Patriarch Filaret About Ambitions of Patriarch Kirill

KYIV – On June 1, 2010, at a press conference at UNIAN "Church and State: Holidays and Ferial Days," the head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Kyivan Patriarchate (UOC-KP), Patriarch Filaret, stated: "The visits of Patriarch Kirill to Ukraine are mostly of political character." The theme of the meeting was church-state relations, the celebration of the Day of Baptism of Kyivan Rus, and the anniversary of the construction of Sophia of Kyiv.

According to our RISU correspondent, Oleksandr Boiko, the special theme of the meeting was the upcoming visit of Patriarch Kirill to Ukraine. Patriarch Filaret said that one cannot protest against this visit as an archpastoral one but that such visits often prove to be political and aimed to establish "the Russian world," which "disguises the imperial idea." According to the head of the UOC-KP, such an idea destroys the sovereignty of Ukraine as an independent state.

The hierarch added that the leadership of the UOC-KP is also concerned over the rumors that Patriarch Kirill wants to have dual citizenship—Ukrainian and Russian—to be able to come to Ukraine more often and wants to have a residence in the Kyiv Cave Monastery and change his title to "Patriarch of Moscow, Kyiv, and All Rus."

"These steps will simply destroy the independence in the government of the UOC-MP, which will be independent only in words; Metropolitan Volodymyr then will have to change his title to something else," stated Patriarch Filaret.

Patriarch Filaret noted that the president declares equality in the treatment of the authorities to all the denominations and religions but such equality is not always shown at a local level and in specific areas. The head of the UOC-KP pointed out that "when they talk about renewal of services in Sophia of Kyiv we do not object, but not so that only representatives of one church can hold services there." Another example mentioned was the case of transferring the Cathedral of Ascension in Pereyaslav-Khmelnytskyi.

Patriarch Filaret also paid attention to the pressure and restriction of public initiatives on TV and other mass media.