The Council of State is vested with the rights of the highest administrative judicial authority, and as the Church of Greece is state-run, the appellants tried to get the Church's decision overturned in the manner prescribed for challenging state administrative decisions. This approach to the issue was rejected by the Council as unacceptable, and the appeal was dismissed.
On May 11, the OCU Synod's spokesman Archbishop Yevstratiy (Zorya), commented in his blog on Glavkom on the appeal by Moscow-backed organizations and individuals to the State Council of the Hellenic Republic against the decision of the Holy Synod of the Church of Greece to recognize the autocephaly of the Church of Ukraine.
The Council of State is vested with the rights of the highest administrative judicial authority, and as the Church of Greece is state-run, the appellants tried to get the Church's decision overturned in the manner prescribed for challenging state administrative decisions. This approach to the issue was rejected by the Council as unacceptable, and the appeal was dismissed. About this Yevstraty (Zorya) wrote in his blog on Glavkom.
"The plenary session of the Council of State decided that it did not have the relevant scope of legal capacity as a judicial authority to control the decision of the Holy Synod of Bishops of the Church of Greece, which recognized the right of the Ecumenical Patriarchate to declare autocephaly Churches in Ukraine since it is a purely internal Church's matter. In particular, the plenary meeting of the Council rejected the request of the "Panhellenic Orthodox Union" and individuals who requested to repeal the decision of the Holy Synod of hierarchs of the Greek Church, which acknowledged in line with the canon law the right of the Ecumenical Patriarchate to provide autocephaly to the Church of Ukraine, as well as the privilege of the Archbishop of Athens on this issue on behalf of the Church of Greece," said the OCU spokesman.
He explained that the State Council decided that the decision of the Holy Synod concerns internal Church issues, as well as inter-Orthodox relations, and these issues are regulated exclusively by Canon law, and not by state rules, and does not imply legal consequences for the state and the duties of state bodies. Therefore, the request for repealing is unacceptable, since it challenges a deed of spiritual character, which is not an executive administrative act, so it cannot be controlled by the State Council.