His Holiness Patriarch Kirill ceases liturgical commemoration of His Beatitude Archbishop Ieronymos of Athens

On 3^rd November 2019, 20^th Sunday after Pentecost, His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia, while celebrating the Divine Liturgy at the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow, did not commemorate in the diptychs the name of His Beatitude Archbishop Ieronymos of Athens and All Greece.

By its decision of 17^th October 2019, the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church authorized His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia “to cease the commemoration of the name of His Beatitude Archbishop Ieronymos of Athens and All Greece in the diptychs in the event that the Primate of the Greek Church will begin to commemorate the head of one of the Ukrainian schismatic groups during divine services or will take other actions indicating his recognition of the Ukrainian church schism.”

On 29^th October 2019 it was reported that Archbishop Ieronymos sent a letter to the head of the so-called “Orthodox church of Ukraine” on 21^st October, by which the Church of Greece confirmed its recognition of this schismatic structure.

According to the decision of the Holy Synod, the Russian Orthodox Church will maintain with her brothers in the Greek Orthodox Church “the living prayerful, canonical and Eucharistic ties – through all those archpastors and pastors who have already spoken or will speak in future against the recognition of the Ukrainian schism, who will not stain their name by con-celebrating with the schismatic false hierarchs,” Patriarchia.ru reports, citing the Synodal Department for Church’s Relations with Society and Mass Media.

DECR Communication Service