Filaret sues the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine

Head of the UOC-KP Filaret Denisenko. Photo: Kommersant.ru

The head of the UOC-KP Filaret Denisenko, during the press conference that took place at his residence on July 31, 2019, said he had sued the Ministry of Culture. The video of the press conference was published on the official UOC-KP Facebook page.

In particular, Filaret Denisenko said that “Metropolitan Epiphanius held a holy synod on July 27, at which it was decided to establish not only the commission for the liquidation of the UOC-KP, but also to transfer all the property of the UOC-KP to the Kiev Metropolis (OCU – Ed.) without our consent and without our permission.”

The head of the UOC-KP stressed that he was particularly worried that "the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Justice decided to deregister the Kiev Patriarchate".

He recalled that “they do not have this right because I did not appeal to them regarding the liquidation of the Kiev Patriarchate. Without the appeal of the patriarch or even the head of the diocese, the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Justice did not have the right to withdraw the UOC-KP from the registration and register it as the OCU.”

Therefore, Filaret said, “we sued the Ministry of Culture, which had illegally deregistered the Kiev Patriarchy and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kiev Patriarchate.”

The head of the UOC-KP stressed that “without the consent of the head of the diocese and the head of the Kiev Patriarchate, the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Justice were not in a position to deregister the UOC-KP which they did. For this reason we consider their actions illegal”.

We will remind that earlier the Ministry of Culture officially confirmed the liquidation of the Kiev Patriarchate.

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