A reaction appeared on the official website of the OCU, to the decision of a part of the diaspora in the United States to remain subordinate to Filaret Denisenko and the restored structure of the UOC-KP.

As noted, Epiphany reported: “In relation to those parishes in the diaspora that belonged to the UOC-KP and do not want to lose unity with the OCU, we have since the summer of 2019 engaged in a process of multilateral dialogue, convening several meetings for this purpose with representatives of the US Vicariate, the Ecumenical Patriarchate, and the OCU. We are working together to seek a form that will satisfy all the parties, and I have firm hope that through this dialogue, and not through ultimatums or blatant violation of the terms of the Tomos, we will be able to find preferable solutions. Due to the pandemic preventing normal travel to the United States, a number of steps that were to have occurred last March were postponed, but the Ecumenical Patriarchate and Her American Archdiocese, our Kyiv Metropolis and our Vicariate in America are all working in the same direction, and continue to make practical steps progressing towards a real solution.”

At the same time, the OCU decided to subject the abbot of the UOC-KP in Philadelphia Bohdan Zgoba to “church condemnation”. He supported Filaret and “patriarch” appointed him as a head of his structure in the United States. The OCU reminds that in 2016 Zgoba had a ban from Filaret. “The influence of Russian forces” is traditionally seen in the decision of some of the clergy of the UOC-KP in the United States.

Also, the decrees of Filaret Denisenko are considered “legally null and void” in the OCU. However, it remains unclear why the OCU reacted so sharply to the situation in the United States, but not in Europe, where Filaret’s decree similarly preserved the structure for the diaspora.