In the new episode of the YouTube channel VICHE, we present an open and principled conversation about what is happening to Orthodoxy today during the war.
Ilona Sokolovska, Editor-in-Chief of the channel, speaks with Archbishop Elpidophoros of America, Exarch of the Ecumenical Patriarchate and Professor of Theology, about how the Russian Orthodox Church has turned into an instrument of state aggression, why blessing a war is incompatible with the Gospel, and where the limits of acceptable church rhetoric lie.
The interview offers a clear and firm assessment of the ideology of the “Russian World,” an explanation of the canonical status of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church after the Council in Feofania, the position of the Ecumenical Patriarchate on the Tomos of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, and the possibility of a so-called “third way” — a transitional pastoral bridge toward the future unity of Ukrainian Orthodoxy.
“There is no theory, no faith, no Gospel that could ever justify bloodshed and aggression of one people against another,” emphasizes Archbishop Elpidophoros.
This is a conversation not only about canons, but about the responsibility of the Church, faith without propaganda, and Christianity without war.
▶ Watch the full episode here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gt8h1um-eFc
- Ilona Sokolovska:
Your Eminence, Before turning to the questions that are of particular concern to Orthodox Ukrainians, I cannot avoid mentioning the recent harsh and, in the view of many, openly blasphemous statement made by the so-called Foreign Intelligence Service of the Moscow Patriarchate against Patriarch Bartholomew.
Many Orthodox theolоgians have already given a theological and moral assessment of this attack. But I would add that this statement was addressed primarily to a domestic audience in Russia — as a signal of how one is expected to think, whom one should consider an enemy, and where the border of what is acceptable lie. In effect, it seems as a warning: thinking differently is equated with treason.
This is especially striking given that just before Christmas, Patriarch Kirill stated quite directly in an interview that those who disagree with the policies of the state are “traitors to the Motherland.”
Just yesterday, Elder Metropolitan EmmАnuel of Chalcedon also commented on these statements, saying that “the Russian Church has become a mechanism of propaganda,” and that “the attack on the Ecumenical Patriarch reveals that in the Moscow Patriarchate the grace of the Holy Spirit gives way to Еspionage.” He described what is happening as a total war declared by the Moscow Patriarchate.
Your Eminence,
how did you perceive this statement?
- Archbishop Elpidophoros of America:
First of all, thank you for offering me the opportunity to address the Ukrainian-speaking audience. With the Ukrainian people, I have special memories and bonds since many years now, when we visited Ukraine when the Metropolitan Sabadan of blessed memory was the Metropolitan of Kiev, and when we organized at that time the wonderful visit of His All-Holiness to Ukraine when President Viktor Yushchenko was the President of Ukraine. And I remember that the late Patriarch Alexy came also and they consecrated together with our Ecumenical Patriarch in Kiev. So I have very close relations and ties with this beautiful country, this Orthodox country, and it really pains me to see the situation today with the barbaric invasion of the brother country, Russia. And I feel the pain of the Ukrainian people, and of course of all the mothers from both sides who lose their children in this war. For those of us who really are familiar with the history of orthodoxy in Russia and the countries around Russia, we were not surprised by the recent statement of the intelligence service of the Russian government against the Ecumenical Patriarch.
And I’m saying I’m not surprised because we all know that there is such a long history behind the mentality that is prevailing in Russia, using the church or seeing the church as the department of state, especially of external relations or foreign affairs or even domestic affairs. The church has always been a tool for the state, not only recently, even from the times of the Tsars before communism. And of course, with communism, it was so obvious that almost all the leaders of the Russian Orthodox Church had to be members of the Russian intelligence services or controlled by the Russian intelligence services, and thus they always functioned as the supporters of the foreign policy and the domestic policy of the Russian government, either the Tsar’s time or in the communist time.
