St. Michael’s Golden-Domed Monastery, Kyiv. See of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine.

Two very brief reports relevant to the newly recognized autocephalous Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) appeared earlier today at UkrInform. 

In the first, Archbishop Daniel (Zelinsky) of Pamphilon, one of two exarchs of the Ecumenical Patriarchate to Ukraine and a hierarch of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the United States of America, summarizes the manner in which the Orthodox Church of Ukraine could be designated a Patriarchate, with a Primate styled “Patriarch.”

In the second, we read that—in one region alone—seventeen Ukrainian parishes have already left the Moscow Patriarchate (MP) for the Orthodox Church of Ukraine. These rapidly growing numbers suggest that, appropriately, canonicity matters as much to Ukrainian Orthodox believers as their political and ecclesiastical independence from Moscow. Read More

With extreme gratitude to all of you (and in near disbelief!) we announce the news of this amazing milestone: ¼-million views in the seventeen short months since we set out as virtual unknowns in service to the Holy Orthodox Church of Christ.

This would have been impossible without the hard work of some 240 talented writers and tens and tens of thousands of loyal readers from nearly every country on the planet.

We thank you for your support, your kind words, your sincere criticisms, your harsh condemnations (these are spiritually beneficial, too), your engagement in debates far and wide, your prayers, and especially your forgiveness for the many ways in which we err both knowingly and unknowingly. 

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Patriarch Kirill of Moscow

On January 8, 2019 the BBC reported that Patriarch Kirill of Moscow—formerly known as KGB agent Mikhailov (see Paul A. Goble’s article of November 6, 2018 among other sources)—warned his flock that their use of smartphones could hasten the advent of the Antichrist. Co-authors Anastasia Clark and Chris Bell write:

Speaking to Russian state TV, Patriarch Kirill said smartphone users should be careful when using the “worldwide web of gadgets” because it represented “an opportunity to gain global control over mankind”.

“The Antichrist is the person who will be at the head of the worldwide web, controlling all of humankind,” he said.

Speaking to Russian state TV, Patriarch Kirill said smartphone users should be careful when using the “worldwide web of gadgets” because it represented “an opportunity to gain global control over mankind”.

“Every time you use your gadget, whether you like it or not, whether you turn on your location or not, somebody can find out exactly where you are, exactly what your interests are and exactly what you are scared of,” Patriarch Kirill told Rossiya 1.

“If not today, then tomorrow methods and technology could appear that will not just provide access to all information but will also allow the use of this information. Read More

Canonically this makes perfect sense. When will the other autocephalous Churches—especially the Moscow Patriarchate—renounce their extra-territorial dioceses and parishes and urge them to form proper, canonical, territorially demarcated Churches in every region around the globe? 

Metropolitan Epiphanius of Kyiv

The tomos on the autocephaly of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) says that the central church of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) will be located in Kyiv, the Church is not authorized to appoint bishops and establish parishes outside the country.

“With this signed patriarchal and synodal tomos, we recognize and proclaim the established autocephalous Church within Ukraine as our spiritual daughter and call upon all global Orthodox churches to recognize her as a sister… as such, which has the historical city of Kyiv as the [See] and cannot appoint bishops or establish parishes outside the state,” the text of Tomos, translated into Ukrainian, posted by the Ukrainian Ambassador to Turkey Andrii Sybiha in his Twitter account, says.

According to the document, the already existing parishes of the OCU [i.e., those outside of Ukraine that had belonged to the now defunct Kyiv Patriarchate (KP) or Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (UAOC)] are now subject to the [Ecumenical] Throne, which has canonical powers in the diaspora, since “the jurisdiction of [the OCU] is limited to the territory of the Ukrainian state.” Read More