President Petro Poroshenko has said that the Holy Synod approved a decision to grant the tomos of Autocephaly to the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church.

"The Lord saw the struggle of the Ukrainian people for their independence. He heard our prayers. He properly estimated our labor. It became so desirable for Him to have His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew and the Holy Synod of the Mother Church of Constantinople to declare the dreamed and long-awaited "yes", for which we fought for a long time. There will be Autocephalous Orthodox Church of Ukraine!" the president noted.

"The decision of the Ecumenical Patriarch and the Holy Synod has finally dispelled the imperial illusions and chauvinistic fantasies of Moscow, which were not supported by any legal church document - about Ukraine as so called "canonical territory of the Russian Church". It was in 1924 when the Ecumenical Patriarchate acknowledged the fact that the so-called "transition" of the Kyiv Metropolitan in the possession of Moscow took place "not by the canonical rules." And today the Holy Synod confirmed this position once again," Poroshenko said.

Poroshenko noted that "World Orthodoxy, as His All-Holiness Bartholomew once wrote, is a "constellation of independent and equal national churches."

"And finally, my dear friends, our Ukrainian star will shine in this constellation. The decision to grant Autocephaly has already been taken. I emphasize, that the decision to grant Autocephaly to Ukraine has been approved and confirmed once again,” the President added.

The president called tomos another Act of Declaration of Independence of Ukraine.

"Autocephaly is the part of our pro-European and pro-Ukrainian state strategy, which we have been consistently implementing over the past four years and, I emphasize, which we will implement hereafter. This is the foundation of our own path of development, the development of the State of Ukraine and the development of the Ukrainian nation. For us, our own church is a guarantee of the spiritual freedom. This is the key to social harmony," he said.

"Tomos is actually another Act of Declaration of Independence of Ukraine. The empire is losing one of the last levers of influence on its former colony," the president said.

According to Poroshenko, "this is the fall of the "Third Rome" as the most ancient conceptual claim of Moscow for the global domination … the empire is losing one of the last levers of influence on its former colony."

"The decision to grant Autocephaly has already been taken. By the work of God, their own Local Churches have been set up in all the Orthodox states that have won their independence. This happened in Bulgaria, in Greece, in Georgia, in Serbia, in Cyprus, in Romania, in Russia. Now our State of Ukraine is joining their ranks. However, the question of tomos and Autocephaly goes far beyond the church life, as the State has joined it. This is a matter of our independence. This is a matter of our national security. This is a matter of our statehood. This is a matter of the entire global geopolitics," the president said.

He also thanked the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew for the decision. "All together, we bow down to His All-Holiness Bartholomew for his care for Ukraine. Your All-Holiness, Ukraine is looking forward to your pastoral visit to the people, which was baptized during the time of the Great Prince Volodymyr," Poroshenko said.