Penn State University professor, chairman of the Forum for the UOC-KP in the USA, Alexander Kachur, believes that the idea of ​​transferring Filaret’s diaspora to the subordination of the Phanar was directly related to the decline of the structures of the Church of Constantinople in the USA and Canada. This is stated in the publication of Alexander Kachur on the official website of the UOC-KP.

“And in order not to do a good deed for nothing, they also decided to rob the newly formed church, taking over all its foreign parishes,” writes Alexander Kachur.

“It’s not hard to guess where such an idea could have come from. Active participants in the October 2018 Council were Archbishop Daniel of the USA and Bishop Hilarion of Canada, where the UOC metropolises ruled by Constantinople are in clear decline. For example, according to Wikipedia, out of more than 200 parishes in 1995, 115 remained in the UOC; in Canada, of the 128,000 faithful in 1989, 32,700 remained. So why, if the opportunity arises, not to replenish the parishes of the UOC-KP as well?” explains the professor.

According to him, many Ukrainians in the American diaspora expected the Tomos with great hopes.

“I mean specifically Orthodox people from Ukraine, who consider Kyiv their spiritual center. For the Galicians, in general, it is easier – they found the Greek Catholic Church here (nothing that is called the Ukrainian Catholic Church of the Byzantine rite and uses the Catholic calendar) and successfully combine love for their native Ukraine with serving to Rome. Once there was in the United States the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (UAOC), which in 1995 suddenly became the metropolis of the Patriarchate of Constantinople. Thus, as many as three churches have appeared with centers in Rome, Istanbul, and also in Moscow,” the publication says.

Some churches in the USA and Canada came to the head of the UOC-KP, Filaret, who in 2002 created the vicariate of the UOC-KP.

On January 6, 2019, the head of the OCU got the Tomos.

“They simply considered it superfluous and unnecessary to ask the parishioners of Ukrainian churches in the United States whether they would like to come under the leadership of the Patriarch of Constantinople. All this was reminiscent of a raider takeover, in the style of the turbulent nineties – a new “overseer” came from nowhere and said that from now on everything around belongs to him.

However, if in the East, where the Orthodox churches have historically operated, the attitude to the parishioners as a dumb flock is generally traditional, then in the country of free people in the USA the situation is somewhat different. Here, not people for authorities, but authorities for people, and it is not too important what it is, secular or ecclesiastical. And the decision on belonging to a certain church structure (and there are a lot of them here) is made by the church community itself, which may or may not accept the demands of the leadership, especially if its competence in the right to put forward such demands looks somewhat dubious. Therefore, the parishes of the UOC of the Kyiv Patriarchate in the United States have taken a wait-and-see attitude, slowly fulfilling the order to immediately join the Patriarchate of Constantinople,” explains a supporter of the UOC-KP.