Filaret: In 2008, I secretly agreed with Bartholomew on recognizing UOC-KP

Filaret Denysenko. Photo: screenshot from V. Kyrylenko’s YouTube channel

Ukrainian politician Viacheslav Kyrylenko has released a 2017 interview with Filaret Denisenko, in which the head of the Kyiv Patriarchate recounts secretly flying to Istanbul ahead of Patriarch Bartholomew’s 2008 visit to Kyiv and reaching an agreement with him on recognizing the UOC-KP.

According to Filaret, he conducted the talks himself together with Viktor Baloha, then head of President Yushchenko’s administration.

“We were agreeing that he would come for the celebration and that the issue of recognizing the Kyiv Patriarchate would be resolved here. The plan was this: the patriarch flies to Kyiv, representatives of the Moscow Patriarchate meet him, and we – representatives of the Kyiv Patriarchate – see him off. Why? Because changes were to be made to the status of the Kyiv Patriarchate,” Filaret said.

Notably, at that time the Constantinople Patriarchate officially recognized the ROC’s anathema against Filaret. Nevertheless, according to him, Bartholomew held meetings with him.

At the same time, according to Filaret, the Phanar was then offering not autocephaly, but the incorporation of the UOC-KP into the Constantinople Patriarchate.

Filaret himself spoke about these talks with Metropolitan Emmanuel at President Yushchenko’s residence.

“I asked: ‘We want an autocephalous Church, but you are proposing that we renounce autocephaly and become part of the Constantinople Patriarchate?’ Metropolitan Emmanuel answered me: ‘Well, this is temporary. You will enter the Constantinople Patriarchate, and then we will grant you autocephaly.’ ‘When?’ ‘I don’t know. Maybe in a year, maybe in five, maybe in ten.’ And I thought: maybe you will grant it in a hundred years? That is, you want us to become part of the Constantinople Patriarchate. Then I convened the episcopate, we discussed the issue and unanimously decided: we do not need such recognition,” Denysenko said at the time.

At the same time, he blamed the ROC for the collapse of the talks with the Phanar. According to him, Patriarch Alexy II delivered Bartholomew an ultimatum during an informal meeting after lunch at the Lavra: either a meeting with Filaret, or the convening of a Pan-Orthodox Council, which Moscow had previously blocked. Bartholomew chose the Council. The meeting and the planned joint press conference did not take place, although Filaret waited in the next room of the presidential residence until late in the evening.

As the UOJ reported, the Constantinople Patriarchate earlier, in 2018, lifted the sanctions from Filaret, reinstating him to the rank of metropolitan – however, Denysenko himself did not agree with this, since the Phanar refused to recognize his “patriarchal” title.