The healing of the schism between the Moscow Patriarchate and the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia as a false analogy in the issue of the Ukrainian schismatics
In 2018 the Patriarchate of Constantinople accepted within its jurisdiction Philaret (Denisenko) and Macarius (Maletich) and their followers. In this manner there were received into the Church of Constantinople individuals who had received their ordination while in schism. And at the same time no ordinations were repeated, while all the holy ranks accorded them while they were in schism were recognized by the Patriarchate of Constantinople.
By 2019 there was already unfolding within the Orthodox world a discussion on the extent to which this decision by the Patriarchate of Constantinople was in accordance with canonical tradition. Within the discussion special attention was paid to the historical precedents of healing ecclesiastical divisions. In particular, Patriarch Bartholomew in his correspondence with His Beatitude Anastasios, Archbishop of Tirana and All Albania, pointed towards a number of such precedents. Thus, in his letter of 20th February 2019 Patriarch Bartholomew mentioned the restoration of canonical communion between the Moscow Patriarchate and the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (ROCOR) in 2007. Patriarch Bartholomew noted that here there were no repeated ordinations of the bishops and priests who had been ordained in the period of the rupture in church relations. Patriarch Bartholomew wrote that the Russian Church “forgave all the members of the ROCOR who had hitherto been in schism. How were they received into communion, through rebaptism or through reordination?”[1]
Such references to the overcoming of the division between the Moscow Patriarchate and the ROCOR are typical of the Ukrainian schismatics as well. The Appeal of the Holy Synod and the Episcopate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kiev Patriarchate to the bishops, clergy and laity of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of 14th December 2007 mentions the restoration of canonical communion with the ROCOR. In this document the restoration of unity between the Moscow Patriarchate and the ROCOR was viewed as a possible model for the overcoming of the ecclesiastical schism in Ukraine.[2] On 16th July 2008 in reply to this appeal the Holy Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate indicated the wrongness of drawing an analogy between the ROCOR and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kiev Patriarchate (UOC KP).[3] Nonetheless, as we see, in 2019 too Patriarch Bartholomew, in justifying his decisions regarding Philaret (Denisenko), made reference to the example of the ROCOR.
All of this obliges us to examine all the more attentively the situation which had arisen in the relationship between the Russian Orthodox Church and those of her bishops, priests and lay people who, after the revolutionary and military upheavals of 1917 to 1920, found themselves in emigration. At present this history has been well studied. There are serious works of scholarship by both representatives of the ROCOR and those who criticize it.[4]
Without going into detail of how the ROCOR came into being, we remind our readers that the conflict between the ROCOR and the Moscow Patriarchate grew during the 1920s and reached its peak after how on 29th July 1927 the deputy to the Patriarch locum tenens metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky) published a Declaration on loyalty to the Soviet authorities and demanded that all of the clergy abroad should sign a document also declaring their loyalty. The ROCOR qualified the Declaration as a result of the pressure of the Soviet authorities and so disregarded it. It was perfectly understandable that the bishops and clergy of the ROCOR would refuse to sign an oath of loyalty to the Soviet regime. As a result, in the same year of 1927 the Episcopal Council of the Russian Church Outside Russia resolved to break off administrative relations with metropolitan Sergius, while 1931 prayerful communion with him was also ended. At the same time, the ROCOR did not believe itself to have broken relations with the Russian Church as such by continuing to commemorate at services the locum tenens of the Patriarchal throne metropolitan Peter (Polyansky).
Metropolitan Sergius stated that the Episcopal Council in Sremsky Karlovaci was a “self-appointed gathering” and as a result demanded that it be dissolved. In 1934 the Holy Synod under metropolitan Sergius suspended from serving eight bishops who were in the ROCOR. This was done with reference to the church’s canonical rules which spoke of the inadmissibility of one-sided separation from communion with the legitimate hierarchy. But the ROCOR took a principally different view of the situation. The bishops abroad did not believe metropolitan Sergius and the Synod under him to be the legitimate supreme ecclesiastical authority. They considered the locum tenens of the Patriarchal throne metropolitan Peter (Polyansky), who was then in exile, to be the sole chief hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church.
