The signing of Tomos of Autocephaly for the newly-created Orthodox Church of Ukraine is not a church but a political act which may have catastrophic consequences for Ukraine, the head of the Russian Federation Council’s international affairs committee, Konstantin Kosachev, said on Saturday.
"This is a new move towards destroying the unity of Orthodoxy, the consequences of which will be catastrophic, first of all for Ukraine itself and its people," Kosachev told TASS.
It is up to the Moscow Patriarchate in the first place to assess actions of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. "But political assessment of Ukrainian political leadership’s position is explicit for me - immoral interference of the Ukrainian state in church affairs violating the Ukrainian constitution as well as the authorities of the government," the senator stressed.
Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople signed on Saturday Tomos of Autocephaly for the newly-established Ukrainian church, the so-called Orthodox Church of Ukraine.
Prior to the signing a prayer service was held, attended by Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko, Foreign Minister Pavel Klimkin, parliament Speaker Andrei Parubiy, Metropolitan Epiphany, Constantinople clergy, as well as other Ukrainian politicians and hierarchs of the schismatic Ukrainian church organization.