MPs request Phanar to discuss the issue of Tomos after elections

Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople

Deputies of the Verkhovna Rada appealed to Patriarch Bartholomew to postpone the decision on granting autocephaly to the Ukrainian Church. The text of the message with the signatures of Andrey Derkach, Yakov Bezbakh, Andrey Shipko, Vasily Gorbal and Grigory Smytiukh was published on September 21 by Obozrevatel (Observer).

"Your Holiness! In the troubled times for Ukrainian Orthodoxy, we consider it our duty to address you," the letter says. "We are grateful to you for your attention to Ukrainian Orthodoxy and for the desire to raise dialogue to a new level in our great Christian family."

MPs expressed concern because the fate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church is discussed by politicians who are not Orthodox.

"We would not like you as a respected Ecumenical Patriarch to come to Ukraine on the shoulders of Greek Catholics and those politicians who are guided by their own interests in the framework of the presidential elections," the MPs note.

The authors of the appeal suggest considering the issue of granting autocephaly after the presidential election in 2019.

"We suggest that we organize an All-Orthodox Conference in order to work out the only correct approach in agreement with the Moscow Patriarchate: either in granting autocephaly to the UOC or placing missions of the Ecumenical Patriarchate on the territory of Ukraine (in fact, they already exist here), or another joint decision that will help heal the split, make everybody happy and reconciled in the name of Salvation and for the good of Orthodoxy," the letter says.

Also, the Parliamentarians called upon Patriarch Bartholomew to weigh the future historical step as much as possible in order to avoid political speculations on this issue. The authors of the letter believe that haste in this matter confuses many Orthodox.

"They do not understand the haste of the process and are frustrated by the lack of your dialogue with the UOC," the message says. "At the same time, they clearly see Greek-Catholic" locomotives " in the central authorities of Ukraine, carrying the Tomos of Your Holiness to Ukraine as a "propaganda leaf" for the presidential elections. We do not want the historical possibility of autocephaly and your light aspiration to be smeared with speeches of candidates for the Presidency and exploited by them for mercenary purposes."

Earlier, the head of the UOC-KP, delivering a lecture in the United States, said that he expects to receive theTomos this year, since the next president may not be "interested in creating a single autocephalous Church and thus, the issue of Tomos will be put into cold storage."

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