The Patriarchate of Constantinople invaded the canonical territory of the Russian Orthodox Church
The Patriarchate of Constantinople began preparations for granting church autocephaly to the schismatic “Kyiv Patriarchate.” For this purpose, two exarchs from the USA and Canada were sent to Ukraine: Archbishop Daniel of Pamphylia and Bishop Hilarion of Edmonton.
This was reported on the page of the Patriarchate of Constantinople on Facebook.
“Both serve the Ukrainian Orthodox faithful in their countries in the Ecumenical Patriarchate,” the statement said.
The first to react to the appointments was the chairman of the Synodal Department for Relations of the Church with Society and the Media of the Moscow Patriarchate, Vladimir Legoida. In his telegram channel, he called the appointment of bishops without the consent of the Patriarch of Moscow and the Metropolitan of Kyiv “an unprecedentedly gross invasion of the canonical territory of the Moscow Patriarchate.”
“Such actions cannot go unanswered,” Legoyda wrote.
After this, the Department for External Church Relations of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church (DECR UOC) made an official statement, which called the appointment of exarchs “a gross violation of canonical territory.”
“This decision of the Patriarchate of Constantinople contradicts the 2nd rule of the Second Ecumenical (Constantinople) Council: “Unless invited, bishops should not go beyond the boundaries of their area.”
“The appointment of exarchs to Kyiv took place without the knowledge of His Beatitude Metropolitan Onufry of Kyiv and All Ukraine, as the sole canonical bishop of the city of Kyiv. Responsibility for the possible negative consequences of this act lies with the Patriarchate of Constantinople,” the statement says.
Deputy Chairman of the DECR of the UOC, Archpriest Nikolai Danilevich, on his Facebook page explained what the appointment of exarchs means.
“Exarch - in this case means envoy, legate. This does not yet mean the opening of the exarchate as a church structure. In this case, this means a commission that was unilaterally, without agreement with the canonical UOC, created by the Patriarchate of Constantinople, and which will come to Ukraine to communicate with various parties on the subject of creating an autocephalous Church,” Danilevich wrote.
The priest emphasized that the very modus operandi of Constantinople contradicts the canons: “bishops from any Local Church can come to the territory of another Church, much less carry out any actions, only with the permission of the Primate of the local Church.”
Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin believes that both exarchs represent “schismatic structures” that were recognized by the Patriarch of Constantinople hastily and “not entirely canonically.”
“It is these representatives, apparently, who will conduct and lead the “unification council”, at which a new “church” leadership will be elected and, in general, the parameters of the “single local church” will be determined. They are the ones who are not Filaret and not Poroshenko,” Chaplin wrote in his telegram channel.
He called the appointment of exarchs “not a declaration of war, but already a military action.”
“Was it not clear from the very beginning what I have known for a very long time: when the Phanar hypocrites, deceivers and heretics smile broadest at you, they clutch the scimitar handle tightest behind their backs,” Chaplin wrote.
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