OR Staff Note: For anyone who cared to do even basic research, the truth about the Tomos that created the OCU has been apparent since 2018. Above the following article are some of our prior ones on this topic, dating as far back as 2022. Based on everything we know, one conclusion is inescapable. The Tomos was never meant for the benefit of Ukrainian Orthodox Christians. The Church in Ukraine was victimized to serve the agendas of powerful global players for whom the Orthodox Faith means nothing. This is a fact that supporters of the Patriarchate of Constantinople have long denied, calling any notion that Bartholomew was bribed, coerced, and/or enticed into betraying Ukraine nothing more than a “conspiracy theory.” New information coming to light, from within the Patriarchate itself, makes this claim increasingly difficult to stand behind. In the article below, a Greek Orthodox Christian provides more background information on how the Tomos really came about. It is not a pretty story.
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By Peter, a Greek Orthodox Christian
Having examined the linguistic authenticity and archival alignment of the so-called “2018 Kyiv chronicle” – an insider document from Phanar published on September 28 – today we turn to its most consequential passage: the account of December 14, when the Ecumenical Patriarchate’s delegation met with President Poroshenko under conditions of state coercion. What Georgios Frangakis, then a deacon, presents as a triumph is, upon closer inspection, a masterclass in diplomatic capitulation. For Greek American Orthodox communities navigating the pastoral fallout of the Phanar’s disastrous policy in Ukraine and worldwide, this document demands sober scrutiny.
The Illusion of Courage
Frangakis writes with belligerent bravado about how the delegation “exchanged views” courageously, signaling “unwavering resolve,” and how Patriarch Bartholomew’s “bold” speech utterly subdued Poroshenko and secured the delegation’s triumph.
Yet, the delegation’s “exchange of views” was not followed by any debate with the Ukrainian President. At least, the chronicle makes no mention of any such discussion. They found neither the courage nor the power to resist what was imposed upon them; they simply endured. Metropolitan Emmanuel (likely in a state of profound distress) confided in his companions that they were under de facto house arrest. Frangakis himself admitted he was so paralyzed by panic that he could not even take proper notes. Most striking of all: Patriarch Bartholomew never asked Poroshenko the single canonical question that should have anchored the negotiations— “Where are the twenty UOC bishops you promised?”
According to the chronicle, the Patriarch’s phone call to Kyiv devolved into a one-sided reprimand, demanding “immediate correction of the situation” and Filaret’s withdrawal as a candidate in the OCU Primate elections. But Poroshenko already had a draft of Filaret’s letter of renunciation ready! The implication is inescapable: it was not Bartholomew who coerced the Ukrainian President, but Poroshenko who suggested pressuring the schismatic UOC-KP leader, and the Patriarch merely agreed without making any further demands. Even the condition of the UOC bishops’ participation—the very canonical safeguard the Phanar once insisted was non-negotiable—was quietly abandoned.
What Was Hidden from History
In his chronicle, Frangakis provides Bartholomew’s “bold” remark as a literary quote while claiming fear rendered him unable to take the conversation minutes. He writes that he instead “repeatedly penned words of prayer.” This is a transparent evasion of submitting the full record of the negotiations.
However, at the Phanar, patriarchal telephone conversations—especially confidential ones—are always recorded. If Frangakis truly could not take notes, where did his precise quotation come from? The logical answer: it was sourced from an official audio transcript from the Phanar. Yet the chronicle contains no reference to a full transcript or minutes, although, in other parts of the document, Frangakis meticulously referred to the complete conversation records. So, in this case the omission is clearly deliberate.
Why hide the full exchange from the Holy Synod and from history? Because the unvarnished conversation would reveal that Poroshenko won decisively, reducing Patriarch Bartholomew’s envoy to a compliant messenger rather than a canonical defender.
An alternative explanation, whispered in the Phanar corridors: Frangakis did keep notes, but was ordered not to submit them to the archives. The “prayer-writing” excuse then becomes a necessary fiction to explain why Ukrainian officials and delegation members saw him writing continuously—when in truth, he was documenting state pressure that could not be officially acknowledged.
