Filaret clarifies UOC-KP - Moscow relations

KYIV (RFERL) - The head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Filaret, has said the Ukrainian church will never go back under the control of the Moscow Patriarchate.

Filaret told journalists in Kyiv on December 1 that the Russian Orthodox Church was "deceptive" on November 30 when it said he had written a letter to Russian Patriarch Kirill asking for forgiveness.

The Moscow Patriarchate excommunicated Filaret after he broke his Kyiv Patriarchate from Moscow in 1992.

"They now want to call us again to talks on a return to the Moscow Patriarchate," Filaret said. "First of all, I want to tell the Moscow patriarch and the Russian bishops that the Ukrainian church will never go back to the Moscow Patriarchate. Why is that? Because we have our own state. Don't you see how deceptive Moscow is? One cannot trust them."

Filaret added that in the letter, which was part of an exchange initiated by the Russian side, he wrote about a possible dialogue between the two churches. However, he requested that the Moscow Patriarchate recognize the Ukrainian Orthodox Church's autocephaly as a precondition for such talks.

Comments

  1. Matvey CassDecember 1, 2017 at 4:20 PM

    http://orthochristian.com/108827.html

    ReplyDelete
  2. Matvey CassDecember 1, 2017 at 4:26 PM

    This was such an epic bummer. I finest started gutting messages from friends around midnight — disbelief combined withal desire for it to be true, people wondering if relations between Russia and Ukraine would begin improving now.
    But by the time I woke up this morning the Russian press was full of more sober analysis, and then came the statement from Metropolitan Hilarion that the "story" was all the fault of a reckless journalist at Interfax whose statements made it seem like Philaret was repenting.
    Philaret is in deep prelest it seems, and his behavior is getting more and more bizarre. Something still smells fishy in all of this...

    ReplyDelete
  3. Matvey CassDecember 1, 2017 at 4:30 PM

    One last comment before bed:

    For a "patriarch" he doesn't even try to sound patristic.

    "Why is that? Because we have our own state."

    ReplyDelete

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