The representatives of the European deanery of the UOC-KP announced that the parishes of the diaspora of the Kyiv Patriarchate held out despite pressure, primarily from the “brothers and sisters from the OCU”. Filaret’s parishioners abroad stay under his jurisdiction, refusing to “trade with temples and believers” and demanding “complete autocephaly”, telegra.ph reports.

Also, the deanery of the UOC-KP notes that those communities of the diaspora who agreed to this were accepted by the Phanar. If the parish asks for dialogue, the Phanar ignores it. It concerns the demands to change the charter of the community, often with a name that is very different from the original. “Ordinary believers do not know about this, and when they find out, they no longer come”, the publication says.

“Perhaps they are just waiting for us to self-destruct. As in the OCU in Ukraine, they are waiting for Filaret’s death and hope that his case will be over with him”, the UOC-KP dean suggests.

“We believe that the Patriarchate of Constantinople shows its real face in relation to Ukrainians abroad, because here they have less benefit from us. But if the patriarch was restored to his rights, and with him the believers and the clergy were accepted into Eucharistic communion, then what are the reasons for this attitude? Only when the recognition was just a farce”.