Epiphany: Filaret’s actions kill age-long aspirations of Ukrainian nation

Head of the OCU Epiphany Dumenko. Photo: New Time

“Patriarch of Kiev and All Rus-Ukraine” Filaret Denisenko destroys the age-old hopes of the people of Ukraine with his actions,” said Epiphany Dumenko, head of the OCU, on the air of the New Time Internet news resource.

“Certain imperious ambitions on the part of ‘Honorary Patriarch’ Filaret intend to destroy all the age-old hopes of the Ukrainian people to have their independent Ukrainian Local Orthodox Church. Many generations of our ancestors dreamed about this,” said Epiphany.

According to him, the "shareholders" of Tomos are the whole nation, not some particular person.

“The Tomos is not granted to a specific person. It is an achievement of our Ukrainian people. If we speak in a simple language, then all Ukrainians are shareholders of the Tomos. And the ultimate beneficiary is, of course, the Ukrainian people, rather than any particular person,” the head of the OCU stressed.

He added that the newly created religious organization should be guided “in a conciliarly, not solely".

Also, Epiphany refuted the statements of the head of the UOC KP that dependency on the Patriarchate of Constantinople is spelled out in the Tomos. According to the head of the OCU, the document on autocephaly, issued to Ukraine, is no different from the previous ones, issued by Phanar to other Churches, and the new church structure is equal in rights with other autocephalous Local Churches. “We are independent in government, but we are eager to communicate with other Local Orthodox Churches,” Epiphany noted.

“Patriarch of Kiev and all Rus-Ukraine” Filaret disagreed with this position of the head of the OCU and said that Tomos did not bring so much benefit as harm. “We were tricked. We were given Tomos on autocephaly, we were enticed, but under the conditions of Tomos our Ukrainian Church is dependent on the Patriarchate of Constantinople. <...> Tomos misled us. It shattered the Kiev Patriarchate. This Tomos brought us not so much benefit as harm,” he shared with the journalists.

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