The Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church, which recently took place in Moscow, called “violation of canons” the visit of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew to Kyiv without an invitation from Moscow Patriarch Kirill (Gundyaev) and ROCinU leader Onufriy (Berezovsky).
This is stated on the website of the Moscow Patriarchate.
With this statement, the ROC Synod has formally confirmed it considers Ukraine as part of the Moscow Patriarchate, while the UOC-MP (ROCinU) is thus only a branch of the ROC.
The Synod of the ROC went even further and stressed that “Patriarch Bartholomew, having supported the split in Ukraine, lost trust of millions of believers; in the conditions when the majority of Orthodox believers across the world are not in church communion with him, he is no longer entitled to speak on behalf of the whole world Orthodoxy and to pose as its leader.”
