MOSCOW, September 12. /TASS/. Metropolitan Emmanuel of France, a hierarch of the Ecumenical Church of Constantinople, told the Italian Catholic agency SIR that the procedures for creating an autocephalous local [national] Church in Ukraine had begun.

"I can confirm that the Ecumenical Patriarchate, aware of its responsibility as Mother Church and responding to the requests of the Ukrainians themselves, after a thorough study of the matter, has decided to start the process of granting autocephaly to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine as a solution to the division of the country’s Orthodox community," he said.

His Eminence Emmanuel gave the assurances, however, that the Ecumenical Patriarchate’s resolve to proceed with the autocephaly of the Ukrainian Church did not mean in any way a course at perpetuating division or ‘schism’ in the Ukrainian Orthodox Christian community.

He admitted that the granting of autocephaly to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church was a sensitive issue from many points of view.

Metropolitan Emmanuel said the appointment of two exarchs to Ukraine by the Ecumenical Patriarchate - Archbishop Daniel of Pamphilon [the US] and Bishop Ilarion of Edmonton [Canada] showed that the bestowing of autocephaly on the Ukrainian Church would not be abated. He also said it offered evidence of the efforts on the part of the Ecumenical Patriarch "to see the division of the Ukrainian Orthodox community resolved."

"The two exarchs will have a task of opening the way to autocephaly," Metropolitan Emmanuel said, adding that the Ecumenical Patriarchate had a responsibility "to continually protect the unity of the ecclesiastical [Church] body."

He claimed it was precisely through the process of imposition of autocephaly that the different constituent components of the currently divided Ukrainian Orthodoxy could be approached.

At present, Ukraine is part of the canonical territory of the Russian Orthodox Church, and the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church recognized by the global community of Eastern Orthodox Christian Churches reports to Moscow Patriarchate. It is a self-governing religious organization with broad administrative powers.

Simultaneously, Ukraine has another two organizations referring to themselves as Orthodox Churches - the Ukrainian Orthodox Church reporting to the so-called Kiev patriarchate and the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church that draws on the ideology and practices of a religious movement that reformist nationalistic Ukrainian priest set up in the first half of the 20th century.

Authorities in post-Soviet Ukraine have been making the attempts to create a Church unrelated to Moscow Patriarchate ever since the declaration of independence by Ukraine in 1991.

In April 2018, President Pyotr Poroshenko sent a petition to the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I asking him to authorize the emergence of an independent united Orthodox Church in Ukraine. Officials of the two schismatic Churches hailed his motion while the canonical Church reporting to Moscow Patriarchate did not make any requests on its part.

The secretariat of the Holy and Sacred Synod of the Ecumenical Church of Constantinople published a communique las Friday, September 7, reporting the appointment of Bishop Daniel of Pamphilon and Bishop Ilarion of Edmonton as exarchs of the Ecumenical Patriarch to Ukraine as a step towards preparations for granting autocephaly to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

The Holy Synod of the Russian Church issued a protest on Saturday saying Constantinople’s decision was driving relations between the two Patriarchates into an impasse.

"These steps drive the relationship between the Russian Church and the Church of Constantinople into a deadlock and pose a tangible threat to the unity of the global Orthodox Christian community," the statement said. "The Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church has the power to state that Patriarch Bartholomew and the bishops of the Church of Constantinople supporting these anti-canonical steps will bear the full brunt of responsibility for them."

"To justify its interference in the affairs of another local [national] Church, the Constantinople Patriarchate cites false interpretations of historical facts and the exclusive powers, which is allegedly has but which it has never had in reality," the Synod said.

Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, the chief of Moscow Patriarchate’s department for external Church relations has made a warning on a possible severing of relations between the Russian Church and the Church of Constantinople if the latter legitimizes the Ukrainian schism.