“Every Ukrainian party wants to get its own church” - Metropolitan Onufriy
The Ukrainian government should not try to subjugate the church in order to fulfill its own political orders.
The Primate of the UOC-MP, His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry, spoke about this in an interview with the magazine “Pastor and Flock,” the PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“He who believes in God, but is fixated on the desire to gain the Local Church, does not entrust himself to God, but lives according to his own mind. With this attitude, we will soon come to the point that every political force will want to have its own local church, which would obey this party in everything and force God to fulfill its political desires,” he said.
At the same time, the head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church noted that granting the tomos of autocephaly to the “Kyiv Patriarchate” would provoke a split in the entire world Orthodoxy.
“If the Tomos on the recognition of schismatics by the Patriarch of Constantinople is granted, it will give rise to new schisms, larger and deeper. These schisms will affect not only our Ukraine - they will affect the entire world Orthodox Church,” the clergyman explained.
At the same time, Metropolitan Onuphry added that, according to Orthodox canons, the Ecumenical Patriarchate does not have the right to grant autocephaly to a church that today is not within its jurisdiction.
“And if we take into account the fact that the “Mother Church” itself suffers from its own deepest schism, as a result of which the Orthodox Byzantine Empire turned into a country where Islam is now professed, then it would be appropriate to recall the words from the Holy Gospel: “To the doctor, heal yourself!” .
If a doctor, who, unfortunately, is himself seriously ill, and therefore does not have the right to treat others, still dares to act, then this will only give rise to greater lawlessness in the form of a worldwide schism in Orthodoxy,” concluded the Primate of the UOC-MP.
Let us recall earlier “PolitNavigator” that due to the recognition of the Kyiv schismatics Priests begin to leave Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew.
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