When the Polish Orthodox Church stands against the autocephaly of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, it thereby denies its own autocephaly, which was also granted by the Ecumenical Patriarchate.
This is stated in a Facebook post by Oleksandr Yefremenko, a Ukraine-based religious expert.
The pundit reflected on the comment earlier voiced by Polish Church’s Archbishop George of Wroclaw and Szczecin, who, referring to an interview with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, suggested that autocephaly should be granted at the pan-Orthodox Council, and when it’s impossible – with the consent of all Local Churches.
“Let me remind you that the Polish Church received autocephaly from Constantinople in the 1920s and it happened without the pan-Orthodox Assembly, while the ROC was categorically against such a decision. And now, almost a hundred years later, the hierarch of the Polish Church at the event, organized by a branch of the Moscow Patriarchate, in fact opposes the autocephaly of his own Church,” Yefremenko said.
The religious expert emphasizes that he was especially outraged by the words of the hierarch of the Polish Church that the issue of autocephaly had not been considered in 2016 at the pan-Orthodox Council in Crete because of Constantinople’s position on signing tomoses of autocephaly.
“The hierarch claimed that Constantinople sought to sign the tomos alone, without the signatures of others. This is not true. Constantinople made concessions on the issue, fulfilling all the new whims of the ROC, including as regards signatures of each Church. Bishop Iov Hecha spoke about this in detail in one of his interviews, ” Oleksandr Yefremenko recalled.
He summed up that those who accused Constantinople of autocratic actions, as it allegedly did not consult with other Churches, had received autocephaly in the same way – without other churches being consulted with.
“Out of the seven Local Churches represented (in the event – ed.), five (Russian, Serbian, Bulgarian, Polish, Czech lands, and Slovakia) churches gained their independence by the decision of the Ecumenical Patriarch without the pan-Orthodox Councils,” Yefremenko stressed.
