Met. Anthony: In Ukraine, the schism wasn’t healed but legalized

Metropolitan Anthony (Pakanich) of Borispol and Brovary, UOC Chancellor. Photo: UNIAN

On June 30, 2019, Metropolitan Anthony (Pakanich) of Borispol and Brovary, the UOC Chancellor, in an interview with the TV show “Universul credinței” (“The Universe of Faith”) on the Romanian TV channel “TVR” commented on the church situation in Ukraine.

“The question of Ukrainian Orthodoxy is no longer a purely internal Ukrainian question. We have gone so far that it needs to be considered at the Pan-Orthodox Assembly,” the bishop emphasized.

In his opinion, “without a general agreement, brotherly love and responsibility for the future of all Orthodoxy, we will not solve this issue.”

“There is no need for ambitions, no need to build any illusions. Unfortunately, what happened in Ukraine was not the healing of the schism, but its simple legalization,” the hierarch noted.

According to him, “those people who lived in the schism, they see themselves so. They have no experience of life in Universal Orthodoxy.”

“If in the near future there is no solution through canon law, then this schism will create a new schism,” said Metropolitan Anthony.

Vladyka recalled that the schism founder, Filaret Denisenko, had already broken away from the OCU.

“The new structure was created by the state for its political goals, we can now speak frankly – the former president wanted to re-elect in this way for a second term.

And everything that originates in an unchurched way, not on the basis of the inner forces of life in Christ — everything will fail,” he concluded.

As the UOJ reported earlier, at the meeting of the “Holy Synod” of June 24, 2019, “Patriarch” Filaret was deprived of the right to govern the Kiev Eparchy of the OCU but was left in the “episcopate”.

The members of the “Holy Synod” of the OCU decided, “taking into account the special merits in the past to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, to state that Honorary Patriarch Filaret remains in the episcopate of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, but lost the canonical rights and duties related to the administration of the eparchy”.

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