Patriarchate is adulthood, growth of church, not privilege

In an interview before the official proclamation of Lviv Metropolitanate of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, Auxiliary Bishop of Lviv Archdiocese, Bishop Benedict (Aleksiychuk) said that the preparation of today's event was a long process.

According to him, Patriarchate is the adulthood, the growth of the church, not a privilege.

"In the context of our church we decided to develop in this direction and the proclamation of the metropolitanate is a certain growth, which leads to the patriarchate of our church when we will be mature enough."

"I have no doubt that we will be a patriarchate. Patriarchy is not a privilege, but adulthood of the church. This is typical for the church, when it matures. To have a partriarchal rule is normal for the churches in the east, not something special. Therefore the formation of metropolitanates is a step toward the patriarchate. This is the normal growth of the church," said the bishop.

Regarding the position of some representative of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church who were clearly against this step, Bishop Benedict said that this is internal matter of the UGCC. "If someone is happy with that, we will be glad, if someone is irritated, we should understand that we can not satisfy everyone. This is an internal development of our church, of our structures," Bishop Benedict said.