The “Metropolitan” of the UOC-KP in the Russian Federation, Ioasaf Shibaev, responded to the decisions of the OCU Synod of February 2, 2022 addressed to him, which dealt with the “trial and defrocking” of three “bishops” who were not accepted into the OCU and returned to Filaret.

“The decision of the Synod of the OCU is another one, worthy of sad laughter, the madness of a handful of usurpers. Any person more or less familiar with the Church Law will only laugh at these attempts. But it seems that the piece of paper about “defrocking” itself is important to them. They need it for the archive. They do not have the moral strength to understand that by this promulgated decision they confirmed to the whole world what I wrote to them at the very beginning of their lawlessness and what is very important for me – I NEVER BEEN A MEMBER OF THEIR GANG, because the jurisdiction of the OCU is exercised only in the borders of Ukraine.

… I loudly announced that election of a primate at a meeting of their first synod is illegal. The witnesses are all the members of this first synod. The “Unification Council” with the adoption of a statute, which automatically put us, the diaspora, outside their jurisdiction, was carried out by deceit.

The betrayal of the interests of the huge, well-organized, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate and its reduction, in fact, to the level of the Metropolis of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, was done in the form of an unprecedented deception, a scam,” writes Ioasaf Shibaev, recalling that in June 2019 he and his vicar made a statement about withdrawal from the OCU and the resumption of the activities of the UOC-KP.

“For participation in this Council, by the decision of the synod of the OCU, I, Metropolitan Joasaph and the vicar of my diocese, Bishop Peter, were expelled from the episcopate of the OCU. How are they going to judge those who, in accordance with their own statement and their own decisions, are not part of the OCU? I HAVE NEVER BEEN A PART OF YOUR ILLEGAL MOB! It seems that the arguments of logic, not to mention neither the moral side nor the Canons, are not accepted and understood by them. A bunch of moral cripples can behave just like that – crazy, mean, deceitful. This is what happens when ignoramuses and immoral persons begin to steer what they call the church,” writes the hierarch of the UOC-KP.

He also addresses the OCU, emphasizing: “I NEVER BEEN IN YOUR GANG. Don’t bother yourself. Neither I nor Bishop Peter recognize ourselves as subordinate to you, as described above. We will not accept any decisions of your meetings because of their, to put it mildly, strangeness and non-canonicity. Speaking in the language of the people, it was not you who gave me that dignity, it is not for you to remove it.”

In addition, Ioasaf Shibaev proposes to Filaret to create a synodal commission “to study and publicize the church crime that has taken place – the usurpation of power by a handful of careerists from the OCU who imagine themselves unpunished” and make appropriate decisions within the UOC-KP.

Earlier, the lawyer of the UOC-KP called on the flock of Filaret to stand up for the hierarchs from Moldova and the Russian Federation.