MOSCOW, Jan 7 The schism in Ukraine interferes with the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church Church worthily serve its people and society, said the Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus' Kirill.
«In Ukraine, close to all of us and dear, the schisms really challenge the church, its ability to carry out a worthy service to the people and society of Ukraine,» the patriarch said in a sermon on Christmas night at the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow.
In 2018, at the initiative of the then President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko and Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, the non-canonical Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) was created by merging two schismatic organizations. She received from Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople a tomos of autocephaly (a letter of independence). The OCU was recognized by the First Hierarchs of the Alexandrian and Greek Churches, and in 2020 by the Primate of the Cypriot Church. The ROC responded to the recognition of schismatics by breaking off relations with Constantinople and those primates and bishops in other local churches who accepted the Ukrainian schism.