Out of over 40 bishops, two attend Filaret's 'Council'

In St Volodymyr's Cathedral of Kyiv, on the initiative of ex-Patrairch Filaret, an assembly involving several hierarchs, priests and lay people of the former UOC-Kyiv Patriarchate started, which participants call a "Local Council."

The main goal of the "Council", as ex-Patriarch Filaret had previously announced, is to restore the Kyiv Patriarchate, which will exist separately from the autocephalous Orthodox Church of Ukraine.

The "Council" is being held in the former main Church of the UOC-KP — St Volodymyr's Cathedral, whose rector Archpriest Boris Tabachek is a supporter and longtime ally of Filaret.

Only two bishops out of more than 40 bishops of the former UOC-KP arrived at the "Local Council of the UOC-KP". Metropolitan Ioasaph of Belgorod and Oboyany and his vicar Bishop Petro (Moskalev) arrived from Russia. In Russia and Moldova, there are several acting Orthodox parishes that belonged to the UOC-KP, they are subordinated to these hierarchs.

According to the list of participants of the "Council", Bishop Filaret of Falesht and Eastern Moldova (Theodore Panky) was supposed to come, but has not arrived.

According to BBC News Ukraine, the event is closed to the press, but before the "Council" began, there was no more than a dozen of priests in St Volodymyr 's Cathedral.

Among those invited to the Council were the abbots of some monasteries: Archimandrite Makariy (Papish) of St Theodosius Monastery, Archimandrite Arseny (Pozarny) of St Nicholas Monastery (in Bohuslav).  According to the BBC, Archimandrite Makariy refused to go to the "Council".

Archimandrite Andriy (Marutsyak), a monk of St Theodosius Monastery, archpriests Leontiy Nikitenko, Roman Zagursky (USA), Volodymyr Chayka (Germany) and deacon Vasily Didukh were also invited to St Volodymyr's Cathedral.

At the same time, the sources of BBC in the OCU suggest that some of the abbots mentioned in the guest lists may fail to appear at the Council.