Ukraine's parliament / Photo from UNIAN

Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine's parliament, Andriy Parubiy has invited Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I to deliver a speech in the Ukrainian parliament.

"I invite His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I to come to Ukraine and speak in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. I am convinced that we must pay tribute to this outstanding man, the courageous person who is forever inscribed in the history of Ukraine," the Ukrainian parliament speaker said at a parliament coordination council meeting, an UNIAN correspondent said.

Read alsoMetropolitan Epifaniy explains status of Moscow Patriarchate's Onufriy after unification council

Видео дня

The speaker also thanked Patriarch Bartholomew on behalf of the Ukrainian people. "We all know what incredible pressure was and is being exerted by Moscow and all the allies that the Kremlin engages to put pressure on His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I," Parubiy said.

As UNIAN reported earlier, the unification council of representatives of Ukrainian Orthodox churches on December 15 elected Epifaniy (Serhiy Dumenko) head of the united local Orthodox Church of Ukraine. It will be Epifaniy who will on January 6, 2019, receive from Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I in Constantinople (Istanbul) a tomos (a decree), granting autocephaly (independence) to the newly created church.