Ukraine Has No Platform for Dialogue Between UOC-MP, ‘New Church’ – Archbishop

“We have the All-Ukrainian Council of Churches — a platform for dialogue. Since [the non-canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church of] the Kiev Patriarchate and the UAOC [the unrecognized Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church] have been dismantled, it is unclear in what format this organization will continue to operate… Now the format of the dialogue is unclear,” Archbishop Clement said.

READ MORE: Patriarch Bartholomew Gives Kiev Tomos Granting Autocephaly to Ukrainian Church

The archbishop also stated that the Canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate wouldn’t hold church services with the recently created “new Ukrainian church.”

“The new church is a non-canonical religious organization. This means that compared to an Orthodox church, which has the authority to perform sacraments, this religious organization is not [such a church]. Therefore, there is no way we could hold services together with the religious leaders of this church,” the archbishop said.

Prior to the so-called unification of the Ukrainian Orthodox church, the church in the country was split into three major groups: the canonical UOC-MP and the two non-recognized structures — the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Kiev Patriarchate and Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church.

On Sunday, the “new church” received the Tomos from Constantinople Patriarch Bartholomew, officially stipulating its independence.

The Russian Orthodox Church, along with other canonical Orthodox churches, except for Constantinople, have refused to recognize the results of the “unification council” that took place in Kiev on December 15 and resulted in the election of the head of the new Ukrainian church.

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