UAOC ready to become Constantinople’s metropolis
The UAOC is ready to abandon its autocephalous status and enter the Constantinople Patriarchate on the rights of a metropolis.
The delegates of the 5th Local Council held on June 6 in Kyiv adopted a statement with such request. The authors of the document believe that the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church will not lose its “magnificent and doleful”history within the Patriarchate of Constantinople.
“In the face of the Mother Church of Constantinople, on behalf of all the fullness of the Church, the Local Council turns to you to with a request –leaving aside any bias, to restore historical justice, receiving our Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church to the Ecumenical Patriarchate as a metropoliswith the rights of self-governance, which it had had previous to its accession in 1686 to the Moscow Church. This will allow millions of Ukrainian Orthodox join the prayer and Eucharistic communion with world Orthodoxy, because lack of unity is detrimental to their spiritual condition,” the statement goes.
Delegates to the 5th Local Council of the UAOC noted that the restoration of the Kyiv Metropolis would be the initial model to organize canonical life in Ukraine. They even prepared a number of action points that will enable the UAOC and Constantinople implement this blessed dream in life.
This issues include the involvement of leading theologians of the Ecumenical Patriarchate to discuss the problem of division in Ukrainian Orthodoxy, round tables and opening in Kyiv or Lvivof representations (metochions) of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, which will become the institutional center of interchurch activities in the issues of bringing unrecognized Orthodox communities of Ukraine to normal life in the Ecumenical Orthodox Church.
“At the same time, in solving the issue of the UAOC, we do not reject the magnificent and doleful history and traditions of our Church. The strategic goal of our church, building a single canonical Ukrainian LocalChurch, remains unchanged,”claim the members of the UAOC Local Council.
