The Ukrainian parliament has requested that
Constantinople recognize the Ukrainian Orthodox Church's independence from
Russia, the parliament website reported Thursday.
The appeal to Patriarch Bartholomew of
Constantinople — the head of the Orthodox Church— was supported by 245
deputies, with 20 deputies voting against. The move is hoped to speed up
“changes that will grant the Ukrainian church independence from an aggressor
state,” the Kommersant newspaper reported.
The Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow
Patriarchate is a self-governing part of the Russian Orthodox Church based in
Kiev, and is the only formally recognized Orthodox church in the country.
The group has claimed to have be under
increasing fire from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kiev Patriarchate,
one of the several unrecognized churches in Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko urged the
creation of a single, officially recognized Orthodox church in April, saying
that any such group should be “independent from other states.” He said that
recent polls showed growing support for the move within Ukraine, the RBC news
website reported.
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