If Metropolitan Onufriy of the UOC-MP had agreed to take part in the Unification Synod, to which he was invited by his Mother Church together with other brothers, they would not have been isolated now.
This opinion was expressed by Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew in an interview with the Cyprus newspaper "Politis" on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of his election to the patriarchal throne, reports Religiyna Pravda.
According to him, the Ecumenical Patriarchate did not break off communication with the Moscow Patriarchate and its “heart is not closed to brothers.”
"Perhaps the aspect that the Ecumenical Patriarchate did not break off communication with the Moscow Patriarchate precisely because it does not believe that there is any violation of church order and canon law is deliberately hushed up. This means that our hearts are not closed to our brothers. In fact, the opposite is true. If metropolitan Onufriy had agreed to participate in the Unification Synod, to which he was invited by His Mother Church along with other brothers, then today, perhaps, it would have been different. It didn't happen. They physically refused to promote unity and preferred isolation because of the breakdown of society and the threat of schism,” Patriarch Bartholomew said.
He expressed the hope that the UOC-MP will eventually understand that it made the wrong choice.
“We hope that the brothers will eventually understand the wrong choice because the life of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church continues in the Holy Spirit, and those who have deprived themselves of communion with their Mother are those who consciously or not chose the ecclesial isolation,” the Ecumenical Patriarch stressed.