Why the Moscow-controlled church is not hiding the fact of co-serving with hierarchs of the Cyprus Church, which has recognized the Orthodox Church of Ukraine is a question worth asking.
This is about either complete ignorance in the field of theology or blurring the lines to spread lies in own favor.
The Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine recently boasted of having a Cyprus Orthodox Church cleric, Nectarios (Bakopoulos), attending the consecration of an ROCinU church in Volyn, built instead of the temple whose parish flipped to the OCU back in 2019. Also attending the event were ROCinU spokesman Mykola Danylevych, Archbishop Nafaniil (Krykota), and Bishop Afanasiy (Herman).
So this was a joint service by the hierarch of the Church of Cyprus and the ROCinU episcopate. According to the logic of the Moscow Patriarchate, the head of the Cypriot Orthodox Church, Archbishop Chrysostomos, shall be deemed a “schismatic” as he mentioned the name of the OCU Primate, Metropolitan Epifaniy, during a liturgy. Thus, all local bishops of the Cyprus Church, who are obliged by statute to mention the name of their superior, the Archbishop of Cyprus, are also supposed to be considered “schismatics.” Now that the Archimandrite of the Church of Cyprus has served the liturgy alongside the ROCinU, the Moscow Patriarchate in Ukraine should also be seen as schismatic. After all, it cooperates with the “Cyprus schismatics who have recognized the OCU…”
There is an ancient patriarchal rule that one who has served with a schismatic becomes a schismatic, too – the rule very often mentioned by the Moscow Patriarchate.
Although even without such co-serving, the ROCinU are still schismatics by their own logic. After all, for the “schismatic” logic of “theology” the ROCinU pursues to work, it must be followed by all Churches. That is, all other Local Churches would be supposed to stop mentioning the names of leaders of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, the Patriarchate of Alexandria, and the Churches of Greece and Cyprus. After all, according to the ROCinU’s logic, they all joined forces with the “schismatics” from the OCU and thus became “schismatics,” too.
However, for example, the Serbian Primate mentions the names of Patriarchs Bartholomew and Theodore, while the ROCinU openly joined them in celebrating an infamous Montenegro enthronement.
The Church is the mystical Body of Christ, and if the Ecumenical Patriarch and three other Local Churches are in unity with the OCU, then the entire Ecumenical Orthodox Church is de facto in unity with the OCU, although this has not yet been recognized de jure. All these decisions of the Moscow Patriarchate on severing the Eucharistic unity are only about confusing their own faithful. Since the first mention at the Phanar of Metropolitan Epifaniy’s name, the ROCinU has been in unity with it, even if they don’t wish to be. Otherwise, Moscow Patriarch Kirill would have to refrain from mentioning any head of the Local Churches, but this should have been done in January 2019, not three years on…
