Filaret's letter with a refusal to run for primacy in SLC published

Filaret commits himself in writing not to nominate his candidacy for the post of head of the SLC

A letter by the leader of the UOC KP with the renunciation of claims for the post of primate of a new church structure in Ukraine addressed to Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew and signed “Your fellow Filaret of Kiev” is published on the portal Znaj.ua.

“In accordance with your request, I have decided not to nominate my candidacy at the Council for election as the Primate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church,” the letter says. “At the same time, we would like to express, having discussed this position with the hierarchs of our Church, a proposal to leave Patriarch Filaret Honorary Patriarch for life, assigning him to lead the Holy Synod of the unified Church.”

The letter contains a wish to indicate in the statute of the unified Church the role and special merits of “Patriarch Filaret and President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko in the matter of establishing the Single Local Orthodox Church”. Filaret also asks the Patriarch of Constantinople to bless and support “Metropolitan Epifany of Pereyaslav and Belaya Tserkov”, who is recommended by the UOC KP as the head of the unified church structure, and expresses hope that the letter will remain confidential.

In addition to gratitude for “invalidation of false Moscow decisions regarding me (Filaret, - Ed.) and followers, which opened the way for further adoption of the main decision – granting the Ukrainian Orthodox Church the Tomos on autocephaly”, Filaret expresses hope for the imminent convocation of the Unification Council and calls the desirable date for the meeting to be November 22, 2018.

As the UOJ reported, earlier the UOC KP spokesperson Eustratiy Zoria said that the information on holding the Unification Council on November 22 spread in social networks is a fake, which "various sources, especially the media of Moscow disinformation in Ukraine" are persistently circulating.

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