Yushchenko says that the Ukraine wishes to reach an Agreement with “the Mother Church of the Ecumenical Patriarchate”

Bartholomew’s intent for the Church. He must be stopped.

Kiev, 20 May 2008 (Interfax):

Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko is in favour of an agreement with the Ecumenical Patriarchate. “The Ukrainian state and Ukrainian believers are convinced that we must move to make an agreement and seek unity with the Mother Church of the EP”, Mr Yushchenko said on Tuesday in the course of an official meeting with a delegation of the EP in Kiev, the press service of the president reported. “The Ukraine shall take this path”, he declared.

On their part, the EP delegates were grateful that they would be better able to effect a consolidation of the Orthodox churches in the Ukraine with a permanent presence in the country, and said that this process would be effectual when all sides were ready to contribute to it. Previously, the Moscow Patriarchate repeatedly expressed its displeasure at the interference of the EP in the church affairs of the Ukraine, an area that is part of the canonical territory of the MP.

In June 2007, Mr Yushchenko met Patriarch Bartholomew of the EP in Istanbul. They discussed the formation in the Ukraine of “a united Local Church”. Bartholomew then transmitted is blessings to the entire Ukrainian people via Mr Yushchenko. Several years ago, one of the bishops of [a schismatic body in the Ukraine recognised by] the EP, “Archbishop” Vsevolod Maidansky of Skopelos, claimed during a meeting with Mr Yushchenko that the jurisdiction of the MP does not extend to the Kiev Metropolia. Responding to this statement, Patriarch Aleksei II of Moscow and all Russia said during an interview with Interfax-Religion that “this opinion affects not only the MP, but, also all other Local Churches. This can become a source for many conflicts that would have a perceptible impact on Orthodox unity and the position of Orthodoxy in the world”. He warned Ukrainian leaders against bringing the EP into the church life of the Ukraine.

The MP also declared that they reject the pretensions of the EP to primacy over all Orthodox Churches in the world. Metropolitan Kyrill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad, the head of the MP Department for External Church Relations, noted that “the EP claims to play in the Orthodox world a role similar to that exercised by the Pope of Rome in the Catholic world”. He stressed that the MP insists that “the EP does not have such a primacy over the other Local Churches”. In particular, Metropolitan Kyrill unconditionally rejected the assertion of the EP that it can interfere in the affairs of any Local Church, as it claims to be the “court of last resort” for all appeals throughout the Church. He emphasised that the MP is “categorically against this affectation, and would never recognise such a procedure”.  

Interfax-Religion

http://www.interfax-religion.ru/?act=news&div=24559 (in Russian)

Editor’s Note:

President Yushchenko, as a layman, has no right interfering in the inner life of the Church. Furthermore, he has no right bringing a foreign and hostile body onto the canonical territory of a Local Church without even the courtesy of a “by your leave”. This IS the first salvo of the EP-MP dispute. This bids fair to be “interesting”, and it is no doubt going to become very nasty very quickly.

May God give strength to Patriarch Aleksei and Metropolitan Vladimir Sabodan. This treachery and deceitfulness on the part of Yushchenko is beyond words. May God have mercy on his soul.