Head of UAOC Makariy: no agreement yet achieved regarding key issues of the unification council
Head of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church Makariy (Maletich) believes that before convening the Council, it is at first necessary to discuss current issues, and then to assemble. At the moment, according to him, they have nothing to present to the Council.
This was stated by Metropolitan Makariy in an interview with ZIK.
“The Unification Council will take place when the statute is drafted, the name of the unified Church will be presented,” he said.
Metropolitan Makariy noted that the structure of the new Church, patriarchal or metropolitan, remains unclear.
"What do we have to present to the Council?" asks the Primate.
Primate of the UAOC Makariy also gave account of his last meeting with Patriarch Filaret.
“I talked to Patriarch Filaret on Sunday before the prayer service near St Sophia of Kyiv on the Feast of Intercession. And I was stunned by this communication,” the primate shared his impressions.
When we met, Patriarch Filaret turned to me and said we urgently needed to convene the Council.
I say:
- Your Holiness, we have no statute to convene the Council.
“I’ve got the statute,” replies Filaret.
- I also have, but two of them have to become one.
- No, we’ll take mine.
2015 is repeating itself,” Metropolitan Makariy summarizes.
The Primate of the UAOC disliked other considerations of Patriarch Filaret about the future of the new Church.
“The name is already there. Everyone should join this name, which exists now and is led by its patriarch,” Patriarch Filaret told me, “The third question is which status, which model? I said that I have to know if there can be a metropolitanate or a patriarchal model. And he answered with anger that there would be the patriarchal system. The exarchs do not say anything about it.”
In 2015, the fifth attempt to unite the UOC-Kyiv Patriarchate and the UAOC ended in failure. During the last talks, the UAOC representatives insisted that the members of the unification council be selected on the 50/50 principle. Metropolitan Makariy also demanded that the new name necessarily contain the word “Autocephalous”. The priests of the UOC-KP rejected these proposals.
