Patriarch Bartholomew spoke in the United States about the benefits of the Tomos on the autocephaly of the OCU

Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, during his visit to the USA, has declared the benefits of legalizing the Ukrainian church schism and giving the OCU the Tomos of autocephaly. He noted that he informed US President Donald Trump about it, telling about the «justice» that has come to Ukraine in connection with this step of the Patriarchate of Constantinople. The head of the Phanar said this during a press conference in the United States.

«I thanked the President for his interest in the war in Ukraine and explained that our Patriarchate has a special interest in the situation in Ukraine — both political and ecclesiastical. We granted autocephaly about six years ago to the Church of Ukraine. They repeatedly asked for it, we agreed, and it was fair for them to have this ecclesiastical independence from Moscow, which, as we all know, is the enemy of the Ukrainian people, » — Patriarch Bartholomew noted.

He added that in this way, Constantinople gave the Ukrainian churches the opportunity to live independently of the «Moscow center» because the Russian Orthodox Church had «oppressed them for decades.»

«We gave the opportunity to live independently from the Moscow center, which has oppressed them for decades. I will remind you of the Holodomor, the genocide that Stalin organized, which led to the deaths of millions — three to four million Ukrainians. Moscow is an enemy of Ukraine, and this enmity was manifested in a war that began in February 2022 and unfortunately continues to this day with thousands of casualties on both sides, both Russia and Ukraine. I recently read that the victims are estimated at one million people,» — concluded the head of the Phanar.