The Synod of the Church of Constantinople accepted under its jurisdiction the former priest of the Russian Orthodox Church Alexei Uminsky
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The Synod of the Church of Constantinople accepted under its jurisdiction the former rector of the Moscow Trinity Church in Khokhly, Alexei Uminsky, who was deprived of his rank in January by an ecclesiastical court of the Russian Orthodox Church for refusing to fulfill the blessing of Patriarch Kirill to read a prayer for Holy Rus’. In Constantinople, they considered that the punishment “was not determined by church criteria,” and the reason was the words of Mr. Uminsky with the assessment of the SVO. This is not the first time that Phanar has taken former priests of the Russian Orthodox Church under its omophorion. The Russian Orthodox Church told Kommersant that “the Patriarchate of Constantinople illegally usurped this right” and that “such decisions contradict the Orthodox teaching about the Church.”
That Alexey Uminsky was accepted into the clergy of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, reported on Wednesday the official website of the Church of Constantinople. The official statement from Phanar says that earlier the former cleric of the Moscow Patriarchate, Archpriest Alexy Uminsky, made a corresponding appeal to the Ecumenical Patriarch. “Our patriarch, solely on the basis of the Divine and Sacred Rules (of the Fourth Ecumenical Council), accepted the request submitted,” the Synod said in a statement.
Representatives of the Church of Constantinople clarified that “after a thorough study of the case under consideration, it turned out that the reasons for which the punishment was imposed (by the Russian Orthodox Church on Alexei Uminsky.— “Kommersant”), were not determined by church criteria.”
The Patriarch of Constantinople decided to return the church rank to Alexei Uminsky and take him under his omophorion, justifying this by the fact that “the Patriarch of Constantinople is allowed to accept religious foreigners.”
Former rector of the Moscow Trinity Church in Khokhly was subjected church court in January 2024. “In accordance with Art. 45, paragraph 3 of the regulations on the ecclesiastical court of the Russian Orthodox Church, it is recognized that, on the basis of the rule of the 25th Holy Apostles, Archpriest Alexy Uminsky is subject to deportation from the priesthood for violating the priestly oath (oath-breaking) – refusal to fulfill the patriarchal blessing to read the prayer for Holy Rus’ for Divine Liturgy,” said a message on the website of the Moscow City Diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church. Previously Patriarch Kirill suspended priest from the rectorship of the Trinity Church in Khokhly and banned him from serving. This was preceded by harsh statements and assessments by Mr. Uminsky regarding the special military operation. In particular, in an interview with the YouTube channel “Living Nail” in November last year, he advised believers who do not want to pray “for victory and support of the Northern Military District” to look for priests who “pray more for peace than for victory” and do not try to “strengthen military spirit at the liturgy.”
The story with Alexei Uminsky is not the first time that Phanar has accepted former priests of the Russian Orthodox Church under its jurisdiction.
Thus, in June 2023, the Patriarchate of Constantinople restored in the rank of priest of the Church of St. Andrew the First-Called in Lublin, John Koval. Mr. Koval was previously defrocked by a church court for unauthorizedly changing the text in a prayer for Holy Rus’: he replaced the words “victory” with the word “peace.” The Synod of the Church of Constantinople also considered that the reason for the persecution of the priest was his relation to the Russian special operation.
“The Patriarchate of Constantinople has illegally usurped the right to accept and consider appeals from hierarchs and clergy of other local Orthodox churches,” Archpriest Igor Yakimchuk, deputy chairman of the department for external church relations of the Moscow Patriarchate, commented to Kommersant on the latest events. “Nobody gave it this right, and the Russian Church has already repeatedly stated that such decisions of Constantinople contradict the Orthodox teaching about the Church. Therefore, they are canonically insignificant and cannot be recognized.”
The Church of Constantinople ranks first in the diptych (list of Orthodox local churches). According to legend, the founder of the church was St. Apostle Andrew the First-Called in the 1st century. This church began to acquire pan-Orthodox significance in 330, when in a place called Byzantium, Constantine the Great founded the city of Constantinople, named in his honor, which became the new capital of the Roman Empire. The jurisdiction of Constantinople extends to a number of dioceses in Western Europe, North and South America, Australia and New Zealand, as well as to Holy Mount Athos. The patriarchal residence is located in Phanar (a district of Istanbul). Now the church is headed by the 232nd Archbishop of Constantinople – New Rome and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew (Archondonis).
“By accepting fugitive and punished priests in the Moscow Patriarchate into its ranks, the Ecumenical Patriarchate acts as if the Russian Church is one of its dioceses,” Roman Lunkin, head of the Center for the Study of Problems of Religion and Society of the Institute of Europe of the Russian Academy of Sciences, is convinced. Five priests of the Lithuanian Metropolis, two priests from the Belarusian Orthodox Church, and the former Moscow priest John Koval came under the leadership of Bartholomew.” According to the expert, “this kind of confrontational decisions of Bartholomew are also explained by personal hostility towards Patriarch Kirill, since in fact only the primate of the Russian Orthodox Church does not allow the head of the Phanar to feel like first among equals, the ‘pope’ of the Orthodox world.” Mr. Lunkin is convinced that “the trend of confrontation will continue, especially since the churches have already been in a state of schism since 2018.”
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