We continue to read the memoirs of the participants of the Unification Council of 2018. Today we want to tell you about Metropolitan Simeon of Vinnytsia and Barsk.
“For us, the bishops of the Moscow Patriarchate, who wrote a letter to His Holiness, it was much more difficult than for the bishops of the former UAOC or the Kyiv Patriarchate. Perhaps they did not know the details of the processes that took place during the preparation for the Unification Council, but at least they were unanimous in their aspirations and supported each other. And we didn’t even know how many of us those same signers were there”.
This especially worried lord Simeon, who did not want to remain at the Council without support: “I did not make the decision to go further or turn back almost until the very day when the Council was to take place. Previously, I decided for myself and talked about this to close people, and then to a wide circle of priests and believers, I will not go to the Council alone. To make a final decision, I wanted to make sure that other bishops in the UOC (MP) will also go.”
But something strange was happening with the list of participants from the UOC. Not only were their names kept secret, even their number was not fully known. On December 14, late in the evening, lord Simeon met with metropolitan Emmanuel of Gaul. The conversation ended well after midnight: “I was surprised by the information I heard from the Exarch. He said that the presence of twelve rulers from the UOC (MP) was expected in St. Sophia of Kiev tomorrow. This information did not correspond to what I was told earlier by one of the secular officials who dealt with the organizational issues of the Council. He spoke of six bishops. From this I conclude that the situation was very tense, especially before the Concil, but the words of lord Emmanuel calmed me a little.”
Unclear, 6 or 12? It is unlikely that the organizer of the Council did not know the number of participants. Most likely, someone misinformed someone. But who? Poroshenko’s people to ensure Simeon’s presence at the Council? Then why did they call different numbers? Let’s leave this moment without conclusions, but the situation is not easy… The announcement of the appeal of those twelve hierarchs can shed light on this issue, but this is unlikely to happen in the near future.
As in other dioceses, there was not enough time for the meeting: Simeon appointed delegates from his own diocese himself. But a lay delegate whom he trusted changed his mind at the last moment. Lord Simeon “borrowed” the new delegate from metropolitan Alexander Drabinko (father Andrey Voyevoda, now a cleric of the Pereyaslav-Khmelnytsky diocese).
As a church practitioner and realist, lord Simeon, by the way, does not really believe in the unification of the OCU with the UOC. In his view, one can only count on mutual recognition of the two jurisdictions. At the same time, he believes that the presence of a large number of bishops at the Unification Council would not benefit anyone: “If there were much more bishops of the UOC (MP) at the Unification Council, then events would have developed in a completely different, probably not the best, scenario.”
According to Simeon, he realized this after Filaret organized a local council, which restored (de facto) the existence of the UOC-KP. Who knows, maybe the organizers figured it out earlier?