Ukraine has already received church autocephaly. This is how the country’s President Petro Poroshenko interpreted today’s decision of the Synod of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, invalidating the letter of 1696, which gave the Moscow Patriarch the right to ordain the Metropolitan of Kyiv.
“The decision to grant autocephaly has already been made, I emphasize. The decision of the Ecumenical Patriarch and the Synod finally dispelled the imperial illusions and chauvinistic fantasies of Moscow. This is the fall of the Third Rome as Moscow’s long-standing conceptual bid for world domination,” Poroshenko said in an emergency address to the nation.
He called the receipt of autocephaly “a victory of the Ukrainian people over Moscow demons, good over evil, light over darkness.” In flowery terms, Poroshenko justified his crude interference in religious matters on the basis of their “geopolitical” importance.
“The issues of tomos and autocephaly go far beyond the boundaries of church life, which is why the state has become involved in them. This is a question of our independence, our national security, our statehood, and the entire world geopolitics. Autocephaly is part of our statist pro-European and pro-Ukrainian strategy, which we are consistently implementing. Tomos is practically another proclamation of the independence of Ukraine,” Poroshenko said.
Having provoked religious conflicts, he hypocritically decided to act as a peacemaker, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“I guarantee that the state of Ukraine will respect the choice of those who decide to remain in the church structure that will maintain unity with the Russian Orthodox Church. But I also guarantee that the state will protect those priests and laity of the UOC of the Moscow Patriarchate who voluntarily decide to leave Moscow,” Poroshenko said.
He also called in advance the nationalists who would attack churches as agents of the Kremlin.
“As soon as you see people who call for taking the Lavra, monastery or temple by force, know: these are Moscow agents. Because the Kremlin’s goal is to incite a religious war in Ukraine,” Poroshenko said.