Filaret's former subdeacon: Pray that he may repent before death

Filaret at the celebration of the 30th anniversary of his “patriarchate.” Photo: UOC-KP

Archpriest Georgiy Boyko of the UOC published a personal appeal urging believers to pray for the repentance of Filaret Denysenko. Fr. Georgiy once served as Filaret’s subdeacon when the latter was still Metropolitan of Kyiv and Exarch of All Ukraine.

“Do not judge me harshly! In the past, I was the subdeacon of the former Metropolitan Filaret. I don’t know if I can speak for all subdeacons, but many thought and believed: if Patriarch Pimen were to die, Filaret would be elected Patriarch; and if Metropolitan Filaret were to die now, he would be canonized,” the priest begins his address.

Fr. Georgiy recalls how he and his wife, Matushka Liudmyla, could not bring themselves to marry without Filaret’s blessing.

“He was then our Metropolitan, hurrying to the celebration of the Pochaiv Icon of the Mother of God. Yet he did not disdain us, simple mortals! Early in the morning, at 36 Pushkinska Street, he met with us and blessed us with fatherly love. That was ‘in those days’!” the priest shares.

The cleric admits that he continued to commemorate Monk Filaret at the Proskomedia even after the first court decision of the Russian Orthodox Church. However, after Filaret was anathematized, he lost the canonical right to pray for him.

“When the next court of the Russian Orthodox Church, due to Monk Filaret’s lack of repentance, pronounced anathema upon him – and he at that very time said: ‘What is their anathema to me? It means nothing to me!’ – I felt great pain in my soul. To him, by his own words, it meant nothing; but I was deprived of the right to pray for him! I could no longer take a particle from the prosphora for his salvation!” Fr. Georgiy writes.

“Now I sincerely ask everyone: make the sign of the Cross for this man, that in his testament and final words there might sound: ‘I repent! And I command that my funeral be served by the Ukrainian Orthodox Church!’ Lord, forgive me if I am bold – but if it be Thy will, let it be so! Amen,” the priest appeals to the faithful.

Archpriest Georgiy expresses the hope that his words may reach Filaret, who had once known well his late father, Archpriest Mykhailo Boyko, a cleric of the Protection Monastery in Kyiv.

Earlier, the UOJ reported that Filaret had written a “spiritual testament.”

Read also