We see this continuing event today, and what the intelligence service of Russia published recently just verifies a reality we were all aware about to this. Of course, it’s unfortunate that an intelligence service is interfering in church affairs, church issues. We all have to remember that the church is a spiritual reality. The church has had Jesus Christ himself, and we are all his servants, from patriarchs, bishops, archbishops, priests, faithful, we are members of this body, the body whose head is Jesus Christ. So any other criterias interfering in church life is not compatible with the teaching. For the Catholic, the teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ, and of course it’s not compatible with the rules, those we call canons of the Church. The Church has its own canons, its own rules, according to which we function and we operate in the Church. We have to remember that we are not a secular organization, we are a spiritual organization, and any state cannot dictate to the Church what to do, what to say, how to behave, or what a Church leader is. We need to maintain the communion, the sacramental communion among us, keep and safeguard the unity of our Orthodoxi, no matter what happens around us in this world. And this is exactly what the Ecumenical Patriarchate is doing, since we did not follow, as Ecumenical Patriarchate, the decision of the Russian Orthodox Church to unilaterally interrupt sacramental communion. Can you imagine interrupting sacramental communion for something that is completely, completely mundane, secular? It’s not spiritual, it’s not ecclesiastical. So we still commemorate, we still pray for the Russian Orthodox Church, for Patriarch Kirill, and all the hierarchs of the Russian Orthodox Church, since we are members of the same body.
- Ilona Sokolovska:
Your Eminence,
At the end of 2025, against the backdrop of Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine — a war that the Russian Orthodox Church publicly blesses as “holy” — state and social pressure in Ukraine on the Ukrainian Orthodox Church under Metropolitan Onuphry is growing, with demands that it finally and clearly break all ties with Moscow. At the same time, we see public video statements by certain UOC hierarchs (Metropolitan Antony and Metropolitan Theodosii). On the one hand, they share the position of the Russian Orthodox Church in denying_the primacy and canonical jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarch in Ukraine. On the other hand, they address him emotionally, calling on him to “restore historical justice” and effectively hinting at a possible revision of the Tomos of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine. In these statements, they also refer to their personal meetings with Patriarch Barthalomew and quote his words, claiming that he as if promised “never to hurt the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.” At the same time, they argue, dispute that the Tomos itself became such a pain — even asking emotionally how, after this, the Patriarch can look UOC believers and bishops in the eye.
Your Eminence, how closely does the Orthodox world follow this conflict between the Ukrainian Orthodox Church under Metropolitan Onuphry and the Orthodox Church of Ukraine under Metropolitan Epiphanius? Do such appeals from UOC hierarchs reach the Ecumenical Patriarch, and how are they perceived:
as a sincere cry of pain and an internal church drama,
or as a knowingly constructed and manipulative rhetoric that appeals to an authority whose primacy is at the same time being denied?
- Archbishop Elpidophoros of America:
Of course, the Ecumenical Patriarchate is here to help and to restore the Orthodox unity in Ukraine. And that was the reason why the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew granted the Tomos to the Church of Ukraine to unite all Orthodox under the autocephaly of the sovereign people of Ukraine. Since this is a sovereign country, an independent country, an old church, a well-organized church, but this church was divided just because the pressure from above, from Russia, didn’t allow the local church to grow and to develop its autocephaly and independence.
This pressure from Russia was for political reasons, not for ecclesiastical reasons, because if you apply and if you think that the ecclesiastical criteria is for the Church of Ukraine, I mean all the Orthodox Christians in Ukraine, the Church of Ukraine is a mature and historical church, the firstborn child of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, and is mature to have autocephaly. The only argument and the only reason denying this right to the Church, to the Orthodox people of Ukraine, was the political difficulty that the state of Russia had seen this country growing independently from anyone and growing in the international community as a sovereign and independent country.
The church independence is part of this difficulty that the church and the state in Russia had to see the church in Ukraine growing. But the ecumenical patriarchy doesn’t have these kind of criterias. So applying only the church, the ecclesiastical criterias, granted the tomos to the church of Ukraine and invited all parties to join this new autocephalous church. At that time, we all know that not everyone, not all hierarchs came under this new autocephalous church. The reason is obvious, but I don’t know if someone ever talked about this in public and openly. The reason that many hierarchs did not join this autocephalous church was the unfair and the pressure that they had from the security services, intelligence services, the Russian services, who blackmailed for personal matters or pressed or oppressed or even threatened the hierarchs not to join.
