Ukraine's president Petro Poroshenko (L) leaves the Fener Greek Patriarchate after meet Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew (R) (AFP Photo/ Yasin AKGUL) |
Istanbul (AFP) - Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko and the Istanbul-based Orthodox patriarch on Saturday signed an accord that paves the way for the recognition of an independent Ukrainian church, provoking new fury in Moscow.
Ecumenical
Patriarch Bartholomew I had on October 11 agreed to recognise the independence
of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church from the Moscow Patriarchate, a move that was
welcomed with jubilation by Kiev but condemned as "catastrophic" in
Moscow.
On a visit
to Istanbul that will see him hold talks with Turkish President Recep Tayyip
Erdogan, Poroshenko signed an agreement setting out the steps needed to
formalise the recognition of the independence of the Ukrainian Church, known as
Tomos.
"On
behalf of the Ukrainian people, I am very grateful to His Holiness and to all
the bishops of the Ecumenical Patriarchy for the extremely important and wise
decision to open the road to God for the Ukrainian nation and its church,"
Poroshenko said.
"The
agreement that we signed today sets the conditions so that the preparation to
grant the Tomos will be done in absolute correspondence with the canonical
rules of the Orthodox Church."
Poroshenko
also tweeted: "Today is a historic day. We have reached an agreement on
the cooperation between Ukraine and the Ecumenical Patriarchate, which we just
signed with His Holiness."
The issue
is set to play a key role in Ukraine's March 2019 presidential elections with
Poroshenko making Tomos a key issue as he plans a re-election bid.
The
Patriarchate is based in its historic home of Istanbul, the former
Constantinople and once the capital of the Byzantine Empire before the Ottoman
Muslim conquest of 1453.
Batholomew
is considered the "first among equals" of Orthodox patriarchs.
The
Patriarchate of Moscow, which is strongly backed by the Kremlin, argues it
technically oversees most of Ukraine's Orthodox parishes and has warned that
independence would provoke a rift in global Orthodoxy.
Metropolitan
Hilarion, who oversees the external relations of the Russian church, said the
new accord was one of several recent decisions by Bartholomew "which lie
outside the canonical domain and are exclusively political."
According
to Russia's TASS news agency, he accused Bartholomew of "carrying out an
order from overseas aiming to weaken and divide the unified Russian
church".
The
Ukrainian Church is split into three bodies -- one technically overseen by the
Patriarch of Moscow, a fact the Kiev government considers unacceptable given its
ongoing war with Russia-backed rebels in the east.
Ukraine and
Russia have been at loggerheads since 2014 when Kiev street protests urging
Ukrainian integration with Europe prompted the ousting of pro-Moscow president
Viktor Yanukovych.
Russia
annexed the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea later that year and backed rebels who
carved out two unrecognised breakaway regions in Ukraine's mineral-rich east in
a conflict that continues to this day.
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