Expert: OCU is granted metropolis though they call it autocephaly

Political analyst Ruslan Biziayev. Photo: riafan.ru

The Patriarchate of Constantinople granted the OCU the narrowest metropolis status but not autocephaly everyone is ranting about, political expert Ruslan Biziayev noted on the air of “1 Kozak”.

“Even the UOC, which is called the MP, has much greater autonomy in many respects,” he explained. “I can invite everyone to December 2018 to an interview with Metropolitan Sophrony of Cherkassy and Kanev, who was shortly before awarded the Order of Yaroslav the Wise of IV degree by Petro Poroshenko and who explained why, being a supporter of the Ukrainian autocephalous Church, he nevertheless did not fall for these tomos stories. <...> Starting from buying the myrrh and ending with internal administrative issues prescribed by the Tomos."

The political expert recalled that Patriarch of Bartholomew of Constantinople has his vested interest in Ukraine.

“Let's not forget that functionally, among other things, the Ecumenical Patriarch is also a Turkish civil servant. This is the point about the separation of state and church. He needs a stavropegion, which he agreed on in the ‘Poroshenko-Bartholomew Pact’,” Biziayev said.

However, after transferring the St. Andrew’s church in Kiev to Phanar, the issue of transferring a number of temples and monasteries to Constantinople simply subsided, he added.

“Given the requests and pressure of our Western partners, in the end they decided not to strain the situation, to take the path of least resistance. Who is the weakest element in this situation? Filaret. So they started with Filaret. With his help, they closed all the issues listed on the agenda: how they will receive property, remove a hot-button issue of the Tomos canonicity from a theological point of view. Because if the UOC-KP exists, the Tomos is automatically non-canonical,” the expert named the reasons for the interest of the OCU in the liquidation of the Kiev Patriarchate.

According to the political analyst, the conflict between these two church structures will continue for a long time.

“Any patriarchy is not only property, it is people. We will now definitely observe the internal conflict between the OCU and the UOC-KP. It is not going anywhere. It exists regardless of any court decision,” Biziayev noted. “It will exist while Patriarch Filaret and the people who stand behind him are at least alive.”

Recall, on November 11, 2019, the Sixth Court of Appeal of Kiev overturned the decision of the District Administrative Court of Kiev to suspend the liquidation of the UOC-KP.

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