Phanar hierarch going to Ukraine to organize Local Church

Metropolitan Emmanuel of France

On November 15, the chairman of the Unification Council, the Locum Tenens of the Western European Exarchate of the Patriarchate of Constantinople Metropolitan Emmanuel of France, will arrive in Kiev on this November 14, reports GolosUA.

According to journalists, the hierarch of the Patriarchate of Constantinople will prepare institutional arrangements for holding the Unification Council of Bishops, which is to elect the head of the future church structure. The Council itself will be held on November 22, and by this time the Statute of the Orthodox Church in Ukraine and the text of the Tomos on autocephaly will have been prepared.

According to the edition, both Exarchs of the Phanar will participate in the Council with the right to vote. Filaret and Makariy will not take part in the sessions of the Council in order to “save the bishops from the temptation to break into the old ‘parties’.”

The source writes that the new church structure will have independent administration but receive myrrh and approval of the elected Primate from the Ecumenical Patriarch. It is also noted that the Tomos draft has already included a provision on more than 20 representations of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, which Poroshenko promised to transfer before the start of the presidential election.

Earlier, Patriarch Bartholomew has said that the Patriarchate of Constantinople will solve church problems that have tormented Ukrainians for centuries. On November 13, the Holy Synod of the UOC recognized the decisions of the Constantinople Patriarchate of October 11, 2018, on the Ukrainian church issue to be invalid and such that they have no canonical force.

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