Archpriest Nikolai Danilevich: It was the conciliar way of governing the Church that was established and consecrated by the apostles

On January 27, 2023, an interview with the Deputy Chairman of the DECR of the UOC, Archpriest Nikolai Danilevich, was published on the Viche YouTube channel, in which he answered the questions of the channel’s viewers about the external and internal challenges of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

One of the questions concerned the probable solution of the issue of the status of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church at the pan-Orthodox level: were there cases in the history of the Church when the issue of granting autocephaly was decided at the pan-Orthodox level, and is the bringing of the Ukrainian issue to the pan-Orthodox level an attempt to simply preserve the current state of affairs?

Archpriest Nikolai Danilevich noted that there were cases in history when the issue of the status of a particular Church was decided at the pan-Orthodox level. In particular, Father Nicholas gave an example of granting autocephaly to the Cypriot Church at the Third Ecumenical Council.

Regarding the tradition of giving Tomos of autocephaly to the Churches that acquire this status, the priest emphasized that this tradition appeared only in the 19th century. Prior to this, Tomosov on autocephaly, in fact, no one provided.

Emphasizing the importance and expediency of resolving the Ukrainian church issue with the conciliar mind of Ecumenical Orthodoxy, Archpriest Nikolai Danilevich noted that it was the conciliar way of governing the Church that was established and consecrated by the apostles when in 51 they gathered at the Council in Jerusalem and resolved controversial issues at it.