UOC Chancellor on OCU formation report: pressure, fear and suspicion
Metropolitan Anthony says the atmosphere of December 2018 described in the Phanar cleric’s report was the complete opposite of the love and freedom in which the Holy Spirit works.
In his UOJ article “Where the Spirit of the Lord Is, There Is Freedom,” UOC Chancellor Metropolitan Anthony of Boryspil and Brovary analyzed a report submitted to Patriarch Bartholomew by a Constantinople cleric detailing the events surrounding the OCU’s creation in 2018.
The hierarch particularly emphasized the report’s value as a firsthand document: it was written for the head of the Phanar and therefore made no attempt to embellish what had happened. “People describe what they saw, and they describe it as they saw it,” he said.
Metropolitan Anthony stressed that, according to the report, the delegation of the Patriarchate of Constantinople came under intense pressure from the Ukrainian authorities. Fearing that they were being wiretapped, the exarchs resorted to communicating through handwritten notes because, as they put it, any discussion “would be disrupted due to constant surveillance.”
In the middle of the night, the head of the delegation was summoned to meet with the President, with the head of the security services also present in his office. The following day, the delegation was taken to the presidential palace under police escort, their phones were confiscated, they were searched, and they were told that they had been “detained and prohibited from leaving the country.” The author of the report admits that during those hours he found himself repeatedly and almost unconsciously writing down the prayer “Rejoice, O Virgin Theotokos.”
“What do we see? Fear, suspicion, surveillance, pressure, sleepless nights, notes instead of spoken words. You will agree that this bears little resemblance to the Council of the Apostles as described in the Book of Acts,” the Metropolitan writes.
Metropolitan Anthony recalled the words of the Apostle John the Theologian: “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear.”
“Where everyone involved is afraid of one another, there is neither love nor freedom, much less the Holy Spirit, Who blows where He wills, not where He is told to blow,” he noted.
Metropolitan Anthony also pointed out that, according to the report, suspicion and calculation extended even to those whom the Phanar was receiving into communion. The Patriarchate’s representative wrote of his “hidden calculation” – to secure the dissolution of the UOC-KP and UAOC before the “Unification Council,” leaving the Ukrainian side with “no way to retreat.” “Can the Church truly be built on such deceit?” Metropolitan Anthony asked.
According to him, something of this kind can be recognized administratively, diplomatically, or politically, “but such recognition does not impart the grace of the Holy Spirit. For grace is bestowed by God, not by directives from government authorities or security services.”
As the UOJ reported, the U.S. edition of the UOJ published a report submitted to Patriarch Bartholomew by a member of the Phanar delegation on the events of December 2018 in Kyiv.
