Phanar sends delegation to Ukraine to settle church conflict - mass media

The Ukrainian Telegram channel “Sheptun Ukraine War” reports that a delegation of the Patriarchate of Constantinople will arrive in Ukraine on August 20-21 to resolve the Ukrainian church crisis. The authors of the publication claim that the visit of the delegation of Ukrainian officials and representatives of the OCU turned out to be a failure for Epiphany Dumenko, as Patriarch Bartholomew was dissatisfied with his attempts to restrict the access of the Patriarchate of Constantinople to Ukraine to start a dialogue with the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. This is reported in the article by the link.

According to the channel’s insider information, on August 20-21, on the eve of the vote to ban the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in the Verkhovna Rada, a delegation of Phanar sent by Patriarch Bartholomew to resolve the situation in the Ukrainian religious environment will arrive in Ukraine. The delegation is to include Archbishop Hilarion of Winnipeg, Metropolitan Job of Pisidia, and Patriarchal Deacon Epiphanius Kamianovych.

This development does not suit the representatives of the OCU, the DESS and the party of the former president of Ukraine “European Solidarity”, who, according to sources, did everything possible to prevent this visit from taking place. However, during the visit of the Ukrainian delegation to Phanar on August 14, it became clear that Patriarch Bartholomew was extremely dissatisfied with the behavior of Epiphany Dumenko and Yevstratiy Zoria towards the UOC, so he decided to act through the Office of the President of Ukraine, from where he received preliminary understanding and approval to implement his initiative.

In addition, the article reveals the details and chronology of all contacts between the Ukrainian side and the Patriarchate of Constantinople, starting in 2023, when the head of Phanar decided to continue working on the “unification of Ukrainian Orthodoxy.” It is also interesting that the recent visit of the head of the Orthodox Church in America, Metropolitan Tikhon of Washington, took place in the context of this work and allegedly found a positive response from the Primate of the UOC, His Beatitude Metropolitan Onufriy.

Earlier, we reported that the head of the OCU, Epiphany Dumenko, has been sabotaging the arrival of the delegation of the Patriarchate of Constantinople to Ukraine for almost two years, which Patriarch Bartholomew had intended to send to the country several times to try to resolve the Ukrainian church crisis. However, representatives of the OCU, represented by Epiphany Dumenko and Yevstratiy Zoria, have been inventing various excuses to prevent the Phanar delegation from entering Ukraine.