ROCOR Not To Participate In Meetings Chaired By Church Of Constantinople - Synod

The Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (ROCOR) will not participate in meetings chaired by the Constantinople Patriarchate and considers Eucharistic intercommunion impossible, ROCOR's Holy Synod said in a statement on Thursday.

WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 19th October, 2018) The Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (ROCOR) will not participate in meetings chaired by the Constantinople Patriarchate and considers Eucharistic intercommunion impossible, ROCOR's Holy Synod said in a statement on Thursday.

"We further reiterate that the ROCOR will not participate in theological inter-church meetings, or other dialogues, including the regional Assemblies of Bishops, which are chaired or co-chaired by clerics or hierarchy of the Church of Constantinople," the statement said.

The ROCOR's Holly Synod emphasized that the illicit actions of the Constantinople Patriarchate on starting the process of granting autocephaly to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church "constitute a grave and dangerous injustice" against the traditions of Orthodoxy.

In addition, the ROCOR's Holly Synod publicly expressed its agreement with the decision of the Holy Synod of the Patriarchate of Moscow that continuing the Eucharistic communion with the Constantinople patriarchate is impossible at any level.

This stand will continue "until this ancient and once-glorious sister church repents from its introduction of false and alien teachings about primacy and universal authority, contrary to the ancient Orthodox faith, and ceases from its lawless actions," the release said.

The ROCOR's Holly Synod emphasized that Constantinople's moves on granting autocephaly to the church in Ukraine pose "intrusion into another local church canonical territory," the release added.

On October 8, the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) decided to break the Eucharistic communion with the Constantinople Patriarchate after the latter launched preparations for granting autocephaly to the Orthodox Church in Ukraine. The Holy Synod also qualified the Constantinople Patriarchate's move to revoke the 1686 act transferring the Kiev archdiocese to the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate as canonically void.

The Constantinople Patriarchate also ex parte lifted the anathema from the heads of two non-canonical churches in Ukraine - the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kiev Patriarchate (UOC-KP), which was created in 1992 after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the so-called Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church, that had been excommunicated by the ROC for their schism.

The Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP) is the only canonical Orthodox Church in Ukraine and does not claim independence.