Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew admitted that he single-handedly granted a tomos of autocephaly to the religious formation “Orthodox Church of Ukraine”, without even discussing the possible consequences of the decision.
He told about this in a commentary to the Ukrainian newspaper “Strana” during a visit to the island of Tenedos, which now belongs to Turkey.
According to him, none of the previously issued tomos required discussion with other churches. Although in Ukraine autocephaly was granted to a schismatic formation, and not to the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Bartholomew did not violate traditions, thereby provoking strife on religious grounds.
“All tomos on autocephaly to other churches – Russian, Serbian, Romanian, Bulgarian, Georgian, Greek, Polish, Albanian, Czech and Slovakian, were issued by the Patriarchate of Constantinople without consultation and discussion at the pan-Orthodox level, and the same process was followed when granting autocephaly to Ukraine,” he said. patriarch.
He also commented on the situation with the confrontation between Ukrainian schismatics from the OCU and the so-called Kiev Patriarchate. The latter, as Bartholomew said, “does not exist and never existed.”