Archbishop Yevstratiy (Zorya): terms of Tomos were known well before Unification Council

In 2008, the Ecumenical Patriarchate offered to provide the Ukrainian Churches a partial autonomy that envisages the status of a Metropolia.

Patriarch Filaret agreed to this status. However, the decisions were not implemented due to the fact that Constantinople could not guarantee the provision of the Tomos within a certain period of time.

Archbishop Yevstratiy (Zorya) made a post about it on Facebook.

"In my opinion, it happened because God provided for a better future for the Ukrainian Church.

But this is not the point now. The point at issue is that it is -- at least -- erroneous to claim that the terms of 2008 and the contents of the effective Tomos are actually "the same". To put it mildly...", - said the hierarch.

"1. The Tomos envisages an autocephalous Church included in the diptych (and not to an autonomy as part of the Ecumenical Patriarchate).

2. A number of local Autocephalous Churches get myrrh from Constantinople, which does not belittle their status of autocephaly. For example, in the midst of the dispute with Moscow a few months ago, the Patriarchate of Jerusalem demonstratively requested and received the myrrh from the Ecumenical Patriarch. Conversely, the Romanian Church, which at first had the status of Metropolia and received the chrism from Constantinople, while in a few decades after the Tomos was granted, it gained the status of the Romanian Patriarchate and the Patriarch now consecrates chrism, maintaining excellent relations with Constantinople.

3. Pursuant to the Tomos, all nominations to hierarchical ministry and the management decisions in general fall within the exclusive competence of the Local UOC. And when someone claims that "the Orthodox Church of Ukraine depends on Constantinople just in the same manner as the UOC-Moscow Patriarchate depends on Moscow", it is enough to compare the two Charters to see how inconsistent it is with reality!

4. Indeed, the Tomos also enshrines the right of appeal ('ekkleto') to the Ecumenical Patriarch for those definitively sentenced by a church court. But this right has an exclusive character and does not concern "the settlement of all cases"," added Archbishop Yevstratiy.

The Archbishop of the OCU has also noted that the terms of the Tomos were known prior to the holding of the Unification Council.

"And to conclude the post: the text of the Tomos has been publicly known since January 6, 2019. And its main provisions were clear from the draft Charter of the OCU proposed by the Synod of the EP for the Unification Council. That is, on December 15, 2018, it was precisely known about the myrrh, about the Diaspora, and about the right of appeal. It wasn't known word for word, but it was clear that these are the issues of principle for the EP, so they will be reflected in the Tomos. Therefore, in my opinion, the current criticism of the Tomos does not come from its objective content because otherwise it would have been subject to criticism at least five months earlier," the hierarch stressed.

As reported, Patriarch Emeritus Filaret said that the Tomos makes the OCU almost similarly dependent on Constantinople, as the UOC-MP is dependent on Moscow.

He also said that he would not abide by the terms of the Tomos in the issues of the transition of foreign parishes of the former UOC-Kyiv Patriarchate to the Ecumenical Patriarchate, he rejected the ban of preparation of chrism, and refused to settle internal conflict situations only in coordination with the Phanar.