Metropolitan Isaiah of Tamasos and Orinia, one of the favorites in the election of the Primate of the Cypriot Orthodox Church, said that he would not return the issue of autocephaly of the Ukrainian Church to the Holy Synod for consideration if he was elected Archbishop, Pravlife writes.

“We rightly asked for the possibility of peace, through dialogue and neutrality, so that the autocephaly would function normally in Ukraine,” the hierarch said. – Now the theological facts have changed, but with the invasion the national vision has also changed, since any revisionism undermines our own existence, as well as the existence of Greece. We do not depend churchly on either the East or the West. We form a judgment about autocephaly according to the data that we have. The issue is settled, and if I am elected, I will not return it to the Holy Synod.”

The bishop also refuted the suspicions of those who believe that his previous position on the issue of the autocephaly of the Ukrainian Church served Russian interests. The distributors of such information intended to deliberately discredit him, said Metropolitan Isaiah.

“Unfortunately, all this was deliberate propaganda to defame me in connection with the upcoming elections of the Archbishop,” he said.

Answering a question about how his relationship with Patriarch Bartholomew has changed after a recent visit to the Phanar, Metropolitan Isaiah noted that they have become “stronger than in the past.” He emphasized that this visit “was supposed to debunk the malicious propaganda about our intentions”, which was successfully done.

In 2020, Bishop Isaiah, positioning himself as a principled opponent of the recognition of the so-called “Orthodox Church of Ukraine”, refused to serve with his Primate, who commemorated the name of the schismatic Dumenko. However, the views of the hierarch changed after the death of Archbishop Chrysostomos, when Patriarch Bartholomew actively supported the candidacy of Metropolitan Isaiah in the election of the Primate of the Church of Cyprus. On November 30, 2022, during the Divine Liturgy on the Phanar, Metropolitan Isaiah concelebrated for the first time with OCU “archbishop” Agapit Gumenyuk.

As previously reported, according to a large nationwide poll published on December 12, 2022 by the RIK TV channel, the leader of public preferences in the election of the Primate of the Church of Cyprus is Metropolitan Athanasius of Limassol, who received 30% of the votes of the respondents. Metropolitan Isaiah of Tamasos and Orinia took second place in the rating with 14% of the vote.