Honorary patriarch of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine Filaret stressed that the Ukrainian Church must keep its patriarchate status. He also believes it should be called the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
Filaret posted this statement on his Facebook page.
According to Filaret, he is grateful to the Patriarch of Constantinople for Tomos and agrees to the "external" status of the metropolis, yet he insists on Ukraine continuing being a patriarchy internally.
He also spoke out against naming the church the Orthodox Church of Ukraine.
“What stands behind this name? It means that Orthodox Ukrainians outside of Ukraine do not belong to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine. It is also stated in Tomos. Orthodox Ukrainians outside of Ukraine were outraged by this, as they want to belong to their native Church,” Filaret explains.
In addition, the honorary patriarch devoted much of his statement to the conflict with Metropolitan Epiphanius. Filaret accused the latter of ignoring existing agreements and refusing joint services.
“Not only Metropolitan Epiphanius does not cooperate with Patriatch Filaret, as promised, but he also does not call or meet with him – excluding a couple of times. He talks about unity in front of the clergy and journalists while in reality doing the opposite. He scares everyone with recalling Tomos, and yet he does everything for it to happen,” he states.
As “Apostrophe” reported earlier, the honorary patriarch of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine Filaret addressed Epiphanius with an urgent demand to “do nothing inside the Church” without his approval.