Pat. Bartholomew: We Will Not Revoke the Tomos; the OCU and UOC Must Unite
According to Pat. Bartholomew, the process of recognition of a united church may take decades.
In a recently released interview with French television, Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople stated that he will not revoke the Tomos of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU), despite the fact that it has not brought about the unification of the Orthodox faithful there.
Answering the question of why the decision was made to grant the Tomos to the OCU, the Patriarch explained that he was guided by two motives. First, that “the Ukrainian Church has the right to receive independence," and second, that the Phanar had received “numerous appeals,” not only in recent years, but also much earlier, “in the 1920s and even before.”
“Our goal is to unite all the Orthodox Churches of Ukraine—both Metropolitan Onuphry and Metropolitan Epiphanius—so that they may come together in theory and in practice, become one local Church, and be recognized by the other sister Orthodox Churches,” the Patriarch said.
In his view, this “will happen sooner or later,” but “one should not expect it to occur overnight.” The head of the Phanar believes that the union of the UOC and OCU, and their recognition by the Local Churches, “will take place in the coming years or decades.”
“The Ecumenical Patriarchate has no intention of revoking its decision to grant autocephaly to Ukraine. I want to be clear on this matter,” Patriarch Bartholomew concluded.
Previously, UOJ reported that the head of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU), Serhiy Dumenko, intended to hold a "liturgy" at the Archangel Michael Cathedral in Cherkasy, seized from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC).
