UOC hierarch: ecclesiastic world may divide into Orthodoxy and Phanarodoxy

Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople

The pan-Orthodox world may again break up, like in 1054, this time having divided into Orthodoxy and "Phanarodoxy”. This point of view was expressed by the Vicar of Kiev eparchy, Archbishop Theodosius of Boyarka in an interview with Pravoslavie.Ru.

According to the hierarch, today a pessimistic and optimistic scenario is possible in the ecclesiastic world in view of the actions of Constantinople. The former involves the beginning of persecutions against the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

“Nevertheless, Constantinople does not recognize its mistakes, as it was in the twentieth century, and will insist on the correctness of the decisions and its primacy of power, eastern “papism”, said Vladyka Theodosius. “At the same time, representatives of Ukrainian schismatic groups who do not have the grace of the priesthood will be given carte blanche to all the shrines of the world, including the Holy Sepulcher and the Holy Mountain, to perform blasphemous services there. In this situation, the Local Churches will gradually be compelled to determine whether they remain within Orthodoxy or join the new “Pope”.

The hierarch does not exclude that the separation may lie not only along the boundaries of the Churches, i.e. between the Local Churches but also within the Churches themselves.

“Within is between the ascetics of the faith, adherents of the canons of Orthodoxy, on the one hand, and ecumenists, religious “liberals”and ethnophiles, on the other,” Archbishop Theodosius said. It means the once united Orthodox world may again break up. It will a kind of disperse to two different spiritual poles, as it was in 1054, this time having divided into Orthodoxy and ‘Phanarodoxy’. At the same time, in addition to a purely religious confrontation, in some cases the struggle for churches and monasteries between Orthodox and “Phanarious” in the once united Churches will begin. This can create civil tension in some states. What Europe experienced hundreds of years ago can return again in Orthodox countries in the 21st century.”

According to the hierarch, the position of just one person – the Patriarch of Constantinople, who believes himself entitled to decide for the whole Church of Christ, for the whole of Orthodoxy, can lead to this entire tragedy.

“If this happens, then, no doubt, the descendants will call him the new Herostratus. I think that if all this happens, then from this time on grace in the sacraments of the communities going farther and farther from the True Church of Christ, even if they externally retain the appearance of church structures, will dry up. As they are removed from Orthodoxy, the grace of the Holy Spirit will increasingly diminish until it gets scanty altogether. Where pride and heresy reign, there is no grace. May all this not be the case with our brothers,” concluded Archbishop Theodosius.

Earlier, Metropolitan Chrysostom, the head of the Metropolia of the Serbian Orthodox Church, battered the actions of Constantinople in Ukraine and sadly stated that “the celebration of Christmas this year will go down in history of the divided and fragmented Church”.

As the UOJ reported, on January 6, in the Cathedral of St. George in Istanbul, the Patriarch of Constantinople handed over to Epiphany the Tomos and the metropolitan’s crosier of the “Metropolitan of Kiev and All Ukraine”.

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