Ukrainian Orthodox Church believes Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew fell victim of provocation regarding Ukrainian church autocephaly
MOSCOW. Sept 5 (Interfax) - The Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate believes there has been some provocative influence on the report by Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew he made at a recent synaxis (assembly), in which he claimed the Ecumenical Patriarchate's right to make a decision on granting autocephaly to the Ukrainian church and denied this right to the Russian Orthodox Church, Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate spokesperson Vasyl Anisimov said in an interview with Interfax on Wednesday
"We have lately received a lot of provocative news reports on the meeting between the patriarchs in Istanbul, and I believe the current one is one of such. It's hard to believe that a church hierarchy respecting himself could have uttered this text, which is illiterate from all standpoints, including the canonical, historical, and even literary one," Anisimov said in an interview with Interfax.
The authors of this provocative text seem not to know that the cathedra of Kievan metropolitans was relocated to Moscow in the 14th century not from Kyiv but from Vladimir, where it had been relocated after Kyiv had been totally pillaged by Batu Khan, he said.
"As the capital of the only fully independent Orthodox church, Moscow was a place of pilgrimage for Eastern patriarchs suffering from foreign yoke for centuries, where they came for material support and for collecting alms. And they always received this. Two Constantinople patriarchs even died during these trips in the territory of the current Ukraine," Anisimov said.