If Tomos is not granted in the next month, it’ll be put on ice, – expert

Petro Poroshenko has announced to representatives of UOC KP and UAOC the creation of a Single Local Church in Ukraine

Pikhovshek forecasts that an idea of granting autocephaly to the Ukrainian Church is likely to be put into cold storage by the Phanar. Such an opinion was expressed by the expert in his author’s program ”Subjective Takeaways”.

The journalist noted that Constantinople has a significant obstacle by granting the Tomos. "The hierarchs of the Kyiv Patriarchate do not have a canonical chirotony, unlike the Polish Church in the 1920s," Pikhovshek said. “And they try to hide this moment in every possible way. The Kyiv Patriarchate arose from scratch, as a structure parallel to the UOC."

The TV presenter believes that creating the SLC – the main trump card in the election campaign of Poroshenko, who is played along and strongly assisted by the US and exerts pressure on Patriarch Bartholomew. "The Patriarch of Constantinople is ready to reconcile with the threat of a split in World Orthodoxy, which will somehow occur if Phanar gives the Tomos," the expert said. “The true underlying motive of autocephaly for Poroshenko also becomes clear: for today, apart from saving Ukraine not clear from whom, this is almost the main "feature" of his election campaign. This is very bad, because in view of this fact what separation of the Church from the state can there be? Anyway, since there are no other profitable topics for Poroshenko, the subject of autocephaly arose – artificially arose – which I’d like to stress. The government’s partner in this issue is some forces from the US Democratic Party, which have sufficient influence to force Patriarch Bartholomew to play up Poroshenko in his election campaign. And he [the Patriarch] is ready to grant the Tomos, but cannot step outside of the anathema laid on Filaret, which can only be removed by the Russian Orthodox Church.”

Pikhovshek noted the presidential administration would like to remove Filaret from his post as head of the UOC-KP, but due to various circumstances it doesn’t work out. Perhaps, Filaret "has made a bid" for another figure in a big political game and this figure is Yulia Timoshenko. The political analyst predicts that the SLC will not be created until Filaret claims to play the main role in it.

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