Filaret: We will not vote at the “Council” unless we find it profitable

Head of the UOC KP Filaret Denisenko

“If it is not profitable to us, we will not vote and reject it,” said the leader of the Kiev Patriarchate Filaret Denisenko on December 10, 5 days before the “unification council”, which is to be held in Kiev this Saturday, TSN reports.

The head of the UOC KP openly announced that the hierarchs of the Kiev Patriarchate might not accept the demands of Constantinople because of disagreements over the procedure for holding a “unification council”.

First, according to him, the UOC KP insists that the “Council” be attended by exclusively bishops, while Istanbul insists on its being attended by lay people and rank-and-file priests (clergy-laity body), who are also members of the Church. Secondly, Filaret demands that the election of the head of the new Church be open, while Constantinople is in favor of secret ballot.

“The Kiev Patriarchate is the largest Church, and it depends on us whether we will accept what we will be offered or not,” Filaret said. “If we benefir from it, we will accept it, but if it is profitable neither for us, nor for the state, nor for the Ukrainian Church, we will simply not vote and reject it.”

As the UOJ reported, earlier the Greek media had responded to Filaret’s statements regarding his demands to the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew as for the procedure for holding a “unification council”. Experts believe that the “birth” of the new Autocephalous Ukrainian Church is expected to be very difficult and dangerous, since “patriarch” Filaret perseveres in his attempts to impose his own rules.

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