Dear Photinia,
First, let me welcome you to this forum. This forum exists mainly as a meeting place for Traditional Orthodox Christians who believe that there is a serious crisis of genuine apostolic faith and a loss of a true christian confession among the Orthodox Churches in communion with the Ecumenical Patriarchate (EP) and the Moscow Patriarchate (MP). Indeed there are a very great number of concerned traditionally minded Orthodox believers within the Churches that are in communion with the EP and MP (which we generally refer to at this forum as "World Orthodoxy"), and we would not want to fail to point out that they are many very good people in the State Orthodox Churches to whom we owe much respect. However, your question can really only be answered by most of us on this site in the negative; that is, that the status of any Orthodox Jurisdiction in the communion of World Orthodoxy is uncanonical, and indeed, that they fall short of maintaining an authentic Orthodox dogmatic confession. So, if the UOC-KP is entering into communion with the EP, even if there was no "homosexual Issue" to worry about, it would still have to be viewed as uncanonical.
The most obvious proof of the uncanonical state of all World Orthodoxy is seen in how Saint Mark of Ephesus, declared a "pillar of Orthodoxy" along with Saints Gregory Palamas and Photius the Great, is still commemorated in World Orthodoxy as a true and great saint, but World Orthodoxy (in both their actions and official declarations about the Roman Catholics) has entirely rejected and contradicted St. Mark of Ephesus, that is, the basis upon which he was recognized by the Church as a saint, namely for saving Orthodoxy from falling into communion with heresy and being made as graceless as the Roman Catholics. He himself declared, "The Latins are not only schismatics but heretics… we did not separate from them for any other reason other than the fact that they are heretics. This is precisely why we must not unite with them unless they dismiss the addition from the Creed filioque and confess the Creed as we do." [see: http://www.orthodoxchurchquotes.com/tag/schism/].
Yet we see that the entire worldwide communion lead by the Ecumencial Patriarch of Constantinople for 50 years has accepted, either officially or by their silence and inaction, the so-called "lifting of the Anathemas" by Pope Paul the Sixth and EP Athenagoras in 1965. What we must understand is that the attempt to bring the Kievan Patriarchate into the embrace of the EP and the question of the membership of active members of a sexually deviant subculture in the Orthodox Church is really an unnecessary question since the EP and those in communion with them have really rendered themselves uncanonical and heretical (at least) 50 years ago [though personally I would put it back to 1924 -- 91 years ago in adopting the papal menaion] when they contradicted the saints and fathers of the Orthodox Church of the past 1000 years who all clearly spoke about the heretical nature of the Roman Catholic Church. What will make an Orthodox Church uncanonical is not simply "the homosexual issue", but the older dogmatic changes made in 1924 and 1965 where Roman Catholic errors were accepted as part of the Orthodox confession of faith.
If the anathemas were declared against the Latins on a question of dogmatic violations (heresies) then no council can "lift the anathema" against the Roman Catholics while they still hold onto their false teachings. One cannot "lift an anathema" any more than one can "lift" a dogma of the Creed of the Church. The only one who has the authority and power to lift an anathema against someone is the heretic himself, by abandoning his heresy and adopting the confession of the Church and joining her in repentence. The anathema only ceases to apply when the heresy is no longer present.
What the Orthodox did in 1965 when they declared that the Catholic Church is no longer under anathema, was not that the Catholics ceased to be heretics, but that the Orthodox had adopted an entirely different dogmatic position such that they declared what were, in olden times, dogmas of the faith, to be presently no more dogmas of the faith and therefore the Catholics were not longer heretics and under anathema. Why do I say this? Simply because the Catholics have not changed anything in their heretical doctrines since 1054, but in fact, have since added to them these other errors: immaculate conception of Mary, limbo, purgatory, and papal infallibility.
When the Latins were anathematized in 1054 these later errors (formalized in the 19th century) were not even considered, and when St Mark saved the Church from entering into communion with the Pope "for no other reason than that they are heretics," they had not even added several of these new very serious errors. So really, the lifting of the anathemas was a declaration of the World Orthodox having fallen from a truly Orthodox Dogmatic Confession and adopting a heretical one. So indeed, most of us here at Euphrosynos Cafe Forum would say that the EP and, if your Church enters into mutual recognition with them, would indeed not be canonical, but this outcome was determined long before this new issue of opening the doors of the Church to the homosexual community became even remotely considered. I hope that clarifies how some of us here would view the information that you posted. Finally, I ask your forgiveness if I have been unclear or not been sufficiently charitable in my tone. I tend to be direct which sometimes can sound like unkindness, but this is not my heart at all. I welcome everyone and enjoy charitable discussion about the Truth and that I seek to learn from everyone here.
By the mercy of God,
Matthew
