“All the ecumenical effort and dialogue of these last years will be destroyed, and the mistrust of the East in you will grow. We beg you therefore to assure the Ukrainian people and all the Orthodox Churches with all the strength of your persuasion that you have no intention of proceeding to the establishment of a Greek-Catholic patriarchate in the Ukraine”. With this appeal ends the letter sent by Bartholomew I, ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, to John Paul II. The letter was sent to the Holy Father last November, but was only made public by some Italian papers in recent days. It’s the first time that Bartholomew has addressed himself with such determination to the Holy Father, to whom the Patriarchate of Constantinople is linked by profound and long-lasting ecumenical relations. Bartholomew asks Rome not to proceed to any decision to raise to the rank of Patriarchate the Greek-Catholic Church of Leov, currently headed by Cardinal Lubomyr Husak. “The damage that would be caused by such an action writes Bartholomew is evident, given the sensitivity of the whole Orthodox Church to the problem of uniatism [the system of those Churches of Eastern rite that submit to papal authority]. That’s why we wonder what the aim of the project is. The position of Uniates in Ukraine will not be reinforced and our relations will be seriously damaged”.
