Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said Saturday that he would go to Istanbul together with the head of the "new Ukrainian church" Metropolitan Epiphany in early January, adding that he expected to receive a tomos of autocephaly from the Patriarch of Constantinople.
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 15th December, 2018) Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said Saturday that he would go to Istanbul together with the head of the "new Ukrainian church" Metropolitan Epiphany in early January, adding that he expected to receive a tomos of autocephaly from the Patriarch of Constantinople.Earlier in the day, the non-canonical Metropolitan of Pereyaslav and Bila Tserkva Epiphany Dumenko was elected head of the "new church in Ukraine" at the "unification council" in Kiev, which was held behind the closed doors.
"Let me introduce the newly elected primate, Metropolitan Epiphany of Kiev. He will have a mission together with the Ukrainian president to go to Constantinople in early January and get a tomos," Poroshenko said from the stage on Sofia Square, as broadcast by the Pryamyi channel.
The unification council was meant to choose the leader of the new independent Ukrainian Orthodox church and adopt the structure's statute. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP), which has been the only canonical Orthodox church in Ukraine for hundreds of years, has refused to take part in the unification council.
The Moscow Patriarchate calls the situation around the autocephaly the "legalization of schism," saying that it would have catastrophic consequences and would affect millions of Christians in Ukraine and other countries, and has already broken the Eucharistic communion with the Patriarchate of Constantinople.
