Canonical Value Of Unification Council In Ukraine Insignificant - Russian Orthodox Church

The canonical value of the so-called unification council held in Ukraine earlier on Saturday is insignificant, and Constantinople now has a serious task to explain to the heads of local Orthodox churches why those who were recently considered schismatics should be now treated as clerics with same rights, the deputy chair of the Moscow Patriarchate's External Church Relations Department, Archpriest Nikolai Balashov, said on Saturday.

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 15th December, 2018) The canonical value of the so-called unification council held in Ukraine earlier on Saturday is insignificant, and Constantinople now has a serious task to explain to the heads of local Orthodox churches why those who were recently considered schismatics should be now treated as clerics with same rights, the deputy chair of the Moscow Patriarchate's External Church Relations Department, Archpriest Nikolai Balashov, said on Saturday.

Earlier in the day, Metropolitan of non-canonical Pereyaslav and Bila Tserkva Epiphany Dumenko was elected head of the "new Ukrainian church" at the so called unification council in Kiev, which was held behind the closed doors.

"The Canonical value of this gathering of various individuals, led by a foreign bishop from France, who does not understand a word in Ukrainian, and the president of the country, whose constitution prescribes separation of church and state, is insignificant for us.

The [event] brought together individuals, the majority of whom has no legal ordination of a bishop, while one of non-canonical clerics was elected a non-canonical head," Balashov stated.

"The Patriarchate of Constantinople, which decided to give 'holy' status to this gathering by its bygone authority, now has a difficult task: to explain its actions to the rest of the Orthodox world and persuade its brothers, heads of local Orthodox churches, to acknowledge the equal status with yesterday's schismatics, who have never confessed sin of schism. I think that this is hardly a possible task," Balashov stressed.