An appeal to Filaret supporters not to ruin OCU published on the Net

The conflict between Filaret and Epiphany is taking on global dimension

The "Appeal in defense of the canonical status of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine" with a call to support the newly created structure and protect it from division is being circulated on the Internet. The document is popularized on the relevant resources – “Tserkvarium”, the group “For One Local Church” and others.

The document states that the conflict that erupted after the declaration of “honorary patriarch” Filaret that the Kiev Patriarchate has not been eliminated and still exists, as well as other public and non-public processes within the UOC KP, threaten the existence of the OCU. The initiators of the document state the actual split in the ranks of the "episcopate" of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine and call upon the "hierarchs" of this formation to make every effort to save the Orthodox Church of Ukraine from disintegration. The authors propose to those concerned to sign this document.

“Immediately after the Unification Council, strange and incomprehensible processes began that we associate with the unacceptable lust for power and the ambitions of some church hierarchs,” the Appeal said. “We have no doubt that external and internal forces, hostile to the rights and freedoms granted by the Tomos to secure the future of Ukrainian Orthodoxy, will take advantage of any upheavals in the Orthodox Church of Ukraine.”

The focus of the authors of the document is made on the rhetoric and actions of their recent idol – “patriarch of Kiev and all Rus-Ukraine Filaret”, who intends to convene the “hierarchs” of the OCU in order to restore the UOC KP.

“First of all, we are talking about several interviews with the former patriarch of the UOC KP Filaret and individual statements of his like-minded followers who do not hide their categorical rejection of the status of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, recognized by the Ecumenical Patriarchate, and the order of formation of its governing bodies,” the authors write. “We receive information from various sources that Vladyka Filaret intends to convene the episcopate of the OCU in the near future (the corresponding letters of invitation have already been sent) and to encourage them to make radical changes to the Statute of the OCU and to actually transform the leadership of the OCU into a duumvirate of Filaret and the Metropolitan of Kiev and All Ukraine."

The initiative group, which published the Appeal, is confident that Filaret’s actions threaten the existence of the state of Ukraine and lead to the revenge by the pro-Russian forces: “Any attempts to discredit the Tomos, change the Statute, adopted at the Unification Council, and revive the patriarchate (and, upon that, declare himself patriarch) destroy the achievements of the centuries-old Orthodox struggle of the people of Ukraine for autocephaly (in particular, of Vladyka Filaret himself, who had long fought for this recognition). On top of that, this leads to the isolation of the OCU, to the revenge of the pro-Russian forces in Ukraine, threatens the very existence of the Ukrainian Church and the state of Ukraine.”

The authors of the Appeal remind the "hierarchs" of the OCU "that with their support (voluntary or compulsory) for revising the terms of the Tomos, the conciliarly elected Kiev Metropolitan actually loses his primatial status, while their own titles and ranks are annulled from the canonical point of view in the eyes of world Orthodoxy."

In addition, the Appeal says that the actions of Filaret “regarding the future development of the OCU impinge on the canonical reputation of the Ecumenical Patriarch and open the way for a large-scale pro-Russian revenge”.

In conclusion, the authors called to do everything "so that our Church would be recognized by the Ecumenical Orthodoxy" and expressed confidence that "the autocephaly of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine is not a strange historical incident or a temporary political project, but the will of the Holy Spirit".

Recall that none of the Local Autocephalous Church has recognized the OCU.

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