Only Patriarch Filaret will protect Ukrainian faithful in diaspora

There are about 20 million Ukrainians who live outside Ukraine; most of them are Orthodox Christians. However, according to the Tomos of autocephaly, these people don’t belong to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church anymore.

We are told that our transition into the jurisdiction of Constantinople will not change anything in the life of our parishes. We were promised that we would be governed by our Ukrainian hierarchs and that Ukrainian priests would be appointed for us or kept in their positions. But all this is a lie. The UOC of Canada and the UOC of the USA are completely dependent on Constantinople. On any issue, including the approval of their own statutory documents, their hierarchs apply to Istanbul and rush to blame each other before Patriarch Bartholomew whenever conflicts erupt.

So far, the Church of Constantinople has tolerated the existence of its subordinate Ukrainian Churches and doesn’t mind increasing their number. However, the distant future of these Churches is the same as of the recently abolished Paris Archdiocese or the Orthodox Church of Finland which reportedly may face reformatting and liquidation in several years. Even such a large and self-sufficient entity as the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America is completely dependent on Istanbul, as confirmed by the resignation of Archbishop Demetrios and the appointment of Metropolitan Elpidophoros in his place.

The general policy of the Ecumenical Patriarchate is that all "parallel" and "autonomous" structures in the Orthodox Diaspora will be gradually eliminated, and their communities will be transferred to a single center. Archbishop Elpidophoros will take a lead on this in the USA, Archbishop Makarios will do this in Australia, and other hierarchs in Europe. When the situation in the Diaspora is brought in line with the Canon law (one city, one bishop, one Church), there will be simply no positions for Ukrainian bishops.

Finally, as to the parish life – what rectors will bishops of the Ecumenical Patriarchate appoint for Ukrainian parishes in diaspora? We already have an example - St. Nicholas Church in Valencia, Spain. At first, an unknown man in civilian clothes began to appear among the believers, then he called himself a priest of the Ecumenical Patriarchate and was allowed to minister, and then he was appointed rector. At that, no documents confirming his priestly rank dignity has been shown to the community members! And of course, there was nothing Ukrainian in him at all. Valencia parishioners have got neither his support, nor merely participation in their cultural initiatives and traditions, which are, in fact, the very expression of the national identity of any community.

This is how the congregation can receive from Constantinople a "super-canonical" (perhaps, even having Moscovian background!) Ukrainian-speaking clergyman, but lose the Ukrainian spirit, originated from centuries-old customs as well as from the memory of the Holodomor, the Heavenly Hundred killed during the Euromaidan Revolution, the heroes of the war in Donbass.

Metropolitan Epiphanius of Kyiv and all Ukraine left the parishes of the Kyivan Patriarchate in the Diaspora to their own devices, so that they would become subordinate to the local bishops of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. He also agreed with the appointment of new rectors by the Phanar. Now, when the congregational peace is broken, and the very community in Valencia asks to replace the priest, he told Metropolitan Hilarion to deal with the. “Is it not too late for an attempt to solve the problems of the community which he turned his back to? Then whose parish are we?” – the believers wonder. – “The Ecumenical Patriarchate or the OCU?”

Letter of Valencia Ukrainian parish to His Beatitude Epiphanius (PDF)

Another example of ambivalence in the actions of the OCU Hierarchs is their attitude towards the Orthodox churches of Montenegro and Macedonia that have not yet been recognized by Constantinople. In the Kyivan Patriarchate, we always were in communion with them and concelebrated with the representatives of their clergy. And this was a considered, fully reasoned decision by His Holiness Patriarch Filaret. These Churches are the same as our Church has always been. Indeed, they haven’t been recognized yet, but there is no reason to consider their sacraments invalid. If their sacraments are null and void, were then ours too? And if their sacraments are valid, why can not we concelebrate with them? Sooner or later, time will sort things out, the Orthodox world will recognize them as it recognized us.

What do we have with Epiphanius at the helm? On the one hand, in the Australian city of Newcastle, the OCU parish does not allow clerics of the Macedonian Orthodox Church to serve in the temple. They say, we are now recognized, and they are not. On the other hand, though secretly from the Metropolitan Emmanuel, clergyman of the similar "unrecognized" Montenegrin Orthodox Church Archimandrite Bojan Bojović was admitted to concelebrate Liturgy in the St. Michael's Golden-Domed Monastery on May 26. But what is the difference between him and the priest of the Macedonian Orthodox Church in Newcastle? It’s hard to answer, especially taking into account that the Phanar has already taken the appeal of the Macedonian Church to consideration and its recognition seems to be not far off.

Patriarch Filaret never taught to juggle the Holy Canons for the sake of political gains; on the contrary, he is the one who sticks to them more than others. And he is completely independent and never betrays the truth. The Kyivan Patriarchate existed and developed successfully without any recognition, as did the fraternal Macedonian and Montenegrin Orthodox Churches.

While Metropolitan Epiphanius is bound by some obligations to the Greeks, afraid of something or simply does not know what to do, Patriarch Filaret has a necessary vision, status and determination to fight for the future of the Orthodox Ukrainians in the diaspora and to protect their interests. That is why foes seek to prevent him from governing the Church, the spiritual leader and founder of which he is.

At the request of the Greeks, Poroshenko forced Patriarch Filaret to write a refusal from his candidacy before the election of the OCU’s Primate. For the sake of independence and recognition of the new Ukrainian Church, Patriarch Filaret gave the "Greek party" a chance. But the promises given to the Patriarch have been broken. The Kyivan Patriarchate has lost its status and independence, and no recognition by the Local Churches but for the Phanar has been received. Instead of this, a permanent exarch of the Phanar was placed in Ukraine, the “pearl” of Kyiv - St. Andrew's Church was given to him, and the first bishop ordained in the OCU was a citizen of Greece and ethnic Greek but not Ukrainian.

However, even after the election of Metropolitan Epiphanius, 15.5% of the population of Ukraine (that is more than the amount of those 14.2% Ukrainians who support UOC MP having 12 thousand parishes in Ukraine!) would like Patriarch Filaret to be the Primate of the OCU, despite his age. And a large part of the communities left the jurisdiction of Moscow to join the Kyivan Patriarchate (UOC-KP), which, according to Patriarch Bartholomew, "has never existed".

Given that the young bishops have sold their souls to the Phanar for their ambitions, Patriarch Filaret is almost the only leader in the Ukrainian Church who still believes that it must be independent and serve interests of Ukraine. If Ukrainians in diaspora refuse to support him, they will betray their patriarch and their own country. In return, they will receive Greek bishops and the only freedom to pay contributions to the Ecumenical Patriarchate. And taking into account the needs and appetites of the Phanar, the contribution rates will be sky-high.