“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine has instructed ambassadors in Orthodox countries to hold meetings with the primates of the Churches in order to convince them of support for the government’s initiatives,” said Metropolitan Anthony, head of the affairs of the UOC (Moscow Patriarchate).
At the same time, the leadership of the UOC (MP) brings to the attention of local churches that it opposes the proposals of Poroshenko and the Verkhovna Rada.
“Based on the constant communication that we have with the Local Churches, as well as from their first reaction, which we already know, the idea of providing the “Tomos of Autocephaly” to schismatics, bypassing the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church, does not cause any approval,” рассказал Metropolitan Anthony. “The primates and representatives of the Churches perceive all this with surprise, excitement, and sometimes even indignation and express their disagreement.”
According to the metropolitan, “in conversations with us, the bishops, including those belonging to the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, express words of support to us and ask us to convey that there is no reason for concern, since the Local Churches do not approve of initiatives that could lead to big problems in the world Orthodoxy."
“We feel informal pressure from certain political forces on our Church, on our bishops,” the bishop said. – The mentioned initiatives are also being promoted in the international arena. We know that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine has instructed ambassadors in Orthodox countries to hold meetings with the primates of Churches in order to convince them of their support for the government’s initiatives. In particular, recently, Minister of Foreign Affairs P. A. Klimkin, during his visit to Egypt, met with Patriarch Theodore of Alexandria.”
“We are seeing information attacks on society in this matter. They want to convince us that the issue has supposedly been resolved and we just need to come to terms with it. But I want to responsibly declare that Local Churches will be guided in this matter by the criteria of benefit for Ecumenical Orthodoxy, church canons, and not by the political interests of the authorities,” concluded the manager of the UOC (MP).