The Synod of the Russian Church Outside Russia believed that within the Russian Church the conditions still remained of which the resolution of the Holy Synod and the Supreme Ecclesiastical Council in Moscow of 7th (20th) November 1920 spoke. This resolution made provisions, whereby in the case of war or a change in state borders which would lead to loss of contact with the higher church authorities in Moscow and other dioceses, or in the instance whereby the higher church authorities headed by the Patriarch “for whatever reason ceases to function”, then the ruling bishops of these dioceses could organize temporary organs of higher church authorities.[5] Put simply, the resolution of 7th (20th) November 1920 allowed for the dioceses to be temporarily self-administered in the extraordinary conditions of war or persecution of the Church.
From the perspective of the ROCOR this situation obtained in 1927. The legitimate locum tenens was in exile and was unable to discharge his duties. According to the ROCOR, there had ceased to exist in the Soviet Union legitimate organs of higher church administration. At the same time, regular contact between Moscow and the part of the Russian Church which was abroad had now been lost. This is why the ROCOR considered it quite permissible and even essential for organs of church administration to exist independently abroad. The foreign bishops were ready to answer for their actions, but only before a freely convened Council of the Russian Orthodox Church. Until that time when it would be possible to convene such a Council, the ROCOR considered itself to be in a state of “self-governance.”
It should also be noted that on the part of the Holy Synod under metropolitan Sergius no further harsh sanctions were taken with regard to the ROCOR. Moreover, as has already been indicated, it was not all of the bishops who were subject to suspension, but only eight bishops of the ROCOR. There were no defrockings or even more so anathemas with regard to the bishops abroad.
The canonical punishments imposed upon the defrocked foreign bishops by the Moscow Synod were not recognized by the other Local Orthodox Churches, which continued to maintain eucharistic communion with the Russian emigré bishops. The Church of Serbia traditionally supported the ROCOR, upon whose territory the administrative organs of the ROCOR had been instituted.
Although the reunification of the ROCOR with the Moscow Patriarchate took place only in 2007, there were however instances before this of bishops returning from the ROCOR to the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate. In particular, in 1945 a number of ROCOR bishops immediately reunited with the Moscow Patriarchate. These were: metropolitan Meletius (Zaborovsky), archbishops Nestor (Anisimov) and Dimitrius (Voznesensky), bishops Juvenal (Kilin) and Victor (Svyatin). Bishops Dimitrius, Juvenal and Victor were ordained as bishops in the ROCOR in the 1930s, that is to say, their ordinations were performed without sanction from Moscow. Nonetheless, the Moscow Patriarchate had no doubt about the legitimacy of their ordinations. They were all received back into communion in their existing ecclesiastical rank. Metropolitan Meletius, although he was ordained a bishop even before the Revolution of 1917, was elevated to the rank of metropolitan by the Synod of the ROCOR in 1939.[6] He was received into communion with the Moscow Patriarchate as a metropolitan. Thus, in 1945 the resolutions on episcopal consecrations and the elevation of hierarchs to the rank of metropolitan were recognized by default in the Moscow Patriarchate.
In spite of the fact that the rupture in both administrative and prayerful communion between the ROCOR and the Moscow Patriarchate lasted for more than seventy years, the ROCOR nevertheless always insisted that it was part of the Russian Church. For example, in the Provisions of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia adopted in 1956 it was asserted that the ROCOR was an “integral part of the Local Orthodox Church of Russia which is temporarily self-governing on conciliar principles until the godless regime in Russia is removed.” The Provisions refer to the Resolution of the Holy Synod and the Supreme Church Council of 7th (20th) November 1920 as the foundation for self-governance.[7]
It is important to emphasize that neither the ROCOR nor the Moscow Patriarchate took any official decisions on the non-recognition of each other’s sacraments. Although the ROCOR in 1931 adopted a resolution on the rupture of prayerful communion with metropolitan Sergius, nonetheless those clergymen who in the subsequent years served in the Moscow Patriarchate were received into the jurisdiction of the ROCOR with being ordained anew. In 1938 the Episcopal Council of the ROCOR under the chairmanship of metropolitan Anastasius (Gribanovsky) discussed the issue of the possibility of concelebration with clergy of the Moscow Patriarchate. As a result, a decision was made that “the sin of metropolitan Sergius does not extend to the clergy under him.” Therefore, the Synod came to the conclusion that there “are no obstacles to prayerful communion and concelebration with the clergy of metropolitan Sergius.”[8]
Statements by individual representatives of both the ROCOR and the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate on the lack of grace in each other’s sacraments have always been viewed as erroneous. For example, in December 1997 in a joint statement by the participants of the ninth convocation between representatives of the Moscow Patriarchate and clergy of the Berlin diocese of the ROCOR it was noted: “We are agreed and note that the grace of the sacraments, priesthood and church life should not be in doubt… If at present there is no eucharistic communion between the clergy of the Moscow Patriarchate and the ROCOR, then this is not to be taken as an assertion of an ‘absence of grace’ on the other side.”[9]
It is in this manner that the causes of the rupture in relations between the Moscow Patriarchate and the ROCOR bore an exclusively political nature. Both sides always understood this to be the case. Thus, in 2003 His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II, addressing a delegation of the ROCOR, stated: “With the fall of the communist regime and the institution of religious freedom in Russia there have now appeared good reasons to begin the way towards unity.”[10] That is to say, the sole reason for the absence of unity Patriarch Alexy believed to be the presence in Russia of the communist regime. After the communist period was over in Russia’s history, it was natural that there would be a gradual coming together of the ROCOR and Moscow Patriarchate.
