The speech by Metropolitan Hilarion (Alfeyev) at the Synod of Bishops in Rome damaged the Russian Orthodox Church herself. This is a commentary that UGCC Patriarch Sviatoslav (Shevchuk) made today at a press conference at St. George's Hill in Lviv regarding the speech by Metropolitan Hilarion, DECR Chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate, made in Rome.
Note that during one of the sessions of the Synod of the Catholic Bishops themed “Family and New Evangelization” Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk again accused the Ukrainian Greek Catholics of fomenting civil war in Ukraine.
“Not only the heads of the Episcopal Conferences, not only heads of the Eastern Catholic Church, but also the so-called fraternal delegates from the Orthodox and Protestant Churches were invited at the Synod’s meeting, where they could speak to the Synod Fathers on the issues the Synod discussed, that is on the family issues. Metropolitan Hilarion did an ill service with his speech. Instead of talking about the Orthodox doctrine of the Church family, he used the opportunity to speak in the presence of the Holy Father and all the Fathers of the Synod and once again aggressively attacked the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church,” said His Beatitude Sviatoslav.
According to the leader of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, Metropolitan Hilarion’s attacks concerned three issues. First of all, the very right of the UGCC to exist: “You see, it is so interesting, we celebrate 25 years of our freedom and over the past 25 years the rhetoric of our ‘northern brother’ has never changed. The very existence of our Church is a challenge. “Two other theses of Metropolitan Hilarion concerned allegations of Greek Catholics in fueling civil conflict in Ukraine and communication with representatives of the UOC-KP and UAOC.
Head of the UGCC said that the speech of Moscow guest excited negative response of those attending.
“These three provocations in one package committed at the highest forum of the Catholic Church ended in an absolute fiasco. What was the audience’s response? Extremely negative. Later on I was approached by representatives of all the Episcopal Conferences, who were expressing great solidarity with our Church and Ukraine.”
According to him, acting like that the Russian Metropolitan made a promotion of Ukraine and everyone began to wonder what is really going on here.
“Metropolitan Athenagoras, who represented the Ecumenical Patriarchate, responded in a very interesting manner. He was just surprised that someone allowed himself such an attitude to the member of the Catholic family in the presence of the entire family. The Holy Father was really perplexed. I had the opportunity to talk to him almost every day.”
“So I think that Metropolitan Hilarion did a lot of harm to the Orthodox Church by his speech. I was personally told of this harm by representatives of the Vatican curia,” concluded the UGCC Head.