Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, who holds a primacy of honor among the Orthodox churches, met in Greece with the primates of the Orthodox Church of Greece and the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) and concelebrated the sacred liturgy with them.

Metropolitan Epiphanius I of Ukraine thanked the Ecumenical Patriarch for “restoring the unity of the Church of Ukraine,” a reference to Bartholomew’s 2019 canonical recognition of the OCU, which was formed from two churches not recognized by the Russian Orthodox Church.

The Ecumenical Patriarch, in turn, was critical of Russian Orthodox objections to the validity of OCU ordinations: he described such objections as “targeted propaganda.”