Filaret: Galicians did not want to go to war, but I called – and they did

Filaret Denisenko. Photo: Volyn.com.ua

The head of the UOC-KP Filaret Denisenko said it in his interview with the “Apostrophe” edition that Galicians started to fight in the Donbass only when he called for it. 

In his opinion, "Ukraine as a state needs an independent church" because "without an independent church there will be no Ukrainian state".

Filaret said that "but for the Kyiv Patriarchate, Putin would have been in Ukraine". But, he says, "there was a large Kyiv Patriarchate that influenced the society, the army".

"We remember what our army was like at the beginning of the war – incapable. And now it is combat-ready. Can it defend? It can! And who did it? The Church raised the people. The Church started this volunteer spirit, and then it grew," said the head of the UOC-KP.

He also said that he remembers how "the Galicians did not want to go and defend Ukraine. According to Filaret, "they (Galicians – Ed.) said: let the population of the Donbass defend the Ukrainian land, why should we? And I spoke then and said that if you want to live in Galicia calmly, peacefully, then defend Galicia in the Donbass, because today the Donbass has been captured, and tomorrow they will come and capture Galicia. Then the volunteers from Galicia went and created such a great force that now Putin cannot move forward: he has captured a part of the Donbass but cannot move further.”

The head of the Kyiv Patriarchate is sure that "the Church inspired the Ukrainian people and the army". He noted that it was the UOC-KP that created the chaplains, and it was thanks to the UOC-KP that the Tomos was received:

"Who created the chaplains? The Kyiv Patriarchate. If there were no Kyiv Patriarchate, who would the Tomos have been given to? Maybe, Drabinko or Simeon Tomos? When one had one parish and the other had 300 parishes and only 20 or 30 joined him. Should they have been given the Tomos? And due to the Kyiv Patriarchate, the Tomos was granted," Denisenko said.

He said that those who want to eliminate the Kyiv Patriarchate today "emerged thanks to the existence of the Kyiv Patriarchate”:

"For example, the same Metropolitan Epiphany. If there were no Kyiv Patriarchate, would he have received education? No, he wouldn’t. And if there had been no education, he would not have become either a priest or, moreover, a bishop. And now they spit in the well from which they drank water," Denisenko noted.

As reported earlier, Filaret Denisenko said that his structure will demand a new Tomos from the Patriarchate of Constantinople.

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