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Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has said the process of granting the Tomos on autocephaly to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church is on the homestretch.

"The Exarchs of the Ecumenical Patriarch have informally told me that the process of granting autocephaly to Ukraine is on the homestretch. I want to separately emphasize I do not know when they may take a decision on the Tomos and when it may be brought to Kyiv. But I'm sure that we have spun the wheel of this history so that no one would definitely turn it back," the president said.

Read alsoPoroshenko on autocephaly for church: Work started with first meeting with Patriarch Bartholomew

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As UNIAN reported earlier, President Poroshenko on April 17 convened leaders of parliamentary factions and stated that he would appeal to the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew with a request to proclaim the independence of the Ukrainian local church.

Hierarchs on September 2 held meetings (Synaxis) of the Hierarchy of the Ecumenical Throne Constantinople in Istanbul, Turkey, to consider the question whether the Church of Constantinople is authorized, without the consent of other churches, to grant autonomy, or autocephaly, to a church that has requested it.

Following the meetings, the answer was positive: "Yes, the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople is authorized to grant autocephaly without any consent [from other churches]," the Ukrainian news outlet Hromadske said.

Poroshenko on September 17 met with two envoys, Exarchs of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Ukraine Bishop Ilarion of Edmonton and the Western Eparchy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) in Canada and Archbishop Daniel of Pamphylia and the Western Eparchy of the UOC in the United States of America dispatched to prepare for establishing a Ukrainian church that is ecclesiastically independent from the Russian Orthodox Church.