MOSCOW, September 19. /TASS/. Real autocephaly of the Orthodox Church in Ukraine is not a prospect for the short term, as the country does not have legitimate conditions for it right now, Metropolitan Hilarion, the chief of Moscow Patriarchate’s department for external Church relations told Channel One Russia on Tuesday.
The attaining of real autocephaly is "still a long way off," he said. "In the first place, the majority of Orthodox Christians in Ukraine won’t accept this autocephaly. Secondly, Filaret Denisenko [the patriarch of the schismatic Orthodox Church reporting to the self-proclaimed Kiev patriarchate - TASS] won’t agree to anything lower than the position of the Patriarch, which means full legitimation of his activities."
"Last but not least, the two currently existing schismatic groupings [the Ukrainian Orthodox Church reporting to Kiev patriarchate and the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church] remain at odds with each other," His Eminence Hilarion said. "In other words, what’s the basis on which an autocephalous Church will be built while no one at present is ready to accept autocephaly right now in practical terms?"
"Also, the schismatic hierarchy, which isn’t legitimate itself, can’t make claims to autocephaly," he said. "To impart the legitimate look to it, all these pseudo-hierarchs and pseudo-bishops should be re-ordained and that’s why there’s a supposition that the two bishops [the exarchs appointed by the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I to launch the process of granting autocephaly to Ukraine - TASS] will start with doing exactly this kind of thing."
"Then, at a certain moment, they will say that the newly ordained bishops are not in schism anymore and that they have received proper ordinations," Metropolitan Hilarion said. "So this is a special operation in some sense.
"In most cases, only one exarch is appointed to a territory, and when two exarchs surfaced there, our brothers in Ukraine started asking at once what these two appointees will be doing," he said. "The answer is two bishops can ordain a third bishop."
The situation in the Orthodox Christian community in Ukraine is highly complicated, as the country has three organizations referring to themselves as Ukrainian Orthodox Churches, but only one of them, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church reporting to Moscow Patriarchate enjoys the status of a canonical Church.
Ukrainian authorities have been striving to set up a Ukrainian Church disconnected from Moscow Patriarchate ever since the former Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, one of the fifteen constituent republics of the former USSR, declared itself an independent country in 1991.
In April 2018, President Pyotr Poroshenko addressed the Ecumenical Patriarch, Bartholomew I, with a request to grant autocephaly to Ukraine. The Verkhovna Rada, the national parliament, supported the appeal, as did the two schismatic religious organizations - the Ukrainian Orthodox Church reporting to the so-called Kiev Patriarchate and the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church, which is a successor to an early 20th century movement of nationalistic Ukrainian clerics.
The canonical Church reporting to Moscow Patriarchate did not send any appeals to the Ecumenical Patriarchate.
On September 7, Synod of the Church of Constantinople appointed two exarchs to Ukraine in the format of preparations for the granting of autocephaly to the Ukrainian Church. The appointees and other officials at the Ecumenical Patriarchate gave the assurances that the move aimed to bring in unity to Ukrainian Orthodoxy. They admitted the situation had many knotty aspects and was highly delicate.
The Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church reacted with indignation to Patriarch Bartholomew’s decision on Ukraine. It ruled last Friday to stop mentioning him during liturgies in the Russian Church and to ban co-officiating with the hierarch of the Ecumenical Patriarchate.
Metropolitan Hilarion, the chief of Moscow Patriarchate’s department for external Church relations said this did not mean a full severing of relations with the Church of Constantinople and therefore the rank-and-file believers could continue taking communion at the churches reporting to the Ecumenical Patriarchate.