Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Istanbul (formerly Constantinople) who is been asked as first among equals (primus inter pares) primarily for historic reasons (because Constantinople, before its takeover by Turks in 1453, was the centre of Orthodox Christianity) to accept this new church.
Russian Patriarch Kirill, speaking in Moscow at the celebrations of the 1030th
anniversary of Vladimir’s baptism of Rus, warned against attempts by
secular authorities in Ukraine to interfere with church affairs or to
split the historic church.
Orthodox
faithful inside Ukraine, both ethnic Russians and ethnic Ukrainians,
see the plans of Poroshenko’s government and Denisenko as an illegal
assault on their tradition and religious heritage. In addition, some
deputies in the Ukrainian Rada (Parliament) have warned that there could
be “bloody consequences” if the properties of the UOC-MP are
confiscated and its members forced to join a new church.
According
to the historical record, the Baptism of Kievan Rus by Vladimir had the
support and participation of the Greek Church in Constantinople, then
the official church of the Eastern Roman Empire, later known as
Byzantium. The first Orthodox bishops and metropolitans (equivalent to
Western archbishops) in Russia were Greeks from Constantinople who got
their “apostolic succession” from Christ’s disciples.
Poroshenko: More moves against Moscow.
The
petition to Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew to approve the invention
of a new “united” Ukrainian church that eliminates the UOC-MP would
violate this sacred apostolic succession, says the Moscow Patriarchate.
The UOC-MP has also protested that neither Poroshenko nor the Rada are
empowered to ask Bartholomew to change the church’s organization in
Ukraine.
“The strength of the Russian Orthodox Church and its Ukrainian sister UOC-MP lies in the apostolic succession, which the current Ukrainian government can neither provide nor imitate,”
the Russian Orthodox
Church’s spokesman said.
“The state cannot `create’ a church, nor should it aspire to do it. But this is exactly what the Ukrainian authorities are trying to do, urging the Ukrainian Orthodox Church to merge with Denisenko’s entity and asking from the ecumenical Patriarch in Constantinople an autocephalous status for this new `united’ Ukrainian church of their own invention.”
“This initiative is an abuse of power, an interference of state into church affairs,”
UOC-MP’s the spokesman said.
The
UOC-MP has remained the only public organization in Ukraine which still
legally has the word “Moscow” in its name, and for millions of
Ukrainian citizens, ethnic Russians or not, any kind of legal linkage to
Russia is still valued.