Let’s be open and honest about what is happening just in front of our eyes, because this is the only way we can understand each other. Now I hear that the hierarchs of the church that is outside the autocephalous church in Ukraine, some hierarchs need and ask for the help, they appeal to the Ecumenical Patriarch for help. And the Ecumenical Patriarch is ready to help them, but how can you ask for the help of someone if you do not recognize his authority to help you, if you question his jurisdiction to help you? So, since these hierarchs, and maybe even Metropolitan Onufriy himself, they deny to commemorate Patriarch of Russia, then how can they claim that they are a canonical church? How can you be a canonical church if you do not commemorate anyone? How can you expect any kind of status, canonical status, being granted to you by the Ecumenical Patriarch, who is the only Patriarch in the Orthodox world who has the right from the history and the canons of the Ecumenical Councils to grant you canonical status, and at the same time you deny this authority?
I think the first step should be, if anyone needs the help and the authority of the ecumenical patriarch, then as to accept his authority to do this and commemorate. You cannot be an Orthodox hierarchy without commemorating anyone. So, and the canonical status of any church, of any ecclesiastical entity, is granted only by the ecumenical patriarchate. And this is the reason it is called Ecumenical Patriarchate. We have a supreme authority in the Orthodox Church, of course, not in the way that the Roman Catholic Church has, which is the supreme authority of the Pope, but we do have an Orthodox supreme authority with our own terms, according to the canons of the ecumenical councils, according to which authority even the canonical status of autocephaly and the patriarchate status was granted to the Church of Russia. So, if the ecumenical patriarchate really had the right to grant the autocephaly and the patriarchal status and value to the Church of Russia, then the same ecumenical patriarchate has the right to do so in other local autocephalous churches or local churches, whenever it deems the Patriarchate that it’s appropriate, whenever it deems the ecumenical patriarchate that a local church is mature to grow as an independent and autocephalous church.
- Ilona Sokolovska:
Your Eminence,
After the Ecumenical Patriarchate revoked the Letter of 1686, by which Moscow had received the right to temporarily admInister the Kyiv Metropolis, all of Ukrainian Orthodoxy — the Kyiv Metropolis, and in particular the Ukrainian Orthodox Church — according to many hierarchs of Constantinople, returned to its Mother Church, that is, came back under the Ecumenical Patriarchate.
However, in 2022 a council of the Holy sinod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church was held in Feofaniia in Kyiv. According to its decisions, Metropolitan Onuphry stated that the UOC is on the path toward autocephaly and that its status should be decided by an Ecumenical Council. How can this be interpreted from the point of view of the Ecumenical Patriarchate?
How is the Ukrainian Orthodox Church under Metropolitan Onuphry canonically perceived today in Constantinople: as part of the Moscow Patriarchate,
or as a disobedient, unruly and headstrong – part of the Kyiv Metropolis that refuses to listen to its primate?
And in this situation, from a theological point of view, what should cause greater anxiety: disobedience to the First See, or the use of canons as a tool of political self-defense?
- Archbishop Elpidophoros of America:
Again, the decision of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in the year 2022 to ask for autocephaly or a different independent status from the Ecumenical Patriarchate has to go hand in hand on how we see and we accept the authority of the Ecumenical Patriarchate to do so. If we question the authority and the decisions of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, then how do we expect this authority to be exercised and to help us? We cannot, it’s like shooting our feet if we criticize or if we question in any way the authority and the right, the prerogative of the Ecumenical Patriarchate to help the local churches and to grant them status of autocephaly or autonomy.
I understand the difficulty that Metropolitan Onufriy has today, but we all have to understand, especially those of us who live in the West and in the United States and elsewhere, that there is a war in the country, in Ukraine. There is an invasion. Our children are being killed in the field. Other people, men and women, are killed in the cities. We have millions and millions of refugees fleeing the country. How can someone expect that a part of the local church in Ukraine can be under Moscow? I understand the statements that the local Ukrainian Orthodox Church officials and hierarchs say that we are against the invasion, we are against the war, we even condemn the statements of Patriarch Kirill who is justifying the war and the brotherly bloodshed. But how can you be convincing while saying that? And I’m referring to Metropolitan Onufriy and his hierarch. How can you be convincing to the world when, on one hand, you say that you condemn whatever Patriarch Kirill is stating and whatever the position of the official Russian Orthodox Church is, and at the same time having the entire Russian propaganda mechanism? State and church propaganda mechanism supporting you. So it seems that there is a certain degree of dependence, even if it is not openly stated. Maybe it’s psychological, maybe it’s the conscience or the faith, but it is not convincing to say that we condemn the war. It is not convincing, it’s not enough to say that I condemn the statements of Patriarch Kirill, and at the same time you self-declare yourself as an entity which has no ecclesiastical status.
