Filaret expresses interest in rewriting OCU Charter
The present Charter of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine has certain flaws, and therefore it needs to be amended at the next Local Council.Such an opinion was voiced by Emeritus Patriarch Filaret in an interview with Glavkom.
"I am personally dissatisfied (with the Charter). Therefore, we must hold a meeting and adopt the Charter of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church at the next Local Council. Not the Kyiv Metropolis as part of the Constantinople Patriarchate, because we are now using the Greek Charter. We, as an autocephalous Church, need to have our own Ukrainian Charter, which we must approve at the Local Council. Therefore, we are waiting for the convening of the OCU Council which must adopt the Charter of our Church.”
Among the shortcomings of the present Charter of the OCU, Emeritus Patriarch Filaret called the appointment of permanent members of the Synod. “The most important thing is to change the number of permanent members of the Synod. We need not three of them but many more, like 12. For others, it will be possible to alternately be temporary members of the Synod,” he said. “Permanent members of the Synod should be reputed bishops from different regions, from the Center, the West, the East, the South, and the North of Ukraine. In order for the whole of Ukraine to be represented in the Synod as permanent members, that is, as we had before the time in the Kyiv Patriarchate. And so, it was the case of the Ukrainian Church before split, it was the order and tradition that was not new to us,” added the honorable Patriarch.
Emeritus Patriarch Filaret therefore proposes to first convene a Local Council at which the participants will adopt the Charter, and then elect the Synod on the basis of the new Charter.
Emeritus Patriarch Filaret also expressed confidence that these initiatives would not be denied in the Ecumenical Patriarchate. “They told us this way: accept the Charter we offer you until you receive the Tomos, and, as you become an autocephalous church, you can adopt the Charter you need,” the hierarch of the OCU stressed.
