Church Of Greece Gives Archbishop Right To Decide On Recognizing Autocephaly In Ukraine

Sumaira FH Published October 12, 2019 | 09:17 PM

The Church of Greece has granted Archbishop of Athens and All Greece Ieronymos II the right to make decisions regarding the issue of autocephaly of the non-canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kiev Patriarchate (UOC-KP), as well as recognized the right of the Patriarch of Constantinople to grant the tomos of autocephaly to the UOC-KP, Metropolitan Hierotheos said on Saturday

ATHENS (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 12th October, 2019) The Church of Greece has granted Archbishop of Athens and All Greece Ieronymos II the right to make decisions regarding the issue of autocephaly of the non-canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kiev Patriarchate (UOC-KP), as well as recognized the right of the Patriarch of Constantinople to grant the tomos of autocephaly to the UOC-KP, Metropolitan Hierotheos said on Saturday.

Hierotheos avoided directly answering a question whether this decision meant recognition of autocephaly, stressing that the synod recognized the patriarch's right to grant autocephaly.

"We recognize not the tomos of autocephaly, but the right to grant it," the metropolitan said.

Archpriest Nikolay Balashov, the vice-chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate department for external church relations, told Sputnik that the Holy Synod of the Moscow Patriarchate would assess possible impact of the decision on the relations between the Church of Greece and the Russian Orthodox Church.

On January 6, Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople handed over the tomos of autocephaly, a document that grants Orthodox churches autonomy, to the newly established Ukrainian church. The Russian Orthodox Church, along with the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, refused to recognize the establishment of the new church structure in Ukraine and Constantinople's decision to grant it autocephaly.

The Moscow Patriarchate described the situation as the "legalization of schism," stressing that it would have catastrophic consequences and affect millions of Christians in Ukraine and other countries.