The independence decree, or tomos, granting autocephaly to the newly established Orthodox church of Ukraine, has been taken away from the Saint Sophia Cathedral in Kiev and its present location is unknown, local media reported on Tuesday.
KIEV (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 08th January, 2019) The independence decree, or tomos, granting autocephaly to the newly established Orthodox church of Ukraine, has been taken away from the Saint Sophia Cathedral in Kiev and its present location is unknown, local media reported on Tuesday.On Monday, Andriy Yurash, the director of the Ukrainian Culture Ministry's Department for Religious Affairs and Nationalities, said that the tomos will be returned to Istanbul to be signed by all the members of the Constantinople Patriarchate's Holy Synod since it has only been signed by Constantinople Patriarch Bartholomew. The Ukrainian Culture Ministry then refuted this information.
According to Ukraine's Pryamiy tv channel, the tomos has been taken from the Saint Sophia Cathedral by the members of the clergy, with the employees of the Saint Sophia Cathedral have not been informed of where it would be transferred to.
On December 15, a unification council was held in Kiev at the initiative of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and Constantinople Patriarch Bartholomew, during which Epiphany Dumenko was elected as head of the new autocephalous church. The new church united the two previously non-canonical structures. The council was attended by only two bishops of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP), who were later defrocked by their church, which officially refused to participate in the event.
On Sunday, Patriarch Bartholomew handed over the tomos to the head of the new church. Under the granted tomos, the so-called Orthodox Church of Ukraine will have jurisdiction exclusively over Ukraine and will not be authorized to appoint bishops and establish its parishes abroad, becoming effectively dependent on Constantinople.
The Russian Orthodox Church has refused to recognize the results of the unification council and Constantinople's decision to grant autocephaly to the new Ukrainian church, insisting that Constantinople legalized schism and adding that the day when the tomos was signed was a "tragic" one for the global Orthodoxy.
