The release below was issued by the Ukrainian World Congress on April 21.
The Ukrainian World Congress (UWC) calls upon the Ecumenical Patriarch to issue a Tomos of Autocephaly to the Orthodox Church in Ukraine in accordance with the wishes of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church – Kyiv Patriarchate and the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church, and in response to the appeal of the president of Ukraine, which was supported by the Parliament of Ukraine.
In November 2016 and January 2018, UWC President Eugene Czolij met with His Holiness Patriarch Bartholomew I, archbishop of Constantinople-New Rome to whom he presented the resolutions of the UWC annual general meetings in 2016 and 2017 appealing for the issuance of a Tomos of Autocephaly for the Ukrainian Orthodox Church – Kyiv Patriarchate. In the framework of these meetings, Mr. Czolij highlighted the role of the Ukrainian Church in the spiritual unification of the Ukrainian nation.
“The Ukrainian World Congress on behalf of the 20-million-strong Ukrainian diaspora calls upon the ecumenical patriarch to issue a Tomos of Autocephaly to the Orthodox Church in Ukraine,” stated the UWC president.