One of the main negotiators about the tomos under Poroshenko, Rostyslav Pavlenko, said that the process of negotiations with the Phanar on autocephaly and the provision of tomos had been developing since 2014-2015.
Consciously or through thoughtlessness, he provided yet another proof that the Phanar and Patriarch Bartholomew personally conceived or allowed interference in the Ukrainian church situation long before 2018.
And this means that Patriarch Bartholomew for many years deceived the ROC, the UOC and other Local Orthodox Churches, pretending that he was not planning an invasion of Ukraine.
In particular, in 2016 at the Synaxis of the Primates in Chambesy, Patriarch Bartholomew, in the presence of all delegations of the Local Churches, announced that he recognizes Metropolitan Onuphry and the clergy of the UOC as the only canonical bishops in Ukraine.
It is possible that the head of the Phanar used the autocephalous theme to blackmail the ROC, forcing it to participate in the Cretan Council. And after the ROC refused to participate in it, he realized his threat in practice.
Just a few days after the decision of the Russian Orthodox Church not to go to the council, on June 16, the Ukrainian parliament appealed to Patriarch Bartholomew with a request to invalidate the act of 1686 and to grant a tomos of autocephaly to the “Orthodox Church in Ukraine”.
In addition, already in July of the same year, a representative of the Patriarchate of Constantinople met with the then President of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko.
Obviously, such a scenario was prepared in advance. Moreover, Patriarch Bartholomew was just waiting for the right moment to strike.