The Bathroom Meeting & Allegations of Corruption
Perhaps the most revealing passage is Frangakis’s account of a “private conversation” with the then-“Archbishop” Eustratios Zorya in a restroom during the negotiations. He claims to have delivered a theological lecture that moved Zorya away from promoting Filaret Denysenko’s stance, bringing him to repentance and to supporting the Ecumenical Patriarchate’s delegation thereafter.
In fact, in private conversations, those who know Zorya personally unreservedly dismiss this account as pure fiction. As a long-standing operative of the Security Service of Ukraine, an unapologetic OCU hawk, and a master of political manipulation, he would never speak to a minor Phanariot clerk in such a servile manner.
Zorya has never shown subservience to Phanar officials; indeed, he remains so uncompromising that Patriarch Bartholomew himself recently instructed the OCU Primate, Epiphanios Dumenko, not to bring him to future talks.
Ukrainian and Phanariot sources allege that the very reason Frangakis was dismissed from his post as Secretary of the Holy Synod in 2023 was corruption: specifically, that he (alongside Metropolitan Emmanuel) accepted funds from Poroshenko through Zorya to soften Constantinople’s stance, influence Bartholomew’s decisions, and expedite the “Unification Council.”
The restroom encounter, then, was likely not a spiritual victory but a transactional meeting, in which Zorya was delivering instructions or transferring funds. Frangakis was compelled to acknowledge their private conversation publicly but he reframed it as diplomatic finesse to protect himself from internal scrutiny.
His claim that the Ecumenical Patriarchate “won” over the UOC-KP delegates rings hollow when history has since proven otherwise: within a year, the OCU adopted a statute that contradicted the Tomos of autocephaly and undermined the control of the Mother Church of Constantinople. Today, the OCU operates effectively beyond the oversight of the Ecumenical Patriarchate.
The Aftermath & Canonical Consequences
Despite Frangakis’s biased narration, the chronicle inadvertently testifies to what many faithful Orthodox Christians have long perceived. Patriarch Bartholomew was deceived, outmaneuvered, and used as a legitimizing figurehead for a state-engineered ecclesiastical project. He failed to uphold canonical conditions and allowed political expediency to override conciliar procedure. The consequences have been profound: deepened divisions across the Orthodox world, eroded trust in the Phanar’s diplomatic credibility, Greek American parishes grappling with the pastoral fallout of a jurisdiction that now answers to Kyiv, not the Divine Head of the Church.
Dear friends, dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
The Union of Orthodox Journalists has published a very important article today.
It is quite extensive and contains a great deal of important information. Here is the article, along with a link to the UOJ website.
God bless you!
With love in Christ,
Your sister in Christ and your Ukrainian friend,
Tetyana Avramenko
https://spzh.eu/en/zashhita-very/96347-the-deception-that-decided-the-fate-of-the-tomos
The deception that decided the fate of the Tomos
10 October 2026
In 2008, the “Filaret problem” derailed Yushchenko’s plan. In 2018, Poroshenko solved it in just one hour – with a police escort for the Greeks and verbal promises to Filaret.
A document from the Phanar concerning the creation of the OCU, published by UOJ-America, casts the events of both 2018 and 2008 in a new light. In both cases, there was a “Filaret problem.” And in 2018, everything was decided in a single hour.
It is the morning of December 14, 2018, the day before the OCU’s “Unification Council.” A delegation from the Patriarchate of Constantinople is preparing to leave Kyiv over disagreements with Filaret Denysenko, who insists on becoming the head of the new church structure. Patriarch Bartholomew issues an ultimatum to the Ukrainian authorities: either Filaret abandons his claim to leadership, or the delegation leaves. President Petro Poroshenko goes to see Filaret, and just one hour later, a signed statement renouncing his claims is on the table before the Phanar’s representatives.
