Posted on 10/11/2018 10:31:42 AM PDT by CondoleezzaProtege
The head of global Orthodox Christianity has decided to grant Ukraine its own church independent of Russia’s patriarchate, in a politically charged move that defies sharp warnings from Moscow.
The decision is a victory for Ukraine in a wider struggle against Russia that encompasses Moscow’s 2014 annexation of Crimea and its continued support for separatists fighting against Kiev in the east of the country. But it has been condemned by Russian officials, who have warned it threatens to trigger the biggest Christian schism in a millennium.
While both Ukraine and Russia share the same orthodox Christian roots that date back to 988, a new Kiev-based Orthodox church formed in the 1990s has seen its support swell since 2014, propping up longstanding efforts to attain canonical recognition as an independent Ukrainian church.
Thursday’s decision, after a three-day synod chaired by Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew in Istanbul, granted recognition to the leader of the breakaway church, the first step in a process of attaining independence from the Russian organisation.
The synod also said it had revoked a 1686 ruling that gave the Moscow patriarch the power to ordain the church’s head in Kiev.
(Excerpt) Read more at ft.com ...
Good for Ukraine!
The Ukrainian Catholic Church split from the Roman Catholic Church in the 9th Century but then rejoined the Roman Catholic Church about a century later and is part of the Roman Catholic Church today.
Just in case someone get confused with the terms...
Soloviev made a pretty good case that the Russian/Ukrainian Church never formally split from the Catholic Church.
The major split between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church dates to 1054. I believe the Ukrainian Catholic Church dates back to when parts of Ukraine were part of the kingdom of Poland.
They are part of the Catholic Church, but would not appreciate being called “Roman Catholic”.
The EP is an inch from precipitating what could be the most serious schism in the Church in a thousand years. I would not be surprised if the Russians break communion over this. Not a single canonical Orthodox church has expressed support for the EP’s reckless behavior, and most have criticized (or outright condemned) it.
Bartholomew has found a way to revive his own authority within the Orthodox world. Moreover, the rumoured wording of his official decree (in Orthodox terminology a ‘Tomos’) mandating Ukrainian independence reopens huge historical issues relating to the canonical authority of the Moscow Church, after the Ecumenical Patriarch ceded authority to it in 1686, and even possibly when the Moscow church proclaimed its Patriarchal status in 1589
The Ecumenical Patriarch is NOT the “head of global Orthodox Christianity”. Orthodoxy has no “head”, and no “pope”. It has conciliar leadership.
Once again, liberal press pretending to know what they are talking about.
Symbolically, Constantinople-now-Istanbul is the center point for Eastern Orthodoxy. The symbolic ramifications are meaningful. Otherwise, Moscow would not be so up in arms about the ordeal nor use cling to the mythos of their ‘Moscow as the 3rd Rome’ narratives to prop up their geopolitical hegemony and continued claims of ownership to Ukraine/Crimea and Belarus.
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