In their 13th meeting the Greek Orthodox bishops of Australia have pledged to support migrants fleeing the fighting in Ukraine and have offered 30 scholarships for the children of families from Ukraine. They also clarified issues concerning Ukrainian-Australian communities in relation to the Archdiocese in Australia.
The decision to support Ukrainian migrants was reached on Monday, 28 March, the first day of the Episcopal Assembly of the Holy Archdiocese of Australia which was chaired by Archbishop Makarios of Australia. The bishops said the scholarships and additional support were a matter of priority.
In a communiqué issued on Tuesday, the bishops expressed the sorrow of the Australian Church for events taking place in Ukraine and called on the clergy and the people to pray for an end to the war.
“Beyond our prayers and moral support for our Ukrainian brethren, we are also endeavouring to be practically by their side. For this reason – and among other things – we are offering 30 scholarships to children of Ukrainian immigrants, as a priority, to study in the schools of the Holy Archdiocese of Australia,” they said in the communiqué.
They called on those responsible for events in Ukraine to “assume their responsibilities before God and history.”
The requested Patriarch Cyril of Moscow to mediate to bring an end to the fighting between two Orthodox peoples.
The bishops also provided clarity over the canonical boundaries of the Archdiocese of Australia in relation to the “so-called and never canonically recognised ‘Patriarchate of Kiev'” to which some Ukrainian-Australian communities had claimed allegiance.
They announced that the Ukrainian parish communities of St Sava in Sydney and St Basil the Great in Newcastle would join the Archdiocese of Australia. The decision was reached after Archbishop Makarios appointed a special committee to look into situation after Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople issued the tomos of autocephaly (decree of self-governorship) to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine in 2019.
The Australian archdiocese committee studied the situation and looked at the legal conditions for the incorporation of the Ukrainian communities under the archdiocese’s jurisdiction.
In their communique, the bishops announced this week that: “We lovingly remind the other Ukrainian Communities that the Autocephalous Church of Ukraine under Metropolitan Epiphany has no canonical jurisdiction within the boundaries of the Holy Archdiocese of Australia and that the commemoration of the Bishop is not a matter of choice for each clergyman but a canonical issue which, for centuries, has been regulated by the Church through the decisions of the Ecumenical Councils.”
The went on to say that the establishment in Australia of a vicarship “under the so-called ‘Patriarchate of Kiev’ and by the self-proclaimed ‘Patriarch Philaretos'” was not recognised by any canonical Orthodox Church nor by the Ecumenical Patriarchate.
In response to this decision the “Vicariate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church Kyivan Patriarchate in Australia and New Zealand” said in a press release on its website that: “we categorically protest the reference that Patriarch Philaret is ‘non-canonical'”.
On a separate issue, the bishops announced in their communiqué that the 12th Clergy Laity Congress of the Holy Archdiocese of Australia will take place in January next year, with the Archdiocesan Council to announce more details after it meets on the matter.
A national meeting of priests is to take place in Sydney in October.
The communiqué also announced that a national Philoptochos Association of Australia had been formed under the leadership of Archbishop Makarios. Central Philoptochos associations were being established in all the sees of the Archidiocesan districts under the relevant bishops.
* Updated: 1.13pm 1 April 2022