What happened during that hour? The author of the recently published chronicle does not say. But when his account is compared with earlier statements by Filaret himself, Alexander Drabynko, and other participants in the events of 2018, many episodes that once seemed difficult to reconcile suddenly fit together into a fairly coherent picture.
According to UOJ-America, the chronicle was written by the current Metropolitan Gregory of Ancyra, who was a patriarchal deacon in December 2018 and personally participated in the events.
The text appears to supply a missing link not only in the story of the OCU’s creation but also in the much longer history of relations among Filaret, the Phanar, and Ukraine’s presidents.
The dress rehearsal of 2008
In 2008, then-Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko had already attempted to establish a “united local church” with Constantinople’s involvement. Details of that effort were recently recounted by Viktor Baloha, who headed the Presidential Secretariat at the time.
According to Baloha, preparations took about six months. He personally accompanied Filaret to Istanbul twice for negotiations with Patriarch Bartholomew. The meetings lasted seven or eight hours each. Particularly revealing is the fact that these talks took place while Constantinople officially regarded Filaret as a defrocked cleric under anathema.
The negotiations concerned a plan for a new Ukrainian church to be headed by the now-deceased Metropolitan Volodymyr (Sabodan). But this was where the familiar “Filaret problem” arose. Filaret wanted to be the primate himself, something Bartholomew, according to Baloha, would not accept.
One episode is especially important here. According to Baloha’s account, the main agreements had already been reached before Bartholomew’s arrival, including the understanding that Filaret would not become primate. Filaret himself, however, had no intention of giving up his claim to leadership.
According to UOJ sources, Yushchenko personally visited Filaret for late-night negotiations, trying to persuade him to accept the arrangement proposed by the Phanar. But Denysenko stood firm: the new church structure would have to be headed by him.
Yushchenko faced a choice between Filaret and Bartholomew. He sided with Filaret. During his farewell meeting with Bartholomew, he asked the Phanar’s leader to appoint Filaret as head of the future structure after all. Baloha recounts the Patriarch’s response in vivid terms: Bartholomew allegedly struck the table with his staff and advised the president to attend to his own duties rather than interfere in church affairs.
Whether everything happened exactly that way is beside the point. What matters is that the effort ended in failure.
Ten years later, events followed almost the same course.
Filaret gives up the title, but not the power
n the fall of 2018, Filaret informed Bartholomew in writing that he would not seek election as primate of the new church. At first glance, this seemed to resolve the main obstacle that had derailed the 2008 effort. But the same letter contained an important qualification: Filaret asked to be entrusted with chairing the Synod of the united structure. He proposed that his “loyal disciple,” Epifaniy Dumenko, become primate.
In other words, Filaret wanted to retain real power, while Epifaniy was being prepared for the role of a figurehead.
Gregorios’ chronicle clearly illustrates the arrangement proposed by UOC-KP representatives during the negotiations. The “Unification Council” would elect the primate of the new structure, but Filaret would become chairman of the Holy Synod and exarch of all Ukraine, “with the rights of a Primate, namely, convening the Synod, episcopal elections, depositions, etc.”
The Phanar’s delegation refused to accept this two-headed structure. Metropolitan Emmanuel explained to Filaret’s representatives that such a system of governance was absurd and had no precedent in Orthodox ecclesiology. Ivan (Eustratius) Zoria, who effectively conducted the negotiations on Filaret’s behalf, refused to budge. According to Gregorios, he explicitly warned that without this condition, there would be no Council.
Even more interesting, however, was the position of the government representatives. Gregorios writes that they had previously assured the Greeks they were prepared to persuade Filaret to abandon his demands, but at the last moment they “went so far as to adopt Mr. Eustratius’s position.”
During the night of December 13–14, 2018, the confrontation intensified. Emmanuel was summoned to meet Poroshenko. Filaret and the head of the security service were already in the president’s office. The meeting continued until approximately 2 a.m. When Emmanuel returned, he told his companions: “Elder Filaret was unyielding and inflexible, and refused to reduce his demands for special powers within the new structure. Moreover, he had the President’s silent support.” The metropolitan concluded: “Unfortunately, we shall fail.”
