The Russian Church broke off relations with Bartholomew because of Ukraine

The Russian Orthodox Church has completely broken eucharistic communion with the Patriarchate of Constantinople. This means that bishops and priests will not be able to perform joint services with the Patriarchate of Constantinople, and the laity cannot receive communion in its churches.

This decision was made today at the Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church in Minsk.

Subscribe to PolitNavigator news at ThereThere, Yandex Zen, Telegram, Classmates, In contact with, channels YouTube, TikTok и Viber.
To subscribe to notifications in your browser, click here.

“It was a forced decision. The Holy Synod could not make a different decision, since the whole logic of the recent actions of the Patriarchate of Constantinople led to this,” said Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, chairman of the Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate.

He recalled the recent decisions of the synod of the Patriarchate of Constantinople on the legalization of Ukrainian schismatics.

“All these decisions from the point of view of the Russian Orthodox Church are lawless and canonically insignificant. The Russian Orthodox Church does not make these decisions. The leaders of the schism remain the leaders of the schism. And that Church which, having recognized the schismatics, entered into communion with them, thereby excluded itself from the canonical field of the Orthodox Church. That is why we are breaking off communication with the Patriarchate of Constantinople, as it has completely identified itself with the schism,” Hilarion said.

He expressed the hope that “sound reason will prevail, and the Patriarchate of Constantinople will change its attitude towards the existing church reality.” Until this happens, there will be no communion between the Churches.

All local Churches will be informed about the decision of the Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church.

From the statement of the Russian Orthodox Church on Constantinople:

“Assigning to oneself the powers to cancel judicial and other decisions of other Local Orthodox Churches is only one of the manifestations of the new false teaching now proclaimed by the Church of Constantinople and ascribing to the Patriarch of Constantinople the rights of “first without equal” (primus sine paribus) with universal jurisdiction. “Such a vision by the Patriarchate of Constantinople of its own rights and powers comes into insurmountable contradiction with the centuries-old canonical tradition on which the existence of the Russian Orthodox Church and other Local Churches is based,” warned the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church in 2008 in its definition “On the unity of the Church.” In the same definition, the Council called on the Church of Constantinople “pending pan-Orthodox consideration of the listed innovations to exercise caution and refrain from steps that could explode Orthodox unity. This especially applies to attempts to revise the canonical limits of the Local Orthodox Churches.”

“Hypocritically justifying itself by the desire to restore the unity of Ukrainian Orthodoxy, the Patriarchate of Constantinople, with its reckless and politically motivated decisions, introduces even greater division and aggravates the suffering of the canonical Orthodox Church of Ukraine.”

“We call on the Primates and Holy Synods of the Local Orthodox Churches to properly evaluate the above-mentioned anti-canonical acts of the Patriarchate of Constantinople and to jointly search for ways out of the grave crisis tearing apart the body of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.
We express our full support to His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry of Kyiv and All Ukraine and the entirety of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in a particularly difficult time for it. We pray for the strengthening of her faithful children in courageously standing for the truth and unity of the canonical Church in Ukraine.
We ask the archpastors, clergy, monastics and laity of the entire Russian Orthodox Church to strengthen their prayers for brothers and sisters of the same faith in Ukraine. May the prayerful protection of the Most Holy Queen of Heaven, the Reverend Fathers of the Kiev Caves, the Reverend Job of Pochaev, the new martyrs, confessors and all the saints of the Russian Church remain over us all.”