We are beginning to function more and more fully as a patriarchal Church. The Patriarchal Church is a Church that unites not only individual eparchies but also different metropolitanates. A metropolitanate is a supra-eparchial structure, and patriarchate is a supra-metropolitan structure. During these ten years we have made big steps in this direction. Only in Ukraine we have formed three new metropolitanates – real, not titular ones…
This was said by His Beatitude Sviatoslav, Father and Head of the UGCC, in an interview with LB.ua, answering the question of how much the UGCC's path to gaining the status of her own patriarchate has shortened over the past ten years.
"Obviously, when it comes to who is the head that unites the metropolitanates in Ukraine, Poland, Canada, the United States, Brazil, this is is the patriarch," said His Beatitude Sviatoslav.
At the same time, he explained that it is not enough to have metropolitanates or a Synod because as Pope Francis said in 2019: "It is not enough to have a Synod, we must be a Synod."
“Therefore, we still need to learn to use the structures that we are developing in a proper way. I think we are a patriarchal Church in essence and now we live more and more fully as such. I think that the recognition of the UGCC as the patriarchal Church will be the next step,” said the Primate of the UGCC.