Tomos (pronounced tomm-oss)
In Orthodox Christianity, an ecclesiastical
document, promulgated usually by a synod and used to communicate or announce
important information.
1510-1520: From the French, from the Latin tomus, from the Ancient Greek τόμος (tomos) (section, slice, roll of paper or papyrus, volume), from τέμνω (témnō or témnein) (I cut,
separate); a doublet of tome which
persists in English and is used to refer to heavy, large, or learned books. Tomos is a noun; the noun plural is tomoi. In geology, the noun tomo describes a shaft formed in limestone rock dissolved by groundwater (use restricted almost wholly to technical use in New Zealand) and the noun plural is tomos.
The Ukraine and the Moscow–Constantinople Schism of 2018
Bartholomew I, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople since 1991 (Dimitrios Arhondonis, b 1940) executes the Tomos; watching over his shoulder is Metropolitan Epiphaniusa I of Kyiv and All Ukraine since 2019 (Serhii Petrovych Dumenko, v 1979), Patriarchal Church of St. George, Istanbul (Constantinople), 5 January 2019.
Neither the Kremlin nor Kirill (or Cyril) Patriarch of Moscow and all Rus' and Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church since 2009 (Vladimir Mikhailovich Gundyayev, b 1946) were best pleased with Bartholomew granting the Ukrainian church autocephaly (independence) and the Russian church immediately severed ties with Constantinople, the centre of the Orthodox world. A spokesman for the Russia-affiliated faction of the Church in Ukraine issued a statement saying the Tomos was “…anti-canonical” and will visit upon the Ukraine nothing but “…trouble, separation and sin”. In this, Moscow concurred, one archbishop adding that “…instead of healing the schism, instead of uniting Orthodoxy, we got an even greater schism that exists solely for political reasons.” Although Orthodoxy was itself born of a schism and this latest split, already described as the Moscow–Constantinople Schism of 2018 is but the latest, the political and military situation in which it exists doesn’t auger well for a peaceful resolution. In the Kremlin, Mr Putin (Vladimir Putin; b 1952; president or prime minister of Russia since 1999) thinks much about “…trouble, separation and sin” and no good will come of this.
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