WITHOUT PUTIN, WITHOUT KIRILL”. PRIMATE OF THE NEW UKRAINIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH ELECTED

 

 

 

“Without Putin, without Kirill”. Primate of the new Ukrainian Orthodox Church elected
He is Metropolitan Epiphany, right-hand man of the self-proclaimed “Patriarch” Filaret, at the head of an ecclesial structure that until a few months ago was considered a schismatic entity by all the canonical Orthodox Churches. The role of the Ukrainian President Poroshenko

gianni valente, La Stampa

rome

The Primate of the new Ukrainian Orthodox Autocephalous Church, independent of the Patriarchate of Moscow, is Metropolitan Epiphany Dumenko, until now head of the Metropolitan of Pereyaslav and Bila Tserkva. An authoritative member and candidate supported by the bishops of the so-called “Patriarchate of Kiev”, an ecclesial structure created by the elderly Metropolitan Filaret and which until a few months ago was considered as a schismatic entity by all the canonical Orthodox Churches. The new Primate was elected by the “Council of Unification” called by the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew I, and held in Kiev at the Cathedral of St. Sophia. The announcement of the election was given to the multitude of thousands of Ukrainians gathered in front of the cathedral by the Ukrainian Minister of Culture: After the announcement, the new Primate came out of the cathedral together with the Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, the President of the Ukrainian Parliament Andrij Parubij and Metropolitan Emmanuel of France, the representative of the Patriarchate of Constantinople.

President Poroshenko, in his speech, announced the creation of the “local autocephalous Orthodox Church of Ukraine”, noting that the new Church will be “without Putin, without Kirill” (the Patriarch of Moscow, ed.) but “with God and with Ukraine”. In his first speech addressed to the multitude present in the square, the new Primate Epiphany thanked President Poroshenko for his contribution to the creation of the new ecclesial structure, and also paid tribute to Metropolitan Filaret - who proclaimed himself “Patriarch of Kiev” in 1995 - calling him “spiritual father of all Ukrainians”.

The Unification Council was attended by 192 representatives of the Orthodox ecclesial realities present in Ukraine, including more than 40 bishops of the self-proclaimed “Patriarchate of Kiev” and the dozen bishops of the so-called Ukrainian autocephalous Church. Only two of the ninety bishops of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church linked to the Patriarchate of Moscow took part in the assembly for the creation of the new Ukrainian Church independent of Moscow jurisdiction.

Epiphany, 39 years old, was born in the region of Odessa, studied at the Ecclesiastical Academy of Kiev and the Faculty of Philosophy of Athens. He was ordained Hieromonk (priest monk) in 2008, and then became secretary of Patriarch Filaret, of whom he has so far been considered a sort of right-hand man. He was ordained bishop in 2009 and became metropolitan in 2013.

The reaction of the Patriarchate of Moscow to the election of Epiphany was not long in coming. Archpriest Nicolay Balashov, number two in the Department for External Relations of the Patriarchate of Moscow, defined the Ukrainian Unification Council as a “non-canonical gathering of individuals, some of whom have - and many do not even have - legitimate episcopal ordination, under the general guidance of a layman, the Head of State, and a foreigner, who does not understand anything of the local language, who elected a non-canonical “hierarch” as “Primate” adding that “for us this event means absolutely nothing”.

Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, president of the department for external relations of the Patriarchate of Moscow, even before the conclusion of the Ukrainian Unification Council, pointed out that no other Orthodox Church sent messages to that local assembly. According to Hilarion, “Patriarch Bartholomew’s plan to persuade the canonical Church in Ukraine to participate in the creation of a new structure has failed” and the episcopate linked to the Patriarchate of Moscow, “with the exception of two traitors, has shown unanimity, firmness and courage. The fate of today’s “pseudo-Council” is the same as that of other similar meetings that have taken place in history. Its participants will be erased from the historical memory of the Church, they will be like “the chaff that the wind blows away””.

The Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, in an official statement, expressed “praise to God” and “great joy and satisfaction” for “the successful completion of the work of the Unification Council, foundation of the new autocephalous Orthodox Church of Ukraine, also announcing that the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew “invited His Beatitude Epiphany to concelebrate the Divine Liturgy at the Fanar on the great feast of Theophany”, to deliver to him in that solemn setting “the Tomos of the foundation of the new sister autocephalous Church”.

On January 6, the Ukrainian President Poroshenko will also receive the autocephaly Tomos from Bartholomew’s hands, next to the neo-Primate Epiphany. He announced it himself, in his speech addressed to the festive crowd in front of the Cathedral of St. Sophia. On the morning of Saturday 15 December, Poroshenko had also exhorted the participants of the Unification Council with inspired tones. “I address each one of you directly”, he said, reminding the members of the assembly, “of the colossal responsibility that weighs on you at this moment. The State,” Poroshenko added, “has done everything it can for its part. Now the future of Ukraine, the future of our great nation, our freedom, our state and our spiritual independence depends on you and only on you”.