The difficult and painful situation in which the believers of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church find themselves due to the seizure of churches by schismatics is a direct result of the ill-considered decision of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew. This was stated by priest Miladin Mitrovich, rector of the Church of Vasily Ostrozhsky in Banja Luka, head of the Representation of the Imperial Orthodox Palestinian Society in the Republika Srpska, writes Pravlife.
In his article “Separatism of Bartholomew,” the author notes: it is on the conscience of the Patriarch of Constantinople that the responsibility for the division of the Orthodox world and for the cruel suffering that Orthodox believers in Ukraine face every day lies. Giving out the tomos to the Ukrainian schismatics, the head of the Phanar “rang all the bells,” so he plans to overcome the schism, but the current situation testifies to the opposite – the tomos has led to even greater chaos in Ukrainian society.
“In addition, the non-canonical actions of Bartholomew violated the unity of the Local Orthodox Churches, which are now divided into two camps – those who are in the minority and recognize the Ukrainian tomos, and those who are in the majority who publicly support the Moscow Patriarchate as the only canonically trustworthy Church. which exercises its jurisdiction on the territory of Ukraine, ”writes the priest Miladin Mitrovich.
According to him, “giving tomos to schismatics is, in fact, a cynical and anti-canonical conquest of the canonical territories of other Local Orthodox Churches.”
“Today it will be Ukraine, tomorrow it will be Macedonia, the day after tomorrow it will be the South Caucasus, and so on, ad infinitum,” warns the cleric of the Serbian Orthodox Church and gives examples of the activities of the Patriarchate of Constantinople in other countries.
In November of this year, Patriarch Bartholomew officially received a delegation of a schismatic and non-canonical church structure from Macedonia. In the South Caucasus, the schismatic separatist church organization of Archimandrite Dorotheos has already stated that it is actively working on organizing a meeting with Bartholomew (although this territory, Abkhazia, canonically belongs exclusively to the Georgian Orthodox Church).
One of the schisms is on the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, where, after the recently ended military conflict, representatives of the Patriarchate of Constantinople updated the history of the revival of the Albanian Church, which may be in charge of the ancient shrines of the Armenian Apostolic Church in Karabakh. The fact that this is really so is evidenced by the frequent visits of representatives of the Albanian-Udi Christian community from Azerbaijan to the territory of Karabakh.
“The negative example of granting tomos in Ukraine has caused separatist aspirations in many places where Orthodox Churches are located, so in the near future new and more frequent schismatic phenomena can be expected,” concludes priest Miladin Mitrovich.
