A religious scandal erupted between the head of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, Epiphanius, and the former head of the Kyiv Patriarchate, Filaret, as reported by TSN.
The media has recently published copies of invitations to a meeting that were signed by Filaret and were written on the Kyiv Patriarchate’s letterheads. Kyiv Patriarchate, however, was dissolved in front of the unification council in December. Nearly all bishops of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine received such invitations, and some even posted the documents on social media.
In them, Filaret invites church officials to the so-called fraternal conversation. It is known that he gathers bishops in order to discuss the prospects for the Kyiv Patriarchate’s restoration, which Filaret would prefer to head himself. At the same time, the head of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, Metropolitan Epiphanius, was not invited to the meeting.
“It is irrelevant to talk about any restorations. We should talk about our future, about our unity. We have a lot more to do in the future for this church to be recognized by other Orthodox churches. Going back to the past is an automatic road to nowhere, a path to isolation. It’s returning to the state we were in before October, 11 and the according decisions of the Constantinople Patriarchate,” he said.
As “Apostrophe” reported, earlier in Poland declared the inferiority of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine’s autocephaly.