What did patriarh Bartholomew talk about at a meeting with pilgrims from Lviv

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew met with a group of Ukrainian pilgrims from Lviv. He promised to come to Ukraine to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Ukrainian independence, and discussed several other issues, one of which suggests that the provision of the Tomos was dictated by mercantile considerations (which, in principle, is not a bog secret), writes Telegram-channel “Pastyr and pastva”.

Thus, according to Patriarch Bartholomew, “we are happy that one of the fruits of the granting of the Tomos of autocephaly to the Church of Ukraine was an increase in the number of pilgrims to holy places not only here in Constantinople, but throughout the Orthodox world.”

Another thesis of Patriarch Bartholomew at a meeting with Ukrainian pilgrims was that the ties between Kiev and Constantinople, Tsargorod (as Constantinople was called in Ukrainian) have remained close for centuries, despite many random problems.

“Even after granting the Patriarch of Moscow the right to ordain the Metropolitan of Kiev, elected by the local spiritual assembly (of the Ukrainian people), the Ecumenical Patriarchate did not forget its daughter (the Church), and the Ukrainian leaders tried to maintain contacts with their historical mother-church,” writes Telegram-channel.