An important factor which influenced the mutual relationship between the Moscow Patriarchate and the ROCOR was the veneration of the new martyrs and confessors of the twentieth century. The ROCOR had canonized the new martyrs and confessors as far back as 1981. Yet for the Moscow Patriarchate the glorification of the new martyrs became possible only at the end of the 1980s. Thus, in 1989 the holy hierarch Patriarch Tikhon of Moscow and All Russia was canonized as a saint. In the 1990s intensive work was carried out for the canonization of the other new martyrs and confessors. On 26th December 1995 the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church adopted a document entitled The Historical and Canonical Criteria for the Canonization of the New Martyrs of the Russian Church in Connection with the Ecclesiastical Divisions of the Twentieth Century.[11] This important document recognized the possibility of canonizing among the saints those bishops and priests who in the 1920s and 1930s refused to submit to metropolitan Sergius and who do not consider him to be the legitimate first hierarch of the Russian Church. This allowed for the canonization as saints of such consistent critics of metropolitan Sergius as, for example, the metropolitan of Kazan Kirill (Smirnov). The ROCOR was in fact still at the end of the 1920s in solidarity with the position of Saint Kirill (Smirnov) in his polemic with metropolitan Sergius.
All of this prepared the ground for overcoming the division. On 17th May 2007 in Moscow there was signed the Act of Canonical Communion between the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate and the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia. This Act restored “canonical communion within the Local Russian Orthodox Church.” The document specifically emphasized that all “earlier published acts which were a hindrance to the fullness of canonical communion are to be recognized as null and void or as obsolete.” With the signing of the Act on canonical communion the ROCOR became a self-governing part of the Moscow Patriarchate, retaining its special supreme, spiritual, legislative, administrative, judicial and controlling authority in the form of the Episcopal Council of the ROCOR.[12]
Even such a brief examination of the conflict between the ROCOR and the Moscow Patriarchate allows us to come to the conclusion that it is radically different from that of the Ukrainian church schismatics at the turn of the twenty-first century.
Above all, the rupture in relations between the ROCOR and the Moscow Patriarchate was due to political reasons. The bishops of the Russian Church, who were forced into emigration and who were not citizens of the Soviet Union, considered it their duty to speak out publicly against Bolshevism and to bear witness to the international community to the anti-Christian nature of the regime which had taken charge on the territory of the former Russian empire.
If during the lifetime of Patriarch Tikhon of Moscow ties were maintained, in spite of all the difficulties, between the ROCOR and the Moscow Patriarchate, then the situation changed for the worse after his death. The main stumbling block was the Declaration of metropolitan Sergius on loyalty towards the Soviet authorities. It was after this that the ROCOR, not wishing to take upon itself the obligation of being loyal to the Soviet authorities, broke off first administrative and then prayerful communion with the Moscow Patriarchate. At the same time, the ROCOR at no time declared itself to be an autocephalous Church and consistently maintained that it remained part of the Russian Church and was ready to restore communion with the Moscow Patriarchate after the fall of the Soviet regime. Thus, the conflict between the ROCOR and the Moscow Patriarchate is an internal conflict of the Russian Church.
Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky), after the ROCOR refused to submit to his authority, repeatedly referred to it as a schismatic grouping, while the Synod under him suspended from serving only eight bishops of the ROCOR. Moscow never took any decisions to defrock the bishops of the ROCOR, even more so to excommunicate them from the Church or anathematize them. Also, the Moscow Patriarchate did not repudiate the legitimacy of the episcopal consecrations performed in the ROCOR. In the instances when they joined the Moscow Patriarchate, the bishops of the ROCOR were received in their existing ecclesiastical rank and they also retained the titles which they had been accorded while still in the ROCOR.
In its turn the ROCOR also did not repudiate the grace of the sacraments celebrated within the Moscow Patriarchate and received into its body clergy of the Moscow Patriarchate without ordaining them anew.
The very title of the Act signed in Moscow in 2007 testifies that the reconciling sides viewed the long division as a conflict within the Russian Orthodox Church. This is why the event which occurred in 2007 was called the restoration of canonical communion between the two parts of the Russian Church.
Let us now point out the basic principle differences between this conflict and the church schisms in Ukraine.
Firstly, the ecclesiastical divisions in Ukraine at the end of the 1980s and the 1990s were linked to unilateral declarations of autocephaly, that is, the separation from ecclesiastical communion of bishops, clergy and laity. The supporters of both the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (UAOC) and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kiev Patriarchate (UOC KP) firmly insisted upon breaking off relations with the Russian Church and upon proclaiming autocephaly without the consent to this of either the Russian Church or the Local Orthodox Churches. As we have seen, the ROCOR never stated its intention to become autocephalous, insisting that it remained a part of the Russian Church obliged to abide in a state of “self-governance.”
Secondly, various canonical sanctions were imposed upon those clergy who joined the schisms in Ukraine: they were suspended from serving and defrocked, and in the instance of the former metropolitan of Kiev Philaret (Denisenko), he was subjected to the ultimate ecclesiastical penalty of being excommunicated and anathematized. The Moscow Patriarchate, however, never defrocked bishops and clergy of the ROCOR and never excommunicated them from the Church.
Today there is documentary evidence that the apostolic succession of episcopal consecrations has not been preserved in the UAOC. The origins of the hierarchy of the UAOC go back to the consecration performed on 31st March 1990 by the former bishop John (Bondarchuk), who had been deprived of his priestly rank and monastic calling and the self-proclaimed ‘bishop’ Vikenty Chekalin (in fact, he never was a bishop but merely a deacon, but at the time of his so-called ‘consecration’ he had already been defrocked as a deacon).[13] This why the Russian Orthodox Church has never recognized the legitimacy of the consecrations carried out in the UAOC. Genuine consecrations would be performed on those ‘bishops’ who were received into the Russian Church from the UAOC.
The situation in the UOC KP is quite unusual. Metropolitan Philaret had been legitimately consecrated a bishop, but after he went into schism, he was defrocked in 1992 and then excommunicated from the Church in 1997. Therefore, all of the episcopal consecrations headed by the former metropolitan Philaret after his defrocking have been considered invalid. The bishops consecrated in the UOC KP have been received back into communion through the carrying out of legitimate consecrations.
And here we once more can see the radical difference from the situation which arose in the mutual relationship between the Moscow Patriarchate and the ROCOR. As was demonstrated above, in spite of the breaking off of relations, both sides never denied the legitimacy of each other’s consecrations. Bishops consecrated in the ROCOR were received into the Moscow Patriarchate in their existing ecclesiastical rank, and the ecclesiastical titles that they had been given in the ROCOR were recognized. This is why in 2007 the restoration of communication took place without any repeated consecrations.
Thirdly, all of the canonical penalties imposed upon the bishops and clergy of the UOC KP and the UAOC by the Russian Orthodox were recognized by all the Local Orthodox Churches. Neither the UAOC nor the UOC KP have ever enjoyed eucharistic communion with any of these Local Orthodox Churches.
