Filaret: Head of Phanar is eager to become an Orthodox Pope

"Honorary Patriarch" of the OCU Filaret Denisenko. Photo: fakty.com.ua

“The Patriarch of Constantinople wants to have rights in Orthodoxy similar to the Pope in Catholicism. He no longer wants to be the first among equals,” said Filaret Denisenko, head of the liquidated UOC-KP.

According to the "patriarch", the head of Phanar signed the Tomos and gave autocephaly to the OCU only in order to expand his sphere of influence and increase the number of the flock of Constantinople. He said this in an interview with “ICTV Facts”.

“The Constantinople Patriarchate in Turkey embraces no more than 10 thousand believers,” Denisenko said. “In fact, his entire flock is located outside of Turkey – in the USA, countries of the European Union, in Greece. With the entire Diaspora, the flock totals no more than three million, while the Ukrainian Church (Orthodox, if taken together) is approximately 35 million. It is ten times as much. The task of the Ecumenical Patriarch is to strengthen the Patriarchate of Constantinople at the expense of the Ukrainian Church. Therefore, he specified in the Tomos that the churches of the Ukrainian Diaspora from now on belong to him.”

However, according to the head of the UOC-KP, parishes located outside Ukraine will fall under the jurisdiction of the Kiev Patriarchate. “For example, in America, part of them maintains the stance of the Kiev Patriarchate. But at the same time, another part did not join the OCU, since the latter has no right to accept them. And the Ukrainian Americans don’t want to belong to Constantinople.”

Filaret noted that he had known the hierarchs of the Church of Constantinople since the 1960s, and therefore was sure that Patriarch Bartholomew sought to obtain the same rights in Orthodoxy as the Pope had in Catholicism. “He no longer wants to be the first among equals,” emphasized the head of the UOC-KP.

“The Ukrainian Church has become completely dependent on the Patriarchate of Constantinople,” the “Honorary Patriarch” believes. <...> The Synod of the OCU decided to change the format of the Divine Liturgy. Not according to our tradition (Ukrainian-Slavic) but according to Greek. Why don’t you, Ukrainian, adhere to the Ukrainian tradition but switch to the Greek one? ”

As reported by the UOJ, Filaret Denisenko accuses the head of the OCU of the church schism in Ukraine.

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