Primate of the UOC: Phanar’s actions in Ukraine are anticanonical

His Beatitude Metropolitan Onufry of Kiev and All Ukraine

The decision of the Patriarchate of Constantinople to appoint exarchs to Kiev is anticanonical, said His Beatitude Metropolitan Onufry of Kiev and All Ukraine in the programme "Morning with Inter" on September 14.

"Such actions are anticanonical – to send their legates, their exarchs, to our independent Church," said Metropolitan Onufry. "Once it was a powerful Church that embraced the whole civilized world, it identified itself with the Byzantine Empire. The Byzantine Empire embraced the world, and the Church was equivalent to the empire. But today there is no such empire. They live in the past."

The Primate of the UOC recalled that the great Byzantine Empire became Turkey, and the faith there is non-Orthodox now.

"Today, the Orthodox believers can be counted on the fingers," explained Metropolitan Onufry. "Those who have brought their Homeland to the point that it turned from an Orthodox power into a Muslim state want to command us and teach us how we need to live. They also want to bring our Ukraine to such a state, to which they brought their Homeland. So, they have neither moral nor canonical right to appoint exarchs here and interfere in our affairs."

Also in his interview, His Beatitude Onufry said that Orthodox believers today are "dragged into the format of a political party".

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