Constantinople patriarch joins Ukraine festivities

KYIV, Ukraine — The ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople has arrived on a visit to Ukraine to attend festivities marking the 30th anniversary of its declaration of independence.

On Saturday, Patriarch Batholomew I and the leader of the new Orthodox Church of Ukraine, Metropolitan Epiphanius I, together conducted a lithurgy in Kyiv’s St. Michael’s Cathedral.

The patriarch met late Friday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who invited him to Ukraine to attend the 30th independence anniversary, which is being marked Tuesday. Ukraine declared its independence on Aug. 24, 1991, days after the collapse of a Soviet hardline coup that precipitated the breakup of the USSR.

“It is a great honor that you joined us on such important days,” Zelenskyy told Batholomew I during their meeting.

In January 2019, Bartholomew I, considered first among equals in Orthodox patriarchy, presented a decree of independence to the head of the nascent Orthodox Church of Ukraine, severing its centuries-long ties with the Russian Orthodox Church.

The move was hailed by many Ukrainians who had resented the status of the Moscow-affiliated church. Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014.