Archbishop Chrysostomos II of Cyprus spoke extremely sharply on November 2 regarding the position of four members of the Synod of the Archdiocese of Cyprus - Metropolitans Athanasius of Limassol, Nikephoros of Kykkos, Isaiah of Tamas, as well as Bishop Nicholas of Amat, who opposed the recognition of the autocephaly of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) by the Archbishop and entering into canonical communion with it.
In an interview with the Kathimerini newspaper quoted by the Orthodox Times, the Archbishop of Cyprus called the conspiracy of these bishops, whom he considers worthy of defrocking, a "four-headed parasinagogue" Credo.press reports.
Chrysostomos recalled that it was the Patriarchate of Constantinople that was the source of autocephaly for all Orthodox churches, including the Russian one, except for the four Apostolic Thrones of the East. This phenomenon, in his opinion, is since it is the Patriarchate of Constantinople that "cedes its territory" when creating new autocephalous churches. "In the case of Ukraine, it was a diocese of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, which was just transferred to the administration of the Russian Church," Chrysostomos recalled.
The archbishop said that after the collapse of communism, the Ecumenical Patriarchate appealed to the Russian Orthodox Church to return to the status quo, which was rejected by the then Patriarch Alexy. Chrysostomos made the following claims to the Moscow Patriarchate: "He captured two dioceses in Georgia, two dioceses in Ukraine [in Crimea], he accepted more than half of the Orthodox from Poland, he withdrew dioceses from Romania. Who gave them the right to establish an autocephalous Church in America? This interference in someone else's jurisdiction caused upheaval throughout orthodoxy."
As Archbishop Chrysostomos admitted, he considered it appropriate not to inform the Metropolitans of the Church of Cyprus in advance of their intention to commemorate the Metropolitan of Kyiv, "so as not to disquiet them or quarrel with them."
Getting back to the demarche of the four bishops, the head of the Archdiocese of Cyprus stated: "What they did when the four of them met without me is called parasinagogue and is severely punished by defrocking ... I want to see how far their guilt goes. Metropolitan of Kikka is the senior of them; he has the right to speak more. But the Metropolitan of Tamas is still a child, and he condemns me! It's immoral because I was the one who ordained him. Shame on him!"