page_title: Bartholomew I of Constantinople
section_title: Autocephaly of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine
hierarchical_section_title: Bartholomew I of Constantinople / Patriarchate / Autocephaly of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine
caption_attribution_description: Українська: Петро Порошенко і патріарх Варфоломій підписують угоду «Про співробітництво та взаємодію між Україною та Вселенським Константинопольським Патріархатом».
context_page_description: Bartholomew I is the 270th and current archbishop of Constantinople and ecumenical patriarch, since 2 November 1991. In accordance with his title, he is regarded as the primus inter pares in the Eastern Orthodox Church, and as the spiritual leader of approximately 300 million Orthodox Christians worldwide.
  Bartholomew I was born as Dimitrios Arhondonis, in the village of Agios Theodoros on the island of Imbros. After his graduation, he held a position at the Patriarchal Theological Seminary of Halki, where he was ordained a priest. Later, he served as metropolitan of Philadelphia and Chalcedon and he became a member of the Holy Synod as well as other committees, prior to his enthronement as ecumenical patriarch.
  Bartholomew's tenure has been characterized by intra-Orthodox cooperation, intra-Christian and inter-religious dialogue, and formal visits to Roman Catholic, Old Catholic, Orthodox and Muslim leaders seldom previously visited by an ecumenical patriarch. He has exchanged numerous invitations with church and state dignitaries.
context_section_description: In October 2018 the synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate agreed to grant autocephaly (independence) to the Orthodox Church in Ukraine, to reestablish a stauropegion of the ecumenical patriarch in Kiev, to revoke the legal binding of the letter of 1686 which led to the Russian Orthodox Church establishing jurisdiction over the Ukrainian Church, and to lift the excommunications which affected clergy and faithful of two then unrecognized Orthodox churches in Ukraine, the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (UAOC) and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church – Kiev Patriarchate (UOC-KP). In response, the Russian Orthodox Church announced it was cutting ties with the Ecumenical Patriarchate, which marked the beginning of the 2018 Moscow–Constantinople schism.
  On 5 January 2019, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew granted autocephaly to the newly founded Orthodox church of Ukraine.
caption: Bartholomew I with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, 3 November 2018
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