Patriarch Bartholomew will not give consent to the creation of an exarchate for the UOC, - religious scholar

A lobbyist for the OCU in the media, Doctor of Philosophy, Professor at the Skovoroda Institute of Philosophy of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine Lyudmila Filipovich expressed doubts about the possibility of establishing a special exarchate of the Patriarchate of Constantinople on the territory of Ukraine, which could become a canonical alternative for priests and believers of the UOC who do not wish to transfer to the OCU. According to Filipovich, it is unlikely that all parties involved in this issue would agree to such a step. She spoke about this on the YouTube channel “Viche.”

«I can hardly imagine that the Ecumenical Patriarch would agree to this. He already has his representative here. Ask Bishop Mykhailo Anishchenko — would he like to take the Ukrainian Orthodox Church under his omophorion? And the second question is: would the Ukrainian Orthodox Church want to join or, say, establish some kind of relationship with Bishop Mykhailo Anishchenko? I don’t think so. That is, over the years that he has been here as the ambassador of the Ecumenical Patriarch, relations between them have not been particularly good,» — Filipovich noted.

The religious scholar added that despite the low probability of creating a Phanar exarchate, the Patriarchs of Constantinople and Moscow could agree on coexistence in Ukraine. In her opinion, this decision could be temporary.

«If we want unity, we just have to work. There must be movement towards each other. We see that there are initiatives towards the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, but on their part, especially on the part of the leadership, there is no such movement. Therefore, I can hardly imagine that we will have such an exarchate, but this does not mean that we should stop and cease to think about possible models of coexistence of the Constantinople and Moscow jurisdictions in Ukraine. Perhaps it will be some kind of agreement between the Ecumenical and Moscow Patriarchs. Perhaps it will be some kind of temporary form of coexistence. But what we must understand is that this Church (the UOC, ed.) will continue to exist, that neither the parishes nor the people who are parishioners of these parishes will go anywhere. And we need to look for real ways to incorporate them into our Ukrainian life,» — the religious scholar suggested.

Earlier it was reported that the Primate of the Orthodox Church of Cyprus, Archbishop George, is blackmailing Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople with a change of position on the Ukrainian church issue. If the head of the Phanar helps to restore the rights of the deposed Metropolitan Tikhikos of Paphos, Archbishop George threatens to refuse to recognize the OCU and to begin commemorating His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry during divine services.