More than five months after the decision of the Ecumenical Patriarchate to grant legitimacy and then autocephaly to two schismatic groups in Ukraine, the situation is mostly unchanged. The new church structure, known now as the “Orthodox Church in / of Ukraine” is reportedly continuing its efforts to forcefully seize control of parish communities and churches all over Ukraine.
When Patriarch Bartholomew lifted the anathemas on Filaret Denisenko and Makary and pledged his efforts to create an autocephalous (independent) Orthodox Church in Ukraine, he boldly proclaimed that everyone would go along with his decision.
The Department of External Relations of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) reported that on April 19, 2018, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, by Resolution No. 8284, supported the appeal of the President of Ukraine P. O. Poroshenko to His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I regarding the “granting of a Tomos of Autocephaly to the Orthodox Church in Ukraine”.
This means that the government of a nation asked for a religious authority to recognize a State Church.
