Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew should express his opinion on the bill that paves the way for the banning of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, said Robert Amsterdam, a well-known American lawyer and attorney for the UOC, publishing a corresponding appeal to Bartholomew in an open letter.
“Despite Patriarch Bartholomew’s promise to respect all Ukrainian Orthodox denominations and promote an ecosystem of mutual understanding when granting the tomos to the newly formed Orthodox Church of Ukraine, his decision opened a Pandora’s box. Silence about the increasingly escalating situation has made the UOC the target of a brutal and unrestricted campaign of intimidation by the Ukrainian authorities,” Amsterdam writes.
The letter from Amsterdam contains a request to the Ecumenical Patriarch to fulfill his promise to uphold “order without tyranny and justice linked to mercy and compassion.”.
“Given his role in Orthodoxy and his past actions in support of the creation of a new OCU church in Ukraine, Patriarch Bartholomew has a moral obligation to call for “not dividing Christ,” to speak out against the ban on the UOC and the persecution of Orthodox believers in Ukraine,” said Robert Amsterdam.
