Head of UAOC: If it goes on like this, we will lose Tomos

Makariy Maletich. Photo: Apostrophe

Filaret can fantasize as he pleases, but in Ukraine there is neither the patriarch, nor the Kiev Patriarchate, but there is the Local Church whose rules are spelled out in the Statutes of the OCU. This point of view was expressed in an interview with “Apostrophe” by the ex-head of the UAOC and now the “hierarch” of the OCU Makariy Maletich.

Maletich called Filaret’s idea to convene a “Council” to introduce changes in the Statute of the OCU as “nonsense”.

“The Church that has just received the Tomos should not divide posts, create a dual power, let alone change the Statute but unite priests and parishes, perhaps from the Church that has not joined,” said “Metropolitan” Makariy. “Then you need to live together, resolve all disputes, and after that convene the Council to make changes to the Statute.”

He stressed that, unlike Filaret, he does not consider the Statute of the OCU to be Greek, and “everything is spelled out” in it.

“First of all, we have no patriarch, there is no Kiev Patriarchate, but there is a Local Church,” the “hierarch” added. “In the autumn of 2018, the Ecumenical Patriarch sent letters to Vladyka Filaret and me, in which he called him the former metropolitan of Kiev, and me the former metropolitan of Lviv. That is, even before the Unification Council on December 15, we already became ordinary bishops. You can fantasize, call yourself an honorary or lifelong patriarch, but there are canons – the rules of the Church, spelled out in the Statute. For me, it is not Greek, it is the Statute of our Local Autocephalous Church.”

Maletich noted that one can claim the patriarchy in Ukraine, but only “if the joining of the greater part of the third Orthodox Church (UOC – Ed.) starts: “I think that then the Ecumenical Patriarchate and Local Churches (except Moscow, of course) will not object to this”.

Otherwise, “if this outrage continues, if the inactive patriarch continues in the same way and some politicians support him, while the elected Primate, without acting, will be silent,” the threat of losing the Tomos of the autocephaly of the OCU will become quite real.

As the UOJ reported, Makariy Maletich suggested complaining to Patriarch Bartholomew about Filaret.

On May 21, the press center of the “Kiev Patriarchate” published an official statement, which stresses: “no one will succeed in ‘neutralizing’, ‘stopping’ and ‘sending to rest’ Patriarch Filaret”.

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