The situation with the ROCOR was quite different. The canonical penalties imposed upon the foreign bishops by the Holy Synod headed by metropolitan Sergius were not recognized by any of the other Local Orthodox Churches. For example, the Patriarch of Serbia Barnabas in 1934 had already written to metropolitan Sergius to state that he did not consider these penalties to be legitimate.[14] Hence the Synod of the ROCOR continued to function in Sremsky Karlovaci, enjoying the protection of the Serbian Church. The emigré bishops were in communion also with the other Local Orthodox Churches.
All of this demonstrates the profound inappropriateness of the analogies made between the Act of the restoration of canonical communion in 2007 and the problem of healing the church schisms in Ukraine. It is therefore not surprising that as far back as 2008 the Holy Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate stated that it was impossible to view the renewal of communion between the ROCOR and the Moscow Patriarchate as a model for overcoming the church schisms in Ukraine.[15]
The authors of the letter of the UOC KP, who claimed in 2007 that the treatment of the Moscow Patriarchate of the ROCOR was identical to that of its treatment of the UOC KP, merely demonstrated how badly informed they were of the issue. The treatment was completely different. Hence the restoration of communion travelled a different path which is inapplicable to the situation in Ukraine.
It would seem that the same element of being badly informed can explain the reference to the situation with the ROCOR contained in the letter of Patriarch Bartholomew to Archbishop Anastasios of 20th February 2019. It is therefore not surprising that Archbishop Anastasios in his letter of reply to Patriarch Bartholomew of 21st March 2019 wrote: “The Ukrainian issue has no analogy with the ROCOR. The latter concerns the cutting off of Russians living in the diaspora from the Russian Church which found itself under the watchful eye of the Soviet authorities. In this instance there were no excommunications, no anathemas, and there has never been any doubt as to the apostolic succession of the ROCOR. And when the atheist regime fell, reunification took place.”[16]
It is in these short words of the first hierarch of the Albanian Orthodox Church that we are given a precise evaluation of the differences between the Ukrainian situation and that of the conflict between the ROCOR and Moscow Patriarchate.
[1] Greek original: Anastisis Oikoumeninkou Patriarchi ston Arkhiepiskopos Albanis. https://www.romfea.gr/epikairotita-xronika/27436-apantisi-oikoumenikou-patriarxi-ston-arxiepiskopoa... Russian translation: Otvet Patriarkha Varfolomeya predstoyatelyu Albanskoi Tserkvi po popovodu avtokefalii PTsU. https://credo.press/223362/.
[2] Zvernennya Svyaschennogo Synoda ta episkopatu UPTs KP do arkhiereiv, dukhoventsvo ta virnikh Ukrainskoi Pravoslavnoi Tserkvi (v skladi Mosckovskogo Patriarkhatu) [vid 14.12.2007]. https://arhov.orthodoxy.org.ua/uk/mejkonfessionalnyy_dialog/2007/12/21/13012.html.
[3] Vidpovid Svyaschennogo Synoda Ukrainskoi Pravoslavnoi Tserkvi na “Zvernennya Svyaschennogy Synoda ta episkopatu UPTs KP do arkhiereiv, dukhoventsva ta virnikh Ukrainskoi Pravoslanoi Tserkvi (v skladi Moscovsogo Patriarchatu)” vid 14 grudnya 2007 roku. 16.07.2008. https://orthodox.org.ua/article/v%96dpov%D1%96d-svyashchennogo-sinodu-ukra%D1%97nsko%D1%97pravosl...
[4] See, for example: S.V. Troitsky, Razmezhevanie ili raskol, Paris, 1932; Ibid., O nepravde Karlovatskogo raskola: rabor knogi prot. Polskogo ‘Kanonicheskoe polozhenie vysshei tserkovnoe vlasti v SSSR I zagranitsei, Moscow, 1992; Ibid., ‘Istoriya samochinnoi karlovatskoi organizatsii’, Tserkvno-istoricheskoi vestnik, no.8, Moscow, 2001, pp.18-68; Father Georgy Mitrofanov, Pravoslavnaya Tserkov v Rossii i v emigratsii v 1920-e gody: K voprosu o vsaimootnosheniyakh Mosckovskoi Patriarkhii i russkoi tserkovnoi emigratsii v period 1920-1927 gg., St. Petersburg, 1995; Metropolitan Benjamin (Fedchenkov), ‘Raskol ili edinstvo’, Tserkovno-istorichesky vestnik, nos.4-5, Moscow, 1998, pp.5-139; A.A. Kostryukov, Russkaya Zarubezhnaya Tserkov v pervoi polovine 1920-x godov: organizatsiya tserkovnogo upravleniya v emigratsii I ego otnosheniya s Moskovskoi Patriarkhiei pri zhizni Patriarkha Tikhona, Moscow, 2007; Ibid., Russkaya Zarubezhnaya Tserkov v 1925-1938 gg.: yurisdiktsionnye konflikty I otnosheniya c moskovskoi tserkovnoi vlastyu, Moscow, 2011; Zakonodatelstvo Russkoi Pravoslavnoi Tserkvi Zagranitsei (1921-2007), compiled by D.P. Anashkin, Moscow, 2014; V. Rusak, Zarubezhnaya Tserkov XX vek, Jordanville-Carlsbad-Moscow-Chicago, 2017, vols. 1 and 2.
