church and the Church of the Czech Lands and Slovakia, the hierarch said.
"Everyone, Ukrainians and Orthodox Christians worldwide, are tired of this division," Archbishop Job said.
According to earlier reports, the Ukrainian media has recently reported that Archbishop Job called Ukraine a canonical territory of the Constantinople Church during his visit to Kiev to attend the celebrations of the Day of the Christening of Rus. In the meantime, the Moscow Patriarchate doubted that the representative of Constantinople could indeed have said such a thing and said the allegations were invented by journalists.
