The head of the Phanar during the negotiations wanted to create a metropolis as part of Constantinople in Ukraine

Former press secretary of the Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Andriy Parubiy (2016-2019) Andriy Kovalyov said that during negotiations with the Ukrainian authorities in 2016, Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople wanted to proclaim the Ukrainian Metropolis as part of the Patriarchate of Constantinople. Kovalyov wrote about this on Facebook.

“Let me remind you a little of the chronology, on June 16, 2016, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine voted an appeal to Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew with a request to grant autocephaly to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. There, the entire script, which we will see in 2018, was spelled out in the appeal. Cancellation of the act of annexation of the Kyiv Metropolis in 1686, the Unification Council and finally the granting of the Tomos of Autocephaly. Then few people believed in this, especially I remember how some hierarchs of the UOC-KP who are now in the Orthodox Church of Ukraine laughed at this openly. And now they tell how they sacrificially fought for the Tomos from the Ecumenical Patriarch. Hypocrites and crafty,” Kovalev does not specify who he is talking about.

In 2018, there will be a second appeal to Bartholomew, but already with support for the appeal of the then guarantor of the Constitution, Petro Poroshenko, reminds Andrei Kovalyov.

“But regarding the first appeal of the Verkhovna Rada of June 16, 2016, it became the catalyst that restarted the consideration of the Ukrainian issue by the Ecumenical Patriarchate. Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew received this appeal from the Verkhovna Rada on the very first day of the Pan-Orthodox Council in Crete, which was then ignored by the ROC. It seems that in October 2016, the Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, Andriy Parubiy, received a response from Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew that the Ecumenical Patriarchate has begun to consider the Ukrainian issue and a special commission has been created for this,” says the former press secretary of Parubiy.

As previously reported, during a conversation with Parubiy the first talk about the invasion of Ukraine with Phanar’s “stauropegia” took place.