‘Schism is always bad’: Lukashenka echoes Moscow over Ukrainian church’s autocephaly


President Alyaksandr Lukashenka is in awe of the schism of the Orthodox Church, he said at Monday’s meeting with Patriarch Kirill of Moscow.

“Unfortunately, our Church frequently became a hostage of interstate relations, sometimes because of our wrong acts. You must know our firm position that schism is always a bad thing, bad consequences. That is why we are very much concerned of what is going on in the Orthodox Church today,” state-run news agency BelTA quotes him.

Alyaksandr Lukashenka wished Patriarch Kirill ‘wisdom and patience’.

As church members, we will try to support the unification of all processes for the sake of world peace. We have already been too to a red line,” he stressed.

Patriarch Kirill arrived in Belarus on October, 13. Today, for the first time in history, a session of the Holy Synod will be held in Minsk. Its participants are expected to discuss the feasibility of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church’s autocephaly, which is strongly condemned by Moscow.

As reported earlier, the Ecumenical Patriarchate continues the procedure of granting autocephaly to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. On October 11, the Holy and Sacred Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate decided to issue a tomos of autocephaly to it.

The church may be given Tomos at the Holy Synod session in mid-late November, the Kyiv Patriarchate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church hopes. The Synod recognized as illegal the annexation of the Metropolitan of Kyiv by Moscow in 1686 by cancelling the corresponding decree on obedience. Moreover, the Ecumenical Patriarchate restored Ukraine’s schismatic Patriarch Filaret (Denisenko) and schismatic Archbishop Makariy (Maletych) to canonical status.

ІІ, belsat.eu

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