The Ukrainian parliament calls on Ecumenical patriarch to give autocephaly to Ukraine’s Orthodox Church

Natalya Mihailova | 17 June 2016
Moscow, June 16, Interfax - The Ukrainian parliament, the Verkhovnaya Rada, has adopted an appeal to Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew to publish a tomos over the autocephaly of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

The appeal gained the support of 245 parliamentarians with the required minimum of 226 votes.

The Verkhovnaya Rada calls on Patriarch Bartholomew to invalidate the act of 1686 according to which the Kiev metropolitan was allegedly “in violation of canons” attached to the Moscow Patriarchate.

“The Ukrainian parliament calls on the Ecumenical patriarch to take an active part in overcoming the consequences of the church schism through convening under the aegis of the Ecumenical patriarch a pan-Ukrainian unification council that would solve all disputes and unify Ukrainian Orthodox churches,” the appeal reads.

It is expected that the Greek island of Crete will soon host a forum that was initially conceived as the Pan-Orthodox Council; however, its status is in question over the refusal of a number of Churches to take part in it.

Since you are here…

…we do have a small request. More and more people visit Orthodoxy and the World website. However, resources for editorial are scarce. In comparison to some mass media, we do not make paid subscription. It is our deepest belief that preaching Christ for money is wrong.

Having said that, Pravmir provides daily articles from an autonomous news service, weekly wall newspaper for churches, lectorium, photos, videos, hosting and servers. Editors and translators work together towards one goal: to make our four websites possible - Pravmir.ru, Neinvalid.ru, Matrony.ru and Pravmir.com. Therefore our request for help is understandable.

For example, 5 euros a month is it a lot or little? A cup of coffee? It is not that much for a family budget, but it is a significant amount for Pravmir.

If everyone reading Pravmir could donate 5 euros a month, they would contribute greatly to our ability to spread the word of Christ, Orthodoxy, life's purpose, family and society.