Speaking during a trip to Moscow, Patriarch Irinej followed the usual Serbian pattern of slavishly blind obedience to the line of the Russian Orthodox, dismissing the Ukrainian Orthodox of the Kyiv Patriarchate as “schismatics”.
MOSCOW, May 24, 2018 - His Holiness Patriarch Irinej of Serbia, used a Moscow visit to make clear that the Serbian Orthodox Church official position is to remain in lockstep with the Russian Orthodox in their efforts to thwart efforts toward autocephaly for a Ukrainian Orthodox Church built around the existing Kyiv Patriarchate that has grown rapidly in numbers of churches and members in response to the Putin regime’s illegal annexation of Crimea and support of separatists in the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts of Ukraine. “Anyone who helps the Ukrainian schismatics is an enemy of all Orthodox Slavic nations,” the patriarchal press service of the Russian Orthodox Church reported Patriarch Irinej as saying. “The martyric Ukrainian Church—where the holy Prince Vladimir baptized the people of Holy Rus’—is now being defiled by the schismatics’ blasphemy, violence, and bloodshed,” the Serbian Patriarch emphasized, speaking to the International Public Foundation for the Unity of Orthodox Peoples award ceremony in Moscow May 23, 2018. Patriarch Irinej was the recipient of this year’s award, which was bestowed upon him in the Hall of Church Councils of Moscow’s Christ the Savior Cathedral. “Anyone who helps the Ukrainian schismatics is an enemy not only of the Russian Church and the Russian world, but also of all Orthodox Slavic nations and the entire Orthodox world,” said the primate of the Serbian Orthodox Church. In conclusion, Patriarch Irinej wished that peace and harmony in truth would come to the Ukrainian land, that the faithful would build up and fill ancient and new churches, and that a united Holy Rus’ would continue its mission for the benefit of the entire Christian world with firmness and strength, Interfax-Religion adds. ### Have an opinion you’d like to share? UBO welcomes commentary in favor or opposed to any seen here. Send your opinion piece of any length to: Editor@ukrainebusiness.com.ua Submissions must include name and contact information; submission will be considered de facto permission for publication.
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