ATHENS, October 1. /TASS/. Metropolitan Ambrosius of Kalavryta, a hierarch of the Greek Orthodox Church, has leveled criticism at the steps by the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I that can bring about a split in the global Eastern Orthodox Christianity.

The Greek church news agency Romfea published his statement on Monday.

"His All-Holiness Patriarch Bartholomew seems to have set a goal for himself in the past several years to achieve a split in Orthodoxy," believes the Most Reverend Ambrosius. It started with "establishing very cordial relations between the Vatican and Constantinople and next came the ostensibly Pan-Orthodox Council" that was held in June 2016 in Kolymbari on the Isle of Crete, which stays under the Ecumenical Patriarch’s jurisdiction.

Four of the fourteen canonical autocephalous Churches - the Antioch, Georgian, Bulgarian, and Russian Churches - refused to take part in it virtually weeks before its opening after immensely long preparations.

"The Patriarch’s last erroneous step was the one linked to the Church in Ukraine," Metropolitan Ambrosius said. "As if other problems were too few, our Patriarch moves to the brink of a clerical collision between the Ecumenical Patriarchate and the great Russian Orthodox Church."

"The canonical Ukrainian Church maintains spiritual bonds with and has autonomy in the structure of Moscow Patriarchate while the Constantinople Patriarchate plans to recognize a schismatic church in Ukraine," he said.

"Thus a new Church split is knocking on our doors," Metropolitan Ambrosius said. "And if you add to it the internal strife that broke out after the pseudo council in Kolymbari. This makes the current situation very tragic."

The Greek Orthodox Church has not made any official statements regarding the Ecumenical Patriarch’s plans to recognize the illegitimate Church entities in Ukraine but a number of its hierarchs have expressed their viewpoints. One of them was Metropolitan Seraphim of Kythira, who said the Ecumenical Patriarch’s moves were leading to a split in Orthodoxy.

He urged Patriarch Bartholomew to refrain from recognizing the Ukrainian secessionists.

"It was very saddening to hear reports on the break-off of relations between the Russian Patriarchate and the Ecumenical Patriarchate," His Eminence Seraphim said in a statement.

"This highly regrettable result was reached through the stubbornness of the Ecumenical Patriarchate’s in the granting of autocephaly to Ukrainian dissenters who are separated from our Holy Orthodox Church - from all the Patriarchs and local Churches and make up an absolute minority of the Ukrainian people," he said.

Metropolitan Seraphim of Piraeus said NATO and Russia were leading a highly complicated geopolitical and geostrategic game but the Church in Ukraine was not be used as an instrument in it. As he answered a question about a sharp deterioration of relations between the Constantinople Patriarchate and the Russian Orthodox Church over Constantinople’s plans to bestow autocephaly on the Ukrainian Church, Metropolitan Seraphim said this was a complicated and multifaceted question that concerned the entire Eastern Orthodox Church and its presence in the world.

"The Church should not be used as an instrument in pursuing geopolitical and geostrategic plans," he said.

The situation in the Eastern Orthodox community in Ukraine is extremely knotty and turbulent. It that took shape after the declaration of Ukraine’s independence from the USSR in 1991.

At present, Ukraine has three organizations referring to themselves as Orthodox Churches but only one of them enjoys the canonical status in the global Orthodox Christian community. It is the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate led by Metropolitan Onuphrius of Kiev and all Ukraine.

The canonical Church has about 12,000 parishes and 200 monasteries in its realm.

Simultaneously, the country has two schismatic organizations the Ukrainian Orthodox Church reporting to the so-called ‘Kiev patriarchate’ and the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church that takes root in a reformist movement of nationalistic Ukrainian clerics of the early 20th century.

The latter two organizations conduct a policy of non-acceptance as regards the canonical Church and they have given all-out support to the striving of the incumbent political elite to arrange autocephaly for the prospective unified Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which would have sparse and limited ties with Russian Orthodoxy.

Amid this complexity, the Ecumenical Patriarchate said on September 7 it had appointed two exarchs to Ukraine as part of preparations for the granting of autocephaly to the Ukrainian Church.

The Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church, the canonical realm of which embraces the territory of Ukraine, qualified the step as a gross violation of Church canons. It passed a decision to stop mentioning the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I at liturgies in the Russian Church and prohibited concelebrating [joint services] with the hierarchs of the Constantinople Church for Russian clerics.