{"id":178515,"date":"2019-10-07T14:55:37","date_gmt":"2019-10-07T11:55:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mospat.ru\/?p=178515"},"modified":"2019-10-09T14:18:47","modified_gmt":"2019-10-09T11:18:47","slug":"%d1%80%d0%b0%d1%81%d0%ba%d0%be%d0%bb-%d1%86%d0%b5%d0%bd%d0%be%d0%b9-%d0%be%d0%b1%d0%bc%d0%b0%d0%bd%d0%b0-%d0%b2-%d0%b7%d0%b0%d0%b2%d0%b5%d1%80%d1%88%d0%b5%d0%bd%d0%b8%d0%b5-%d0%b4%d0%b8%d1%81%d0%ba","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/old.mospat.ru\/en\/2019\/10\/07\/news178515\/","title":{"rendered":"Schism At The Price Of Deceit: Putting an End to the Discussion around the \u201cChekalin Consecrations of the So-Called \u201cOrthodox Church of Ukraine\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

On the 25th<\/sup> of August of the year the Ukrainian site Cerkvarium, which usually publishes critical attacks and sometimes manipulative or slanderous articles against canonical Orthodoxy and the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church, has once more tried to prove the supposed canonicity of the \u201cconsecrations\u201d of part of the current hierarchy of the so-called \u201cOrthodox Church of Ukraine,\u201d at the roots of which stood the sadly renowned adventurist and imposter Victor (Vikenty) Chekalin. The article asserts that in these consecrations there took part archbishop Barlaam (Ilyuschenko) of blessed memory, and as evidence of this there was published an \u201cordination certificate,\u201d supposedly signed by Barlaam.<\/p>\n

The article was immediately translated into Greek and published on websites which support the position of the patriarchate of Constantinople on this issue, including the site fanarion.blogspot.com which is said to be materially supported by the patriarchate of Constantinople and is an unofficial mouthpiece for its position. It may be surmised that these publications were prepared in order to influence the Holy Synod of the Orthodox Church of Helledas, which was to sit the following day after the article appeared. As we recall, at this time a number of Ukrainian media outlets asserted that the \u201cOrthodox Church of Ukraine\u201d would be recognized within twenty-four hours, something which, of course, did not happen.<\/p>\n

Even before the end of the Synod\u2019s session on 20th<\/sup> August, archpriest Nikolai Danilevich published a refutation entitled \u201cOn the Canonicity of the Consecrations of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church: From Kinik to Chekalin.\u201d Supporters of the \u201cOrthodox Church of Ukraine\u201d gave two replies to the article. The first was in the aforementioned Cerkvarium, and the second in the Greek-speaking blogosphere from archimandrite Roman Anastasiadis, who, it would seem, works in close cooperation with the editors of Cerkvarium. Both publications do not convince. His opponents declined to discuss the topic in question and tried to cast accusations and facts at Fr. Nikolai Danilevich which have nothing to do with the problem of consecrations in the Ukrainian schism.<\/p>\n

Indeed, the dubious \u201ccertificate of consecration,\u201d with its badly reproduced signature of archbishop Barlaam without any indication of his title, is all that the defenders of the \u201cChekalin consecrations\u201d can come up with. Yet there are a number of documents with the signature of John Bodnarchuk which assert the opposite:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. The \u201chierarchy\u201d of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church was founded in 1991 by two people without episcopal consecration, that is: John Bodnarchuk, who was defrocked in 1989, and the former deacon Vikenty Chekalin, who was never made a bishop;<\/li>\n
  2. Archbishop Barlaam (Ilyuschenko) did not participate in nor could have participated in the consecration of the \u201chierarchy\u201d of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church;<\/li>\n
  3. John Bodnarchuk was aware of the uncanonical nature of the \u201chierarchy\u2019 he had created and knew that Chekalin had never been made a bishop. For this reason, he forged the signature of archbishop Barlaam (Ilyuschenko) on the \u201ccertificate of consecration\u201d of his brother Vasily Bodnarchuk on 31st<\/sup> March 1990.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

     <\/p>\n

    A superficial search in the archives shows that the precise makeup of the participants of the Chekalin \u201cconsecrations\u201d in the Lvov region in March and April of 1991 has been documented accurately. Among the documents kept at the Moscow Patriarchate are, for example, the following:
    \n\n\t\t