UOC-MP suspends Eucharistic communion with the Churches that recognize OCU
The UOC-MP suspended the Eucharistic communion with the Ecumenical Patriarchate and Churches that recognized the Orthodox Church of Ukraine.
This is said in the statement of the Holy Synod of the UOC-MP, which was held in Kyiv.
"...The breakup by the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Eucharistic communion with the Patriarchate of Constantinople and with the Churches and hierarchs that recognized the schismatics is neither an abuse of the Eucharist nor even more so blackmailing with the Eucharist, as some people say, but on the contrary is the protection of the Eucharist and the preservation of the canonical and spiritual purity and integrity of the Church," the document says.
The Synod participants noted that, while communicating, they are not isolating themselves, but only "protect" the Church from "blasphemy".
"In fact, we defend the purity of the canonical tradition of the Church, protect the Church from blasphemy. Otherwise, if persons who do not have legal ordinations are admitted to the priesthood, if the schism is declared by the Church, and the real Church of Christ is ignored or called a schism, then there is a danger of substitution of the Church. In addition, such anti-Church acts blur the line between the Church and schism. As a result, a new "Church" is created, founded by people, instead of the one that our Lord Jesus Christ founded, having acquired it For himself with his Blood (cf. Act II. 20: 28)", notes the document.
On October 12, 2019, at an extraordinary meeting of the Council of the Hellenic Orthodox Church recognized the autocephaly of the OCU. The decision was made under the chairmanship of the head of the Council and the Primate of the Church of Greece, His Beatitude Archbishop Hieronymos.
On November 8, 2019, Patriarch Theodore II of Alexandria and all Africa remembered the name of Metropolitan Epifaniy of Kyiv and all Ukraine as Primate of the Autocephalous Orthodox Church of Ukraine during the Liturgy on the day of the Council of St Michael the Archangel (new style) in the Church in his honor in the capital of Egypt.
