In a report late in the evening of January 7 (the Nativity of Christ on the Julian calendar), the pro-Russian Union of Orthodox Journalists confirmed the inclusion of Patriarch Kirill of Moscow in the diptychs chanted by Metropolitan Epiphanius of Kyiv at the Great Entrance during the Primatial Divine Liturgy. This begins at 1:04 in the video above.

Although the UOJ used scare quotes around several key words in a juvenile effort to delegitimize everything pertaining to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine—including the “Nativity Liturgy”—their report and accompanying video attest very movingly to the fact that the newly autocephalous Church of Ukraine considers herself in communion with the Moscow Patriarchate and the entire Russian Orthodox Church.

This needs to be repeated over and over again: the so-called “schism greater than 1054” constitutes a unilateral and wholly unnecessary break in communion fabricated solely by the Moscow Patriarchate to punish the Ecumenical Patriarchate and the Ukrainian people for obstructing the pursuit of its “Third Rome” pretensions.

To our knowledge at Orthodoxy in Dialogue, neither those Primates who have expressed their disagreement with the Ecumenical Patriarchate nor those who disagree with the Moscow Patriarchate have broken communion with anyone.

Moscow alone has broken communion. Moscow alone is in schism.

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