Arch. Clement: There is no direct subordination between UOC and Phanar

Archbishop Clement (Vecheria) of Nezhin and Priluki

For several centuries, there has been no direct subordination between Constantinople and the UOC. This was announced on November 2 by the head of the Information and Education Department of the UOC Archbishop Clement of Nezhin and Priluki, reports Korrespondent referring to RT.

Commenting on the words of Archbishop Job (Getcha) that “from a canonical point of view, the Church of the Moscow Patriarchate no longer exists in Ukraine,” His Eminence Clement noted that the Ukrainian Orthodox Church is not subject to Constantinople.

“What does the Constantinople Patriarchate have to do with the Ukrainian Orthodox Church? wonders the head of the Synodal Department of the UOC. “For a long time, after heresies and unions, into which the Patriarchate of Constantinople would repeatedly backslide, after the defeat of Constantinople more than 500 years ago and the disappearance of the empire, no laws of this empire, including those regulating ecclesiastic life in the Byzantine Empire, have any legal force. For this reason, for more than one century, there has not been a direct subordination between the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and the Patriarchate of Constantinople.”

According to the hierarch of the UOC, to revoke the letter on the transfer of the Kiev Metropolis in 1686 is the same as to cancel the decisions of the Ecumenical Councils of the 4th or 7th centuries.

“Furthermore, the 300-year-old documents suggest a completely different territory both in the ecclesiastic and geographic planes. The borders of the Kiev Metropolis in XVII century are completely different from those of the UOC in its current state. Nor is our state confined to the metropolis that used to be in XVII century,” concluded Archbishop Clement.

Earlier, the Patriarchate of Constantinople stated that “the Church of the Moscow Patriarchate no longer exists in Ukraine”, while all the hierarchs of Ukraine are de facto hierarchs of the Ecumenical Throne.

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