Patriarch of BOC: There сan be no compromise regarding canons of the Church

Patriarch Daniel of Bulgaria. Photo: bg-patriarshia.bg

The official journal of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, 'Church Gazette', published the first extensive interview with His Holiness Patriarch Daniel, in which he commented on the situation in global Orthodoxy.

The Primate of the BOC noted that at present, Eucharistic communion is broken between some Local Orthodox Churches, which inflicts painful wounds on the entire Body of Christ.

“The lack of church communion is a tragedy for every Orthodox Christian. It is no coincidence that at every Divine Liturgy we pray ‘for the prosperity of the holy churches of God and for their unity.’ Therefore, we must strive with all our might not to deepen this division and not to expand it further,” he said.

Recalling the Church’s experience, he emphasized that only when the Church consistently and persistently defended the canonical order from innovations did all storms come to an end.

“There is no other way because there should be no compromises in this regard,” stressed the Bulgarian Patriarch. “As St. John Chrysostom says: ‘The name “Church” means assembly.’ The problems of church life have always been resolved in a conciliar way, within the conciliar bodies of the Church and in the spirit of conciliarity. At the same time, the Church should not be influenced by specific situational processes in a particular Local Church or in a geopolitical context; it should not be influenced by contemporary trends in politics, but we must be aware of its high mission.”

The holy hierarch reminded that the mission of the Church is to testify about Christ, about His peace, and to lead the human souls entrusted to Him to salvation.

In his conviction, to remain in Orthodoxy and in the unity of the Church, “we need to follow the canonical order and avoid a distorted or tendentious interpretation of the basic provisions regulating relations between Local Churches.”

“We should not repeat the mistakes that some Local Churches would make in the past, thus falling away from the unity of Orthodoxy. A specific example of this is the Roman Catholic Church, which, after the schism, introduced innovations into the dogmatic truths of faith and the canonical order in the Church,” he concluded.

As the UOJ previously reported, a Bulgarian journalist stated that if Patriarch Daniel had not been chosen, there would have been a schism.

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