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The project of the ‘independent’ Orthodox Church of Ukraine has officially collapsed because of an internal struggle for power and influence.
On June 20, the local synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Kyiv Patriarchate) officially decided to restore the entity outside the Orthodox Church of Ukraine. It also repealed the order of the bishops’ council as of December 15, 2018.
“It was not a local synod, but gathering of signatures of the bishops, one priest and two laity on conditional elimination of Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Kyiv Patriarchate) under the demand of Archbishop of Constantinople and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I,” the synod’s draft regulation reads.
The document says that that the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Kyiv Patriarchate) is registered by the state body and continues its existence. Patriarch Filaret is the head of the religious establishment. He can keep this position for life.
The local synod especially noted that the organization “still owns all the property (movable and immovable) bought for its own means or passed to it by state bodies of local administrations. All the bank accounts remain the accounts of Kyiv patriarchy as a legal entity.” This move became an important confirmation of the open secret – leaders of the “independent” Ukrainian church saw it as a tool to expand own influence and achieve own economic goals.
Two noncanonical entities, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Kyiv Patriarchate) and the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church dissolved declared that they had dissolved themselves and established a new entity, the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, during the so-called unification council on 15 December 2018. This move allowed the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople to provide the Orthodox Church of Ukraine with a tomos of autocephaly on January 5, 2019. Filaret – the Patriarch of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Kyiv Patriarchate) – became the honorary Patriarch of the newly created entity. However, Constantinople remained the only local canonical church that recognized it.
The current situation is a result of the conflict for power between Filaret and Metropolitan Epiphany, the current head of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine. On June 11, Filaret claimed that, according to initial agreements, he had to become be the de-facto head of the OCU, while Metropolitan Epiphany should be a kind of ceremonial bystander. Nonetheless, this did not happen. So, two politicians started a large-scale standoff for power.
The decision of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Kyiv Patriarchate) to separate from the Orthodox Church of Ukraine marked de-facto collapse of the project to establish some kind of “independent Ukrainian Orthodox Church” under the patronage of the Kiev government and its Western sponsors. Actions of Filaret also placed in question the tomos of autocephaly, which the entity had received from Constantinople.
The attempt to unite non-canonical Ukrainian entities in order to establish them as the main religious-political force in Ukraine failed.
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Filaret is a heretic and his “church” fell by his own hand. I hope Constantinople will come back to the Truth and cry for his vanity of becoming a pope inside Orthodox Church.
US actions to shatter the Orthodox Church will fail, eventually. Maybe they will corrupt one man, or two, or 100, but Orthodoxia will not be defeated by even the gates of hell.
More bullshizz , Russia hates Ukraine because it cannot control it anymore fukk off Russian invaders .
After the US/CIA overthrow of the freely elected government in Ukraine Putin took the valuable part and left the welfare state for the west to care for. GFY!
Right on!
I frankly lost track of what’s happening here, and I suppose without extensive explanations (with diagrams, perhaps) no one (outside a handful of people) understands this.
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Maybe, instead of having a heated discussion, we should let the believers, the members themselves decide to which church they want to belong. Within some years it will become clear which church will collapse and which church will not. At the moment there are at least 4 ukrainian orthodox churches. One affiliated with Rome, one with Moscow and two or three ” local” .
Seems it works a little like this: if you see the value of deciding for yourself, like you write, your mind has already moved to the secular side of the aisle; you no longer need any church. Those who join a flock choose to be sheep; something like you propose cannot be contemplated by them when only one of these outfits has Truth; see our friend Ishyrion Av above. The most reliable solution is to kill all who Got it Wrong; needless to say this solution is regularly tried in Ukistan.
Utterly stupid, inane reply. Go to Ukraine and witness the tremendous Faith of these ‘sheep’ as you call them despite being subjected to persecution from those trying to destroy the canonical church. By the way, Christ is the good Shepherd. You might want to view this website spzh.news.ru to see what’s happening in Ukraine.
‘One affiliated with Rome’…this is not an Orthodoχ church but the Uniate Greek Catholic Church. The majority of Ukrainians belong to the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox (Moscow Patriachate) which has over 12,000 parishes throughout Ukraine recognised by the other 15 Orthodox autocephalous churches. The other two ‘Orthodox’ churches are schismatic which are recognised by no one except Bartholomew who in collaboration with the Ukrainian government under Poroshenko and pressure from the U.S. government via the U.S. ambassador to Greece Geoffrey Pyatt formerly U.S. ambassador to Ukraine and Samuel Broadback U.S. Dept. of State who both regularly visited Patriarch Bartholomew encouraging him to give autocephaly to the schismatic churches. This has nothing to do with the Orthodox faith but part and parcel of Washington’s promotion of anti-Russian propaganda. Bartholomew is a heretic.
This is a short and clear description of the situation of the Orthodox church in Ukraine and its schismatic counterparts.