“Under the carpet” of the exarchate

Information about the Phanar’s exarchate for the banned UOC continues to grow with new details. Let us list what we have at the moment.

1) The information about the exarchate was introduced by ex-deputy Igor Mosiychuk, who is probably used as part of the pro-presidential IPSO. The fact that it was later confirmed by the pro-Phanar publication Dukhovny Front, which is directly linked to the Exarch of Constantinople in Ukraine, Mikhail Anishchenko, supports the hypothesis that negotiations between the Opposition Platform and Phanar did take place;
2) The OCU and Poroshenko’s party shouted at the top of their lungs that there could be no exarchates and no commission was coming to Ukraine. This is not surprising, because such a development would not be in the interests of these two actors;
3) On August 13, a week before the adoption of the law banning the UOC, Dumenko was summoned to Phanar, after which he immediately published an appeal to the Primate of the UOC to unite. The fact that the same letter was not sent to the head of the UOC-KP, Filaret Denisenko, indicates the urgency and ill-conceived nature of this step. This indicates that Dumenko was still “hit in the head” by Phanar for his intransigence and discrediting Bartholomew’s idea of uniting all branches of Orthodoxy in Ukraine;
4) Despite all attempts to convince the public and the Phanar that Dumenko had everything under control, the delegation of Constantinople did arrive in Ukraine. And not only did they arrive, but they immediately started working, holding meetings with representatives of all branches of Ukrainian Orthodoxy;
5) Judging by the absence of any clear reaction to the meetings, we can say that the Phanar delegation did not agree on anything concrete with anyone. The Phanariots heard the position of all the parties and obviously realized that it would be simply unrealistic to establish a dialogue between them as of today. And this, in principle, is not surprising. The OCU told them that they were ready for a dialogue, but would not stop seizing churches. The UOC put forward three conditions, including the cessation of church seizures. The UOC-KP even proposed a utopian idea — to hold a new council and achieve the status of patriarchate (guess who, according to the UOC-KP, would be the patriarch);
6) The Phanar media, without any specifics, began to report the most insider insights, saying that everything is really good, almost everyone has been persuaded. At the same time, all those who reported the opposite began to be accused of spreading fakes;
7) And now, the cherry on top. Yevstratiy Zoria, referring personally to Patriarch Bartholomew, said that information about the exarchate for the UOC is “fake news”. Could Zoria have said this without looking back at Bartholomew? Hardly.

Together. As we wrote earlier, the Phanar delegation left Ukraine with nothing. No special agreements were reached. Zoria, convinced that this was the case and that the topic of the exarchate was being covered up, decided to finish the situation with his authoritative commentary. No one, of course, claims that there will be no more attempts to develop this topic, but as of now, everything looks something like we wrote earlier and described now.