The Moscow Patriarchate cannot call for an All-Orthodox discussion of the Ukrainian issue, as they ignored the issue at the Cretan Council in 2016.
The opinion was expressed by Orthodox expert Oleksandr Yefremenko, who commented on the conference of the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine, held in the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, that voiced accusations against the Ecumenical Patriarch.
“Another leitmotif of this event was the idea of the need to convene an All-Orthodox Council to address the urgent problems of Orthodoxy. The head of the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine, Metropolitan Onufriy, and his ally, Metropolitan Anthony (Pakanych), spoke about this in their welcoming addresses. I was most outraged by Metropolitan Onufriy’s words that ‘today they are most concerned that the Patriarchate of Constantinople refuses to bring the painful issues of church life up for discussion at the Council.’ Oh really? But what about the recent Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church in Crete in 2016, which the ROC and its Ukrainian branch tried to disrupt?” Yefremenko wrote.
He emphasized that at that time, “painful issues” were to be considered at the Council in Crete, but perhaps back then they were not so “painful” for the ROC and its branch.
“So who is to blame for the fact that the ROC did not come to the Council to consider the issue of granting autocephaly, which was removed from the agenda precisely because of Moscow’s stance? Why did the Russian hierarchs not come to the Council? That’s because their arrival would automatically mean their consent to the fact that the Ecumenical Patriarch enjoys the full right to convene such Councils, which they could not allow,” explains the religious expert.
“Now that their plan with (the meeting in – ed.) Amman has failed, they have decided to accuse Constantinople of being ‘reluctant’ to hold an All-Orthodox Council. In other words, they are ready to recognize that Constantinople does have such a right, if only it fulfilled their whims,” Oleksandr Yefremenko summed up.
