More than a year ago, on December 11, 2019, Patriarch Emeritus Filaret met with Andriy Telizhenko, who recently was imposed sanctions by the U.S. along with other Ukrainian citizens for interfering in the U.S. presidential election and spreading disinformation.
This is reported by Religiyna Pravda while citing the Spiritual Front of Ukraine.
At that point, the website of the Kyiv Patriarchate called him a "political adviser and ex-diplomat."
As the newspaper notes, during the conversation, Filaret discussed issues of mutual interest with the Russian-backed agent, or, rather got advised on them, in particular, on the need to "preserve the UOC of the Kyiv Patriarchate." In addition, Filaret told Telizhenko, who is close to the special services such as FSB of the Russian Federation, about the persecution of faithful of the "UOC-KP" and "raider activities on the part of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine", "the brutal use of the Church in the past Ukrainian presidential elections."
"I have always deemed it an honor to meet you, Your Holiness, as an outstanding and adamant Shepherd, a person of extraordinary faith and spirituality... I know that you enjoy constant authority not only in Ukraine but also in the United States of America. Today I work in the public sector and with you at the request of my American friends. It was important for me to hear your opinion to convey it from the original source. Human rights are sacred and unshakable values in the United States, as I would like it to be the case in Ukraine. It is unacceptable to "liquidate" churches and force believers to another denomination. Also, it is impossible to despise the greatness of golden-domed Kyiv, as a religious center for all Ukrainians, wherever they stay, to replace it with the glory of other people's patriarchal Thrones," Andriy Telizhenko said during the meeting that time.
In early October 2020, it became known that the United States deprived Telizhenko, who worked at the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington in 2015-16, of his visa. In the United States, even then they called him a "Russian agent" for spreading theories that it was Ukraine and not the Russian special services, that interfered in the U.S. election.
Recently, in a statement, the U.S. Treasury Department clarified that former Ukrainian civil servants Kulik, Onishchenko, Telizhenko and current MP Dubinsky publicly spoke with Derkach or joined him to spread and promote lies about Biden in a coordinated manner.
Telizhenko is associated with the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), which is in coordination with Andriy Derkach. In 1990-1993, Derkach studied at the Academy of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation. The topic of his thesis is "organizing and conducting meetings with secret agents".
Former Ukrainian diplomat Telizhenko organized meetings between Derkach and U.S. officials to help promote false claims about corruption in Ukraine. At the same time, Telizhenko established ties with Filaret in order to use his hands to strike at the Orthodox Church of Ukraine and strengthen the position of the Moscow Patriarchate.
According to the Spiritual Front of Ukraine, it is during the period of consultations with Telizhenko that Filaret is launching an even bigger campaign to discredit the Orthodox Church of Ukraine. Almost immediately after the meeting with Telizhenko (December 13), Filaret announced the forum "in defense of the Kyiv Patriarchate". And on December 15-17, 2019, he ordained two more bishops of the "liquidated UOC-KP". Filaret began to get closer to the UOC-MP and say that the Tomos of the OCU is "not like that", and the UOC-KP has not been eliminated. At the same time, at the end of 2019, in an interview with Ukrayinska Pravda, the Primate of the OCU, Metropolitan Epifaniy said that some pro-Russian forces were playing behind Filaret's back, and the Patriarch Emeritus himself wanted to become the Primate of the OCU. Religious scholar Dmytro Horyevoy said that the Russian special services are behind the attempts to restore the Kyiv Patriarchate.
In March 2020, it became known that a former employee of the Ukrainian Embassy in the United States, Andriy Telizhenko, offered money for U.S. Republican senators Rand Paul and Lindsey Graham to lobby the interests of the Ukrainian T.V. channels 112 Ukraine and NewsOne. This was announced by the editor of the Ukrainian English-language magazine Odessa Review Vladislav Davidzon, CNN reports.
NewsOne and 112 Ukraine T.V. channels have been owned by Taras Kozak (an associate of Viktor Medvedchuk) since autumn-winter 2018. Also, since June 2019, he owns the ZIK TV channel.
According to Detektor Media monitoring, these channels promote pro-Russian messages and promote representatives of the opposition platform-for life.
In addition, these pro-Russian channels spread messages about the "external governance of Ukraine" and supported Derkach's fables and propaganda against Patriarch Bartholomew and the OCU.
It is worth adding that Telizhenko's ideological friend Andriy Derkach, whose messages were spread by pro-Russian media in Ukraine, cooperates with the Russian Orthodox Church at the highest level. In 2010, the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church introduced Andriy Derkach to the Inter-Council presence of the Russian Orthodox Church. In September 2018, Derkach was one of the signatories of a letter to Patriarch Bartholomew, in which he called for postponing the granting of the Tomos to the OCU.