......Such was Constantinople’s response to the request by President Petro Poroshenko to issue a tomos for the creation of the united local church in Ukraine...
What business is it of Petro Poroshenko—a secular official—to meddle in Church affairs?
PHOOEY!!!!
Ukrainian Church leaders..like Patriarch Filaret has been wanting this since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Kiev and Moscow have been in conflict for centuries before that.
This will be a blessing not only to Ukraine, but European Christianity at large. And hopefully the next roundup of Moscow patriarchate leadership will serve Jesus Christ, not the Kremlin.
This is larger than just Ukraine vs. Russia.
The Ecumenical Patriarch (EP) is struggling to maintain legitimacy while surrounded by an increasing hostile militant secularist/militant Islamist government.
The big question is, “why does the EP fail to act in the struggle of the Patriarchate of Jerusalem vs the Patriarchate of Antioch over Dubai (and other issues)—while eagerly intervening in the Ukraine?”
The 2017 meeting in Crete may well be a foreshadowing of Orthodoxy first internal schism: Moscow and Antioch (plus many autocephalas churches) vs. the EP, Jerusalem, and Alexandria.
That would have a devastating effect on the North American Orthodox diaspora.