Mikhail Zinkevich: Filaret admitted that I was to become the head of OCU

Mikhail Zinkevich with Filaret and Petro Poroshenko. Photo: Radio Liberty

"Metropolitan" Mikhail Zinkevich of the OCU said the on the "12" TV channel that according to the balance of power, he was the one who was supposed to become the head of the OCU at the “Unification Council”.

“We need to admit the following: at the “Unification Council” Filaret himself admitted that I was to win the election for the primate of the Church,” Zinkevich said. “The fact that I was forced to withdraw my candidacy is another question.”

The hierarch of the OCU stressed that he has a serious weight in the OCU environment and, together with his colleagues, can control the struggle between the leaders of the OCU: “They (Filaret with Epiphany – Ed.) are settling the relations between themselves. If it takes some “wrong” forms, then, of course, we and I personally will intervene. We will express our point of view and take appropriate decisions.”

Earlier, Mikhail Zinkevich said that the agreement between Epiphany and Filaret, according to which they were supposed to lead the OCU together, really existed. “Metropolitan” stressed that any agreements, including this one, must be fulfilled: “A decent person, having said a word, must keep it. Therefore, he is called a decent man.”

We recall that after the “Unification Council”, Mikhail Zinkevich said that Filaret Denisenko, using blackmail, forced him to recuse himself as a candidate: "I told the delegates that I was being blackmailed, and this is not democratic, that there was no argument that I should withdraw my candidacy."

Read also