Filaret with his “Kyiv Patriarchate” is, of course, a constant irritant for the “OCU”, the State Department and the Phanar, as colleagues write. Yes, he is living proof that no “unification of Ukrainian Orthodoxy” took place. As there were three jurisdictions before the Phanar’s intervention, there are three of them left. That there was no justification for the intervention of the Phanar and there is no…
But that is precisely why the OCU and the Phanar try not to notice the fact of a split with Filaret and his restoration of his jurisdiction. They just stubbornly pretend that nothing happened. Everything is fine.
Have you seen Greek church calendars? There Filaret is listed as the bishop of the OCU. And on the OCU website it is still the first in the list of the episcopate, signed by the “honorary patriarch” of the non-existent Patriarchate…
They are impatiently waiting for the “grandfather” to go to court to the Lord, and “Metropolitan Epiphany” will sing his funeral service as “a mentor and teacher who stood at the origins of the OCU”, and Patriarch Bartholomew will send his deep condolences to “a comrade-in-arms for healing the Ukrainian schism”… Filaret will be included in new textbooks. His speeches and statements exposing the Constantinople tomos, the betrayal of Epiphany, etc., will be thoroughly erased from the media and YouTube by revelations. Therefore, it is important to preserve their archive now. So that later the surprised descendants would learn the truth about how the founder of the Ukrainian schism ended up behind the side of his brainchild and became its denouncer…
Who among the people can know: maybe, if, during his remaining earthly life, the former monk Filaret does not bring repentance for his sin of schism, it is these convictions that will serve the Lord to alleviate his fate?