Metropolitan Luke of Zaporozhye released a statement intensely addressed to Archbishop Chrysostomos of Cyprus on the occasion of his interview two days ago.
As he typically declares in his statement, published by orthochristian.com, the Patriarchs and their Synods, who have recognized the “schismatic Church” (referring to the Autocephalous Church of Ukraine), are heretics who have circumvented the Church doctrines.
They have allowed the existence of clergymen who cannot even have the apostolic succession of ordination, he claims.
He also blames Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew for “several other, no less serious, transgressions, namely the heresies of ethnicism and papacy. The Archbishop of Cyprus accuses Patriarch Kirill of wanting to be the first, without seeing that it is not the Patriarch of Moscow, but the one of Constantinople who assumes the role of Pan-Orthodox Pope.”
He further argues that it was necessary to cut off the Communion with the “heretics”, as he considers that “this is not a whim of the Russian Orthodox Church, but a measure of self-preservation.”
He refers to the Ecumenical Patriarch as “Bishop of Constantinople” who introduced heresy to the Church “extending to all those who agree with him.”
He also adds that “the idea of the Archbishop of Cyprus regarding the possible neutrality of his Church is just as silly as the idea that you can stay indefinitely under the water without breathing and remain alive.
In order to save your life, you have to get up, otherwise drοwn and die. It won’t work to stay for days or months under the water without breathing.
The arguments put forward by the Archbishop of Cyprus in his interview speaks for two possible reasons for such an attitude.
He, out of ignorance, either does not really understand what is happening in the Orthodox world and does not realize the seriousness of the mistakes that Constantinople has made, or he is a fool, trying to please both God and the devil.
We believe the second case is the most likely.”
