PETROPAVLOVSK-KAMCHATSKY (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 03rd February, 2019) KAMCHATSKY, February 3 (Sputnik) - Patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church (SOC) Irinej said on Sunday that the SOC would not recognize the newly-established "independent" Ukrainian church.
Enthronement of Epiphanius as the head of the new church of Ukraine took place on Sunday in Kiev's St. Sophia Cathedral. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and Yulia Tymoshenko, the presidential candidate from Ukraine's pro-European Batkivshchyna (Fatherland) party and former Ukrainian prime minister, among others, attended the ceremony.
"They did, but we answered we did not want to be there. We will not recognize them," Patriarch Irinej told the Rossiya 1 broadcaster, answering a question on whether or not he received invitation to the enthronement.
On January 6, Constantinople Patriarch Bartholomew handed over an independence decree, or tomos of autocephaly, to the head of the newly-established Ukrainian church. The Russian Orthodox Church along with the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP) � the latter is the only canonical Orthodox church in Ukraine � have refused to recognize Constantinople's decision, calling it legalization of schism and a tragic day for the world Orthodoxy.