What is the ecclesiastical status of the metropolises under a metropolitan Onufrey and all the hierarchs? The only status is that they are recognized by the Church of Russia and all the other Orthodox churches that are politically and ecclesiastically satellites of Russia. So if we really want to make a progress, to have a progress in the ecclesiastical situation in Ukraine, I think the hierarchs or under Onufrey and himself, Onufrey himself, should start, if they really mean what they say about dialogue with Constantinople, begin with commemorating the Patriarch of Constantinople, meaning commemorating him in the services. That means we accept his authority to support us. As long as we do not do this, all these appeals for the ecumenical throne to help them are not substantial, are not convincing.
- Ilona Sokolovska:
Your Eminence,
The factual reality today is this: most of those who wanted to move from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) have already done so.
At the same time, there is a so-called pro-Ukrainian, pro-autocephaly part of the UOC that wants to leave the Russian Orthodox Church but is not yet ready to join the OCU. They are looking for a separate, special temporary – transitional status — for example, an autonomous church under the omophorion of the Ecumenical Patriarch, as envisioned by a significant part of the UOC, or a stauropegial form of direct subordination of UOC parishes and dioceses directly to Patriarch Bartholomew.
Your Eminence, you are an expert in canon law and a professor of theology. Please explain, from the point of view of Orthodox canon law, whether such a “third path” is possible for the UOC — not the OCU, not the Russian Orthodox Church, but exactly such a “transitional pastoral bridge” aimed at restoring Eucharistic communion between the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and the Ecumenical Patriarchate, and also with the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, for the sake of future unity of Orthodoxy in Ukraine.
So is this possible, and is Patriarch Bartholomew ready to act as an arbitrator on his canonical territory — which is now the canonical territory of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine — in order not to lose these people from the Church altogether?
- Archbishop Elpidophoros of America:
Your question is actually saying if we can find a third solution, a third answer, or a way to help the church under Onufry. I think that the ecclesiastical history has proven that there are always answers and ways to resolve problems. There is no way that a problem cannot be resolved unless we have dialogue. But again, the presupposition for any dialogue is to accept the authority or the right of the other side to help you. So if we really mean that we need the support and the help of the Ecumenical Patriarchate to find a solution to this complex situation, which is truly a complex situation, for the reasons I explained, and the reasons are not ecclesiastical, I repeat, the reasons are political and secular, and that is what makes the whole situation perplex. But from the ecclesiastical point of view, everything is clear, and I am sure that the Ecumenical Patriarch and the Patriarchate is open to dialogue, is ready for dialogue, but I don’t know if this appeal for dialogue is honest, is real. How can someone ask my help, for example, I make the example myself personally, how can someone ask my help as Archbishop of America and at the same time says, you are not Archbishop of America, you have no authority to the United States.
So, what kind of dialogue, what kind of help do you expect from me if you do not recognize who I am? That is why, from a church perspective, I extend an invitation — and I repeat this invitation — to the devout and good Orthodox Christians whom I know, as I have said, for many years, and whom I know to be honest, faithful, devoted to Christ and His Church, and who seek Orthodox unity just as we do.
I invite them to recognize the authority, because it’s a centuries-old authority. This is the tradition of the Orthodox Church, that the Ecumenical Patriarch has supreme authority, has the authority from the canons, from the ecumenical councils, to safeguard the Orthodox unity. And you see that the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew did not interrupt communion with anyone, because we don’t think that communion, communion, the body and the blood of Jesus Christ, cannot be a means for political reasons. For any reason, we cannot deny the body and the blood of Jesus Christ to someone else, just because they don’t agree with your heretical theory or the Russian world. The Russian world, the world is not Russian. The world is Christian. The world is made by Jesus Christ, by God, for all people. Not only for Russians, not only for Greeks, not only for any of the nations on the world. It’s for everyone. And this is what our Lord desires and is expecting from us, the clergy, the hierarchs, the primates of the churches, to keep the unity, to safeguard the unity, to promote the unity, to invite in us all around the one chalice, the chalice from which we have life, life eternal, from the body and the blood of Jesus Christ.
