Filaret Denisenko said on Tuesday that he would continue to be a patriarch of the new non-canonical Orthodox church in Ukraine, while Epiphanius will remain a metropolitan, the head of the church
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 08th January, 2019) Filaret Denisenko said on Tuesday that he would continue to be a patriarch of the new non-canonical Orthodox church in Ukraine, while Epiphanius will remain a metropolitan, the head of the church.On Sunday, Constantinople Patriarch Bartholomew handed over a decree granting autocephaly to the Orthodox church of Ukraine. Meanwhile, this decision has not been recognized by the Russian Orthodox Church and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP).
"Today we have a metropolitan, His Beatitude Epiphanius, who is the head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, but I remain a patriarch," Filaret said during the divine liturgy, as quoted by UNIAN news agency.
The so-called unification council, which was held in Kiev in December, had went very difficult and was hanging in the balance, according to Filaret.
"The cathedral was very difficult, and it hung in the balance. Nothing could have happened, but with our joint efforts we have overcome it," Filaret added, as quoted by the agency.
The so-called unification council was held in Kiev at Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko's initiative in mid-December. The Moscow Patriarchate has repeatedly stressed that the process of "unification" was nothing more than a "legalization of schism" and insists that the council was a "complete failure" and no unification took place at all.
The Russian Orthodox Church said that the day when the tomos was signed was a "tragic" one for the global Orthodoxy.
