A bitter attack on the Ecumenical Patriarchate and the Church of Greece has been launched by Bishop Irinej of Backa of the Serbian Orthodox Church on the occasion of the recognition of the Autocephaly of the Church of Ukraine.
The Serbian hierarch seems to have taken the baton from the Metropolitan of Volokolamsk and Patriarch Kirill’s right hand and is fully aligned with the Moscow line, launching threats against the Church of Greece (that it will bear great responsibility) since it recognizes the Autocephaly of the Church of Ukraine and commemorates “pseudo-metropolitan” Epiphanius (Dumenko) as the primate of the Church of Ukraine.
This action, he argues, “is the last step before the abyss of a deeper and dangerous schism in Orthodoxy.”
He further points out that Archbishop Ieronymos of Athens and all Greece does not have the status of the Protos in the Synod (because, as he writes, the Phanar has not recognized a full and complete Autocephaly for the Church of Greece), but he is its President.
The Church of Greece will bear the responsibility for the possible continuation and deepening of the schism, which was caused by Constantinople and not by the Church of Russia, adds the Serbian Bishop.
He also stresses, referring to Archbishop Ieronymos, that “it is not too late to remind himself and others the saying that ‘the blood of martyrdom cannot wash out the sin of schism’.”
Moreover, he recalls the position of the Serbian Orthodox Church, which was synodically determined: We do not recognize the unrepentant Ukrainian schismatics as members of the Orthodox Church, let alone as a Canonical Autocephalous Church.