05.01.2019, Stambul.
The “Tomos” that Constantinople bestowed upon Ukraine has returned millions of believers to the true faith, Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew said on January 5 in his address to the head of the “New Church”, Epiphany, following the ceremony of handing over the “Tomos”.
In his address, Bartholomew characterized the Church of Constantinople as the “true mother” of Ukrainian believers. According to him, by granting the “Tomos” today, this mother has reintegrated millions of believers in Ukraine to communicate and to commune. Bartholomew noted that the Ukrainian Orthodox were living out of canonicity and communication for a long time, and it was not their fault.
The Constantinople Patriarch did not directly say who is to blame, but it became clear from his next words.
Bartholomew said that by granting autocephaly, Constantinople gathered and adopted the Ukrainian people, who had lost the true faith. The Patriarch reminded that it was this mother, the Constantinople Church, who had once brought the Ukrainian people into the Christian Church.
He added that Constantinople gathered and adopted them as their true mother, unlike their step-mother.
Bartholomew specified that he means “step-mother” in the purely negative sense. He noted that throughout its history, Constantinople has never conducted itself as a step-mother to any nation.
Today in St.George’s Cathedral, Istanbul, the Constantinople Patriarch bestowed the “Tomos” upon the head of the newly created Ukrainian Church, Epifany. Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko and ex-Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko attended the ceremony.
Editorial comment
In this context the lines from the immortal tragedy “Don Carlos” by Friedrich Schiller involuntarily come to mind: “Be thankful to the church, That checks you with the kindness of a mother. The Grand Inquisitor said these words to Philip the Second, King of Spain, offering to destroy his rebellious son who, had aspired to bring the humanistic ideas to life in Spain and in the Netherlands. When asked by the King for whom he would have left the empire as a legacy, having lost the only heir, the Grand Inquisitor answered, “For the grave rather than for liberty!”.
Here we have the same thing: “Bless Constantinople… when it saves you from the inattentive step-mother, and returns faith as a loving mother.”
And what about the legacy? The Soviet legacy and the Russian legacy as a whole?
Poroshenko and his masters are fiercely throwing that legacy into the jaws to that very grave, but not to liberty.
Source: Rossa Primavera News Agency
