Rada calls on ecumenical patriarch to give autocephaly to Ukraine's Orthodox Church

17:43, 16.06.2016 1 min read

The Ukrainian parliament, the Verkhovna 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 Verkhovna Rada calls on Patriarch Bartholomew to invalidate the act of 1686 according to which the Kyiv 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.