- Ilona Sokolovska:
Your Eminence,
It can already be stated that over the past dеcades the Russian Orthodox Church has been lead an aggressive struggle for primacy in Orthodoxy, ignoring the Ravenna Document, the decisions of the Council of Crete, and the very principle of pan-Orthodox conciliarity. We see the actions of the Russian Orthodox Church on the canonical territory of the Alexandrian Patriarchate and on the territory of the Kyiv Metropolis. On occupied territories of the Alexandrian Patriarchate, the Russian Orthodox Church has created its own exarchate. On the occupied territories of Ukraine, it has annexed entire dioceses of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, appointed its own bishops, and forced UOC priests to transfer to the Russian Orthodox Church. Those who refuse are literally accused of treason and imprisoned. One example is UOC priest Konstantyn Maksymov, who refused to mention at a church liturgy Patriarch Kirill and refused to join to the Russian Orthodox Church, and for this received a 14-year prison sentence. Metropolitan of Peristeri Gregory Papathomas has spoken in his interviews and articles about the need to intervene in this situation and has even suggested the possibility of a temporary suspension of the autocephaly of the Russian Orthodox Church as an extreme canonical measure.
In this context, the question arises:
Does the Ecumenical Patriarch have real — not only symbolic — authority to act toward the Russian Orthodox Church as a Mother Church seeking to bring a disobedient unruly “child” back into order? And if so, why do these powers remain more theoretical than practical? And in your view, Your Eminence, what today is actually capable of Influencing the Russian Orthodox Church: canon law, theological argument, international insulation — or only the collapse of its political and civilizational project of the so-called “Russian world”?
- Archbishop Elpidophoros of America:
So, I would say a few words about the Moscow Patriarchy really acting like making sanctions against the Orthodox churches who which recognized the autocephaly of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, invading ecclesiastically, if I may use that word, which really has a difficult meaning in the Church law, in the canon law, invading the canonical territory of other Orthodox churches, just to punish them because they recognized the autocephaly of an independent country, of an independent church. And I just, I’m asking myself, after this so clear canonical violation of the territory of another church, how can any church at the same time claim that another church is acting non-canonically? If we really want to be honest with ourselves and talk about the validity and the respect of the canons, of the rules and the regulations of the Orthodox Church, the answer is not by violating the canons in another territory and in another church. It means that we really don’t care about the canons, we don’t really care about the churches, we just try to punish other people no matter what, using all the means, fair and unfair, proper or improper ways to this is not the Church.
This is not a spirituality. This has nothing to do with orthodoxy. And this, again, I’m going back to my first statement in our interview, that the Russian Orthodox Church has become a tool and a means to promote the secular, military, political, financial interests of the Russian state. So, this is a very dangerous path. Russian people are faithful people. They don’t deserve such a leadership. They don’t deserve such a church. They deserve a church which is faithful and following the teachings of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ and the tradition of the Orthodox Church.
For the Ecumenical Patriarchate and for all of us, the rest of the Orthodox world, both our Russian and Ukrainian brothers and sisters are one family. There is no theory, there is no faith, there is no gospel, there is no Christian teaching that can justify any bloodshed and aggression from the one to the other. There is no Christian way to justify the invasion. There is no teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ that can explain or even give any right for anyone to kill each other, for what?
So I invite all people, like it does the Ecumenical Patriarchy, like it does our Patriarch Bartholomew, promote peace, stop the bloodshed, go back to your homes, and let the Ukrainian people free and alone to live in prosperity, in freedom. They deserve their own country. They deserve their own church independence, because Ukrainian people are good people. They are faithful people. They love the Gospel. They love peace. They love progress. They are hardworking people. They love their families. They love their country. And they love Jesus Christ.
- Ilona Sokolovska:
That is truly so. Your Eminence, thank you — sincerely, thank you for this dialogue. It is truly very important for Ukrainians, and I am deeply grateful to you for this profound and open conversation.
I sincerely hope that Ukrainian bishops, priests, and faithful who are suffering today because of the war, as well as because of internal divisions within Orthodoxy, will hear in your words not only theology, but also the voice of a Christian pastor who prays with us and shares our pain.
Thank you sincerely.
