UOC-KP calls OCU “a structure without canonical succession”

"Patriarch" of the UOC KP Nikodym. Photo: Nikodym's Facebook page

On April 21, 2026, the press service of the UOC-KP published an official address to the faithful setting out its assessment of the OCU, describing it as a new structure with no canonical succession and as being wholly dependent on the Phanar.

According to the organization’s representatives, the outcome of the 2018 unification process proved “catastrophic” for the Ukrainian schism because it was built on deception.

The statement claims that the Constantinople Patriarchate forced Filaret Denysenko to sign a fictitious decision on the “self-dissolution” of the UOC-KP, which, it says, has no legal force under the organization’s charter. Soon afterward, the OCU allegedly began raider seizures of Kyiv Patriarchate property, triggering a prolonged internal conflict between the two schismatic groups.

The statement places particular emphasis on the final years of Filaret Denysenko’s life, which its authors describe as a period of forced isolation. The Kyiv Patriarchate alleges that Filaret’s blood relatives colluded with the leadership of the OCU and forcibly kept him at St. Michael’s Monastery in order to stage the appearance of “reconciliation.”

In addition, representatives of the UOC-KP claim that before his death Filaret realized he had been betrayed by his associates and, while in the hospital, refused to receive Communion from OCU clerics.

According to the statement’s authors, threats of “church courts” and sanctions from the OCU carry no canonical force, because Dumenko’s structure has no lawful jurisdiction over the territory of Ukraine.

Earlier, as the UOJ reported, “Patriarch” Nikodym received a group of communities in the Czech Republic into the UOC-KP.

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