Former Abkhaz Orthodox clerics sever links with Moscow Patriarchate
Sukhumi, June 29, Interfax – Two priests who have decided to organize an independent Abkhaz Orthodox Church said they have definitively severed all their links with Russian Orthodox Church, of which they were members before.
Archimandrite Dorofey (Dbar) and Hieromonk Andrey (Ampar) convened a conference in 2011 that set up “Holy Metropolitan See of Abkhazia,” an entity that was to organize an independent Abkhaz Orthodox Church. In response, Bishop Tikhon of Maikop and Adygei (Moscow Patriarchate), issued decrees imposing a three-year ministry ban on the two clerics.
“We didn’t even read those decrees – we tore them up and gave them back,” Archimandrite Dorofey told reporters in Sukhumi. “Now we have nothing to do with the Maikop and Adygei Diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church.”
They said they would continue to lead worship services “with approval from many church hierarchs of the rest of the Orthodox world.”
“Pending the definitive decision on the status of the Orthodox Church in Abkhazia, that is pending the appearance a canonical bishop on Abkhaz territory, we will mention in our worship services the name of Bartholomew I, the Holy Ecumenical Patriarch, as primate of the entire Ecumenical Orthodox Church,” Fr. Dorofey said.
