Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople is not going to convene a Pan-Orthodox Council on the issue of Ukrainian autocephaly. He stated this in his speech on the occasion of the celebration of the beginning of the indiction (church new year), writes Pravblog.

“Various sister churches of the Ecumenical Patriarchate call on us to convene again a Pan-Orthodox Conference or a Council of Orthodox Primates to resolve the Ukrainian church issue, but our Patriarchate rejects these proposals,” the head of the Phanar said.

Patriarch Bartholomew also stated that Constantinople would not convene “neither a Pan-Orthodox Council nor a meeting of primates, because we have no intention of bringing the decisions and initiatives of the Ecumenical Patriarchate to the court of the new ecclesiology.”

“He also stressed that granting autocephaly to the “Church of Ukraine with its 44 (sic!) million believers” was the right and duty of the Phanar,” the publication says.