Patriarch Theodoros of Alexandria and Metropolitan Sawa of Warsaw signed Friday a joint declaration in which they appeal ‘to all on whom depends the elimination of the church misunderstandings regarding the acquisition of autocephaly by the Ukrainian Church: please, do whatever is within your might to stave off the conflict concerning the question in order to install the church order on the Ukrainian territory.’
The joint declaration was signed at the end of the Divine Liturgy celebrated Friday, Sept. 21, 2018, at the Nativity of the Theotokos Church in Bielsko Podlaski in the context of Patriarch Theodoros of Alexandria’s visit to Poland.
Appeal by Patriarch Theodoros of Alexandria and Metropolitan Sawa of Warsaw: full text
We, the Heads of two Local Churches – who meet on the Polish territory and are conscious of the responsibility for the life of the Holy Orthodoxy in the contemporary world, its peace, unity and maintaining the dogmatic and canonical order, facing the experience that the Orthodoxy in Ukraine lives nowadays – in the spirit of brotherly love, we appeal to all on whom depends the elimination of the church misunderstandings regarding the acquisition of autocephaly by the Ukrainian Church: please, do whatever is within your might to stave off the conflict concerning the question in order to install the church order on the Ukrainian territory.
Celebrating the Divine Liturgy on the feast of the Nativity of the Most Holy Virgin Mary we pray for the unity and peace of the Ukrainian nation. At the same time we send our brotherly greetings to the Heads of the Local Orthodox Churches and the whole plenitude of the Holy Orthodoxy.
†Theodoros II
Pope and Patriarch of Alexandria and All Africa
†Sawa
Orthodox Metropolitan of Warsaw and All Poland
Photo: Łukasz Troc /POC
