ROC concerned about Phanar meeting with Ukrainian schismatics

The head of the Moscow Synodal Department for External Church Relations (DECR) Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk has expressed concern over the fact that the Patriarchate of Constantinople receives representatives of schismatic Ukrainian church communities, writes Interfax.

“We fully respect the Ecumenical Patriarch, and do not consider it necessary to comment on what political actors he meets with. But when schismatic pseudo-hierarchs appear at the Phanar, it cannot but grieve us,” the metropolitan said in an interview with the Romfea Church news agency, posted on the DECR website.

The hierarch noted that these men publish photographs of their meetings with hierarchs of the Ecumenical Patriarchate and report the content of their talks. “Of course, we don’t know how reliably they report what was said during the meetings, but if we believe these men, then in the Phanar they support them and promise to create a single Local Church in Ukraine, by separating from the Russian Orthodox Church,” Met. Hilarion stated.

He emphasized that they do not want to believe this information in the Russian Church.

“Many times we have heard from the mouth of the Ecumenical Patriarch his sold assurance that he considers the only canonical Church in Ukraine to be the Ukrainian Orthodox Church with His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry at the head. For us, these assurances of His Holiness Patriarch Bartholomew are the basis on which we build our relationship with the Patriarchate of Constantinople,” said the department head.

As reported by the UOJ, earlier schismatics has reported of a meeting with representatives of the Patriarchate of Constantinople.