In relation to world Orthodoxy, the non-canonical actions of the Phanar left the Ukrainian schismatics in the same place where they were before the “recognition”. Bishop Irenaeus of Baci (Serbian Patriarchate) said this in an interview with the Serbian newspaper Pechat, published on December 31, 2021, Pravlife writes.
Bishop Irenaeus made a corresponding statement, comparing the situation of the Churches in Montenegro and Ukraine in the context of assessing the challenges to world Orthodoxy in the past year.
“The state of church affairs in Montenegro is nothing more than a miniature picture of the situation in Ukraine, of course, with some differences. In both cases, national “engineering” works. In Montenegro, this seems like a desperate attempt to permanently affirm the newly formed Montenegrin identity, based on the denial of Serbian roots and the centuries-old Serbian identity of the Montenegrins, ”said the bishop.
As Bishop Irenaeus noted, some politicians are trying to eradicate the very existence of the Serbian people in Montenegro, or at least reduce it to “an insignificant, helpless and powerless national minority.” He observes a similar picture in Ukraine, despite the fact that “the most ancient historical name of the great East Slavic country” “Rus” is present today both in the title of Patriarch of Moscow and in the title of the schismatic “Patriarch of Kiev” (Filaret – ed.).
“The designers and builders of new nations in the 20th and 21st centuries, most often atheists or religiously indifferent,” came to the idea, as the Serbian bishop pointed out, that they should either subordinate the existing Church to their authority or found a new “church” acting in their interests … At the same time, they do not care about any canonical rules and grossly falsify historical facts, attributing non-existent continuity to pseudo-church structures.
Bishop Irenaeus called the situation “black humor” when the baptized, but dubious in his confession, Petro Poroshenko, and the unbaptized president of Montenegro, atheist Milo Djukanovic, argue which Church is “ancient”, “autocephalous” and the like.
“In both cases, the Ukrainian and Montenegrin people, however, most convincingly showed the anti-church” church leaders “their place, and the schismatics are more or less where they were before the non-canonical intervention of Constantinople and their legalization, not recognized at the level of world Orthodoxy.” , – noted the Serbian bishop.