[5] This document has been published in full in: Georgy Mitrofanov, Pravoslavnaya Tserkov v Rossii i v emigratsii v 1920-e gody: K voprosu o vzaimootnosheniyakh Moscowkovskoi Patriarkhii I russkoi tserkovnoi emigratsii v period 1920-1927 gg., St. Peterburg, 1995, pp.86-88.
[6] For more details, see: ‘Doklad episkopa Yeleferiya (Vorontsova) is svyashchennika Georgiya Razumovskogo o prebyvanii v Manchzhurii in 1945’, (published with an introduction and commentary by O.Vo. Kosik) in Vestnik PSTGU, series II: Istoriya. Istorya Russkoi Pravoslavnoi Tserkvi, 2007, no.2 (23), pp.131-153.
[7] See: Zakonodatelstvo Russkoi Pravoslavnoi Tserkvi Zagranitsei (1921-2007), compiled by D.P. Anashkin, Moscow, p.489.
[8] Quoted in: A.A. Kostryakov, Russkaya Zarubezhnaya Tserkov v 1925-1938 gg. Yurisdiktsionnye konflikty I otnosheniya s moskovskoi tserkovnoi vlastyu, Moscow, 2011, p.408.
[9] See: Zakonodatelstvo Russkoi Pravoslavnoi Tserkvi Zagranitsei (1921-2007), p.233.
[10] The members of the delegation of the ROCOR prayed at the Patriarchal service in the Cathedral of the Archangel Michael in the Kremlin. https://mospat.ru/ru/news/82678/.
[11] The document has been published in Zhurnal Moskovskoi Patriarkhii, 1996, no.2, pp.53-59.
[12] The document is published in: Zakonodatelstvo Russkoi Pravoslavnoi Tserkvi Zagranitsei (1921-2007), pp.508-510.
[13] For more details, see: S.V. Shumilo, ‘Samozvany “episkop” Vikenty Chekalin i ego uchastie v pervykh khirotoniyakh UAPTs v 1990 g.’ in Trudy KDA, no.31, Kiev, 2019, pp.240-273.
[14] See, for example, the letter by Patriarch Barnabas to metropolitan Sergius of 6th January 1934, published in: A.A. Kostryakov, Russkaya Zarubezhnaya Tserkov v 1925-1938 gg., pp.535-541.
[15] Vidpovid Svyaschennogo Synoda Ukrainskoi Pravoslavnoi Tserkvi na “Zvernennya Svyaschennogy Synoda ta episkopatu UPTs KP do arkhiereiv, dukhoventsva ta virnikh Ukrainskoi Pravoslanoi Tserkvi (v skladi Moscovsogo Patriarchatu)” vid 14 grudnya 2007 roku. 16.07.2008. https://orthodox.org.ua/article/v%96dpov%D1%96d-svyashchennogo-sinodu-ukra%D1%97nsko%D1%97pravosl...
[16] Greek original: Peri tou Oukraikou Zitimatos 2a apokrisi aletheuontes en agape. https://www.romfea.gr/epikairotita-xronika/27885-peri-tou-oukranikou-zitimatos-2a-apokrisi-altheuon... Russian translation: The letter by His Beatitude the Archbishop of Tirana and All Albania Anastasios to the Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew of 21st March 2019. https://www.patriarchia.ru/db/text/5403657.html.