Met. Ambrosius of Finland: The Phanar does it, so what’s the problem?
March 12, 2015 (Source: http://www.sedmitza.ru)
[warning: machine translation]
There is confusion these days in the Autonomous Orthodox Church of Finland. According to the Greek agency «Romfea» a cause of scandal was the participation of women-Lutheran Church of Finland Bishop Irja Askola Kaarina in the Orthodox Liturgy celebrated on Sunday, March 1 at the Dormition Cathedral in Helsinki.
Sources indicate that the woman bishop was officially invited to worship by the Orthodox Metropolitan of Gelsingforsskim Helsinki, Ambrose. The head of the Orthodox Church of Finland, Archbishop Leo hearing the news, immediately declared his strong protest over the incident.
Archbishop Leo recognized the fact that the Metropolitan Ambrose, together with a female bishop prayed during the ordination committed in the Cathedral of the capital of Finland. The head of the Finnish Orthodox Church on this matter said that the liturgy must be in accordance with the teachings of the Orthodox Church.
For his part, Metropolitan Ambrose agreed with that assessment, which gave his actions Archbishop Leo, but, nevertheless, stressed that he did not do anything that challenges the Church. Helsinki Metropolitan thus referred to the fact that during the recent visit of the Pope to the Phanar in Francis Cathedral St. George’s Cathedral Orthodox Church of Constantinople also commits deacon ordination at the time as pontiff prayed in the Orthodox Church.
