Sviatoslav Shevchuk calls Phanar Mother Church for Uniates

Head of the UGCC Sviatoslav Shevchuk. Photo: news.ugcc.ua

The Primate of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church Sviatoslav Shevchuk said that although the Uniates are not Greeks, they take their faith and theological traditions from Byzantium, therefore Constantinople is the Mother Church for them.

Shevchuk explained such an unexpected interpretation of interfaith relations with the thesis which is not the first time he is trying to promote to the masses – that the UGCC allegedly originates in 988 when the Holy Prince Vladimir baptized Kievan Rus’.
“This (the adoption of Christianity by Rus’ – Ed.) happened before the Great Schism between West and East, which resulted in the birth of the Catholic and Orthodox Church,” he told the Brazilian newspaper “Gazeta do Povo”. “We received our faith from Constantinople, and from this Mother Church came our identity, our tradition and our rites, which include not only the ceremony but the theological and liturgical traditions, our cults and the canonical succession of bishops.”

On the website of the publication, this article is available for a fee, and on the official website of the UGCC it is published only in the English version.

As reported earlier, the UGCC adopted an updated “Ecumenical Concept”.

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