Epiphany commemorated at liturgy of the Church of Greece in Thessaloniki

Patriarch Bartholomew and Archbishop Ieronymos during a service in Thessaloniki on 19.10.2019. Photo: a video screen

Archbishop Ieronymos of Athens and All Greece and Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople concelebrated the Divine Liturgy in Thessaloniki today together with a number of hierarchs from their respective Local Churches. The Liturgy was celebrated in the 5th-century Byzantine Church of the Acheiropoietos, reports the Greek edition “Оrthodoxia.info”.

Most significantly, “Metropolitan” Epiphany Dumenko, the primate of the schismatic “Orthodox Church of Ukraine,” created by Pat. Bartholomew and ex-President Petro Poroshenko of Ukraine, was commemorated in the service as a primate of a Local Church.

The video presented by the journalists of the publication shows that after pronouncing the name of Dumenko, the Primate of the Greek Orthodox Church marks himself with a sign of the cross.

According to “Orthodoxia.info”, “the first commemoration of Epiphany in Greece may serve as a reason for reporting that the Church of Greece recognized the new church (OCU – Ed.) and firmly stands on the side of the Ecumenical Patriarch, leaving aside the differences with which it has recently encountered."

Earlier, the UOJ wrote that Metropolitan Seraphim of Kythira and Antikythera of the Greek Orthodox Church asked His Beatitude Archbishop Ieronymos not to recognize the OCU as the Church and Epiphany Dumenko as its primate.

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