Metropolitan of Chalcedon demands that The Orthodox Times remove article on church situation in Ukraine

The hierarch of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, Metropolitan Emmanuel of Chalcedon, who is considered one of the lobbyists for the interests of the OCU in Phanar, wrote a letter to the editorial board of the Greek-American church publication The Orthodox Times demanding that the recently published article titled “What Sources from Phanar and Kyiv Reveal to The Orthodox Times About the Situation in Ukraine”, which caused a wide response in the church environment, be removed. The bishop noted that the information published in the article is not true and was published without taking into account geopolitical processes. This was reported by The Orthodox Times.

“According to reliable information received by our editorial office, a significant number of responses, mostly positive, have been received from Ukraine regarding the content of the article from persons belonging to all jurisdictions of the Orthodox Church. However, the article and its content, which were thoroughly checked through journalistic cross-checking, did not sit well with His Eminence Metropolitan Emmanuel of Chalcedon, who went so far as to send a legal notice (an out-of-court statement) to orthodoxtimes.com and the author of the article. In his legal statement, Metropolitan Emmanuel expressed the opinion that the analysis presented in the article “suffers from a lack of knowledge and a comprehensive understanding of ecclesiastical and geopolitical events,” – the media reported.

In addition, according to The Orthodox Times, there have been cases of attempts to put pressure on the publication by Metropolitan Emmanuel before. The bishop even involved the head of the press service of the Patriarchate of Constantinople in the process, but The Orthodox Times is not going to give in to pressure and will continue to inform readers about the church situation in Ukraine.

“It is worth noting that Elder Metropolitan Emmanuel of Chalcedon has also expressed dissatisfaction with other articles published on the orthodoxtimes.com website in the past. He has repeatedly expressed his dissatisfaction through the director of the press service of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, to the point where we wondered whether the director of the press service was acting solely as a representative of Metropolitan Emmanuel. We never faced such objections when our website covered other hierarchs of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. His Eminence’s demand to remove this article cannot be accepted. Our sources are accurate, verified and continue to provide us with new information about events in Ukraine. Moreover, orthodoxtimes.com will soon publish additional articles on the development of the situation in the Orthodox community of Ukraine, a topic that we have been closely monitoring and covering for many years, with the active participation of readers,” – the media outlet added.

Earlier we reported that the Greek-American edition of The Orthodox Times, which is considered a close media outlet to the American Archdiocese of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, published a material based on insider information from Ukraine and Phanar. According to the publication, the Phanar does not have particularly warm feelings towards the OCU because of doubts about the correctness of the choice of Epiphany Dumenko as the head of the organization. At the same time, according to the media, internal contradictions within the OCU are intensifying due to the authoritarian position of the Ukrainian schism’s leadership.