H
Hesychios
Guest
In North America?A better question is why the largest single eastern catholic church is still a Major Archbishopric, and not a Patriarchate… and that apparently boils down to Appeasing Alexi II of Moscow… as the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church is long overdue for it. Axios!
You must mean the Metropolitan of K’yiv-Halich.
I would not blame that on Moscow (of course he will object, any MP would), that’s not news. What is news is that some people are trying to make it sound like that’s the reason the Pope has not acted. The Pope has every right to elevate that See to a Patriarchate. He does not need anyone else’s permission, not even a Council. Vatican Council II pre-loaded ther Pope’s gun, he can fire at will and erect a Patriarch anywhere he recognizes a perceived need. He is the Supreme Pontiff dammit, with formal claims over every church, including Moscow, by that theory he does not have to explain his actions to anyone.
However, I personally have never seen the value of multiplication of Patriarchs, there are too many already (that’s just an opinion I have held for years). The Ukrainians are being rather political about it.
In any case, the Ukrainian problem can be solved quite easily by the church declaring itself returning to autocephaly, as it had asserted before when it declared itself ready and able to join itself to Rome, asking no one’s permission, not Moscow, not the EP, not a Pan Orthodox synod, no one. They just did it.
If Rome and Moscow are perceived to be playing some kind of game, and they don’t like it, they can just say fie to both and go ahead with it.
This would probably work in Ukraine, because the government would very likely sympathize with the move and they could win in court.