Metropolitan Oleksandr (Drabynko) spoke about the world prospects of recognition of the OCU
He said this in an interview with the Polish Radio.
"We can say that the OCU is recognized. Through the Universal Church, through the Church of Constantinople, through Patriarch Bartholomew, we have communion with the rest of the Orthodox world. Yes, they may not communicate with us (those who do not recognize the OCU – ed.), but when they communicate with Patriarch Bartholomew (and only the Moscow Patriarchate does not communicate with him and the Church of Constantinople), everyone else is in communion, respectively, and we also join. Thus, each Church separately must make a decision to add us to its diptychs, because this was determined by the Synod of the Ecumenical Church (the OCU ranks 15th in the general Pan-Orthodox diptych of local Orthodox Churches), start commemorating and enter into Eucharistic communion. Today we have 33% of such recognition: the Church of Constantinople, the Church of Alexandria, Cyprus, the OCU itself, and the Greek Orthodox Church. That is, a third recognize the OCU and this process is irrevocable," the Metropolitan said.
He also mentioned political and economic pressure and blackmail from Russia on other local Orthodox churches, but, as His Eminence noted, nothing lasts forever:
"Times, politicians are changing, the Church has a Tomos, not with us – with our descendants, in the next generations it will be recognized. The Russian Orthodox Church could not obtain its recognition for 141 years, and this has not prevented it from becoming a Patriarchate, a strong and powerful Church in today's Orthodox world. Everything is changing and we will believe that soon the political factor that hinders the recognition of the OCU as local will be eliminated and we will embrace each other in a fraternal way with the Polish Church, the Orthodox Church of the Czech lands and Slovakia, with the Churches of Jerusalem and Romania. The latter has never made any theological claims to the recognition of the OCU at all. The Church of Georgia is worried that there will be a more massive invasion of Abkhazia by the Russian Church, but, as we can see, whether it recognizes or does not recognize the local Church of Ukraine on this day – this does not prevent Russia from doing its own thing on the territory of the Church of Georgia. I think that soon we can get recognition of the Church of Georgia, the Church of Romania, the Church of Jerusalem, and I think it is also close to recognizing the OCU because it sees what Moscow is doing in Alexandria and Africa by opening its Exarchate there. I think that Patriarch Theophilus will stand in solidarity with his "colleague" Patriarch Theodore and will also make an appropriate decision in the near future."
