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UOC-Kyivan Patriarchate Responds to Questioning of Its Apostolic Succession of Ordinations

08.12.2009, 15:18
UOC-Kyivan Patriarchate Responds to Questioning of Its Apostolic Succession of Ordinations - фото 1
“Whoever denies the validity of the sacrament of ordinations administered by Patriarch Filaret thereby questions the validity of the episcopal ordination of the present leadership of the ROC and the UOC-MP”

хirotonija1.jpgKYIV — “Whoever denies the validity of the sacrament of ordinations administered by Patriarch Filaret thereby questions the validity of the episcopal ordination of the present leadership of the ROC [the Russian Orthodox Church] and the UOC-MP [Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Moscow Patriarchate],” reads the official statement of the Kyivan Patriarchate.

The text of the statement contains the list of episcopal ordinations of bishops administered by the head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Kyivan Patriarchate (UOC-KP) during the whole term of his ministry, that is starting from the rank of a bishop, archbishop, and metropolitan in the ROC and ending with the office of the patriarch and head of UOC-KP. The present patriarch of the UOC-KP ordained the present head of the ROC Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and the head of the UOC-MP Metropolitan Volodymyr.  According to the press service of the UOC-KP, all in all, Patriarch Filaret ordained 85 bishops himself and participated with other ministers in the ordinations of an additional 23 bishops.

“All the 108 episcopal ordinations led or co-administered by the present Patriarch Filaret of Kyiv and All Rus are valid as they were administered in the Christ’s Church, in which there is the whole fullness of it [the Church]… Lord Jesus Christ is the head of our Church and the Holy Spirit acts relentlessly within it. Therefore, we believe and admit that all the 108 episcopal ordinations are graceful, canonical, and valid. And no one should have any doubts about it,” says the statement.

As for the frequent argument of the opponents that the head of the UOC-KP is defrocked, the statement gives the following response: “How many times in history of the Universal and Russian Church hierarchical councils were innocent and even holy hierarchs defrocked? Holy hierarchs Athanasius the Great, John Chrisostom, Metropolitan Filip of Moscow, Metropolitan Arsenii (Matsiievich) of Rostov are only a few names off of the list of innocent people who were condemned and later glorified.”

The statement also employs the argument from the history of the recognition of the Bulgarian Church and illustrations from the history of the ROC regarding the lifting of the anathema of Old Believers or unification with the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, whose hierarchs were once banned from service by the Moscow Patriarchate.

The Kyivan Patriarchate stressed that people who question the apostolic succession of ordinations in the Kyivan Patriarchate should first learn the Church history and dogmatic better.

“One should realize that sooner or later one will have to recognize the ordinations administered in the Kyivan Patriarchate. If it is not done by some of those who themselves were ordained by Archbishop Filaret, it will be done by their successors,” conclude the authors.