The situation with the split of the “OCU” continues to be a thorn in the body of the attempts of the Patriarchate of Constantinople to present the “success” of its Ukrainian adventure.
This time, the rebellious “honorary patriarch” Filaret intends to hold two forums for the arrival of the head of the Phanar to Ukraine, following which it is planned to put forward a demand for Constantinople to provide a “real tomos”.
According to the announce, the list of what Denisenko’s supporters are eager to get includes such aspects as:
– the provision of the “church” with full-fledged autocephaly in the status of patriarchy with “the primate – the patriarch of Kyiv and All Rus-Ukraine”;
– Granting the “Ukrainian Church” the right to patronize the diaspora and control its foreign parishes;
– transferring to Kyiv the issue of cooking the myrrh;
– the absence in the new tomos of the position that the head of the “Ukrainian Church” is the Patriarch of Constantinople, and that the communication of the religious structure from Ukraine with the Local Orthodox Churches should be carried out by its “primate” through the head of the Phanar.
In general, the mentioned initiative was predictable. The Kyiv Patriarchate could not miss the opportunity to declare itself loudly in the conditions of attracting great informational attention to the arrival of Patriarch Bartholomew to Ukraine.
However, we are not sure that Filaret’s supporters will be able to “squeeze the maximum out” on the domestic arena. Most likely, the forums are a tool for conducting an extensive foreign information campaign. Which, by the way, can be very painful for the head of the Phanar, who is trying to create the appearance of the “correctness” of his steps in the Ukrainian direction (recently, comments and statements by Patriarch Bartholomew have become more frequent, in which he justifies his decision on the tomos for the OCU). Whatever one may say, but the very fact of the restoration of the “Kyiv Patriarchate” through the schism of the “OCU” hits all the relevant argumentation of the Istanbul Greeks worse than a bomb strike. And even by the person from whom the anathema was “lifted” and from whom the majority of the “episcopate” of the Dumenko`s organization received its status.