June 23, 2018 in Istanbul arrived the pilgrims from Ukraine, who brought more than 300 thousand signatures of the believers of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church under the request of the Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew. Reported Information-enlightenment Department of the UOC.
Orthodox Ukrainians expressed the hope that His Sesualist not going to legalize in Ukraine the schism by granting autocephaly and will consider the Ukrainian Church question exclusively within the framework of Canon law.
In his comments to the media pilgrim from the Rivne region Elena Kalashnik said, “we don’t need this autocephaly. … We are baptized into this Church — we need it to stay … I don’t see why we have to create another one, and if we have the Church, our ancestors went out there.”
It is worth noting that just at the moment the Secretariat of Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople gave nearly 400 thousand signatures. First 10 thousand complaints from the faithful of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church was transferred to the faithful of the diocese of Zaporizhzhya in April, and later was sent another 10 thousand signatures from the Orthodox Ukrainians and 50 thousand was transferred in late may.
We will remind, on the same day the delegation of the Holy Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church met with Patriarch Bartholomew. During the meeting, the Patriarchate of Constantinople has denied the information that the canonical mechanism of overcoming the schism in Ukrainian Orthodoxy has already been finalized, and the text of the Tomos of autocephaly of the Ukrainian Church is composed. Not confirmed that the unilateral provision of Ukrainian Church autocephaly is to be held in the near future or at some specific time. Instead, the bishops of the Patriarchate of Constantinople expressed willingness of his Church to accede to the process of overcoming the Ukrainian Church schism in consultation with the fraternal local Orthodox churches. This was reported in the official statement of the bishops of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, took part in the bishops ‘ meeting on 25 June in the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra.