Church of Cyprus recognizes the Orthodox Church of Ukraine

"His Beatitude Archbishop Chrysostomos II of Cyprus, leading today (24.10.2020) the Divine Liturgy at the ordination of the new bishop Pankraty of Arsinoe, at the Monastery of the Most Holy Theotokos "χρυσορροιιατίσσης" in Pathos, REMEMBERED the Primate of the Autocephalous Orthodox Church of Ukraine, His Beatitude Metropolitan Epifaniy of Kyiv and all Ukraine, thus de facto recognizing this new the Church. Consequently, the Church of Cyprus, through its Primate, became the third Church to recognize it after the Church of Greece and the Patriarchate of Alexandria.

This is an extraordinary and historical development of events, which is of great importance and of course, will cause a lot of discussions, revisiting the issue of the Autocephalous Church of Ukraine, which seemed to be "put on hold" due to the serious problem of Covid-19," Archbishop Yevstratiy (Zorya) posted today on his Facebook page the translation from the Greek-language media nyxthimeron.com.

Thus, the Church of Cyprus became the fourth Church after the Churches of Constantinople, Greece and Alexandria to recognize the Autocephalous Local Orthodox Church of Ukraine.

It should be noted that early March, the head of the Church of Cyprus, Archbishop Chrysostomos II, visited Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew. In the course of concelebration, the Primate of the OCU, Metropolitan Epifaniy, was mentioned. As a religious scholar, Dmytro Horyevoy has noted, according to orthodox practise, a sign of recognition is the mention of the Primate of the Church during divine services. That is, on the one hand, this event can be interpreted as recognition of the OCU. However, critics may object that the liturgy was led by the Ecumenical Patriarch who is the first in honor. Therefore the Diptych mentioned the Churches that are recognized specifically by him.