Here, the events of 2008 and 2018 almost perfectly overlap. Once again, Filaret refuses to relinquish power. Once again, the president sides with him. Once again, Constantinople’s representatives refuse to accept his terms. And once again, the delegation is on the verge of leaving.
But this time, the Greeks did not leave
After the late-night meeting, the Phanar’s representatives decide that the game is over and prepare to head home. The decision unfolds like something out of a spy thriller, complete with elaborate secrecy. According to Gregorios, the delegation members were convinced that the security services were constantly monitoring them. Rather than discussing their next steps aloud, they passed written notes to one another.
Then the plot takes an even more dramatic turn. Emmanuel buys a ticket, the suitcases are packed, and cars have been called to take them to the airport. But Rostyslav Pavlenko, then deputy head of the Presidential Administration and the official overseeing the entire OCU project, learns of their planned departure and calls the president “in terror.”
Poroshenko asks Emmanuel to stop by on his way to the airport, while the police bring the remaining Phanar representatives to the presidential offices. As Gregorios later writes: “We were brought there under heavy police escort.”
This was no ceremonial escort but an act of coercion. And it was so blatant that one member of the Constantinople delegation complained to the U.S. Embassy about being “forcibly conveyed” to the meeting, while another reported the incident to the Greek Foreign Ministry.
Once there, the Phanar’s representatives had their cell phones confiscated and were subjected to personal searches. Emmanuel described the situation this way: “We are being detained and are forbidden to leave the country.”
All this is difficult to believe, but Gregorios was a participant in the events and described them in detail.
The decisive hour
So the Greeks are now effectively honored captives in the president’s palace. Poroshenko calls Bartholomew, only to hear the same demand as before: either Filaret relinquishes his claim to power, or the exarchs leave Ukraine.
Poroshenko then reads out a draft statement in which Filaret renounces all positions in the new structure except permanent membership in the Synod. The chronicle records the following exchange between Poroshenko and Patriarch Bartholomew: “If I obtain Filaret’s signature on that document, then do we proceed, Your All-Holiness?”
His All-Holiness raised no objection but said that his exarchs would have to ensure that the rights of the Patriarchate of Constantinople were not compromised. Poroshenko then went to see Filaret.
At this point, Gregorios’ chronicle falls into a telling silence. We know in detail what happened before the conversation, and we know what happened afterward. But we know nothing about the conversation itself.
Gregorios merely reports that the president immediately hurried to Elder Filaret so that “by his own authority he may obtain his signature,” adding further on that Mr. Pavlenko had delivered the signed document within an hour.
What happened during that hour? Why was Filaret “unyielding and inflexible” during the night, only to sign a document the following morning that clashed with his previous demands?
The answer may lie in Filaret’s own revelations six months later, following his high-profile break with the OCU.
“You will govern the Church”
In June 2019, when the conflict between Filaret and Epifaniy had already become public, the UOC-KP leader revealed that a verbal agreement on the division of power had been reached before the “Unification Council.”
According to Filaret, Poroshenko had promised him in Epifaniy’s presence: “You will govern the Church as you have always governed it.” Epifaniy, meanwhile, would be responsible for external representation.
In another statement, Filaret elaborated: “There was an agreement between the president, Epifaniy, and me that Epifaniy would be the primate, but he would represent the Ukrainian Church externally, while internally the Kyiv Patriarchate would remain, and Patriarch Filaret would lead that Patriarchate.”
He explained: “This was the agreement I accepted when I withdrew my candidacy. That was the condition, and that is why I was deceived. They told me I would govern the Kyiv Patriarchate, but it turned out otherwise.”
In January 2021, Alexander Drabynko indirectly corroborated this account, stating that Filaret had been promised effective control over the new church, while Epifaniy was supposed to play the role of the “Queen of England.”
With the publication of Gregorios’s chronicle, the pieces of the puzzle fall into a reasonably clear picture. It appears that Filaret agreed to abandon his claim to the official primacy of the OCU in exchange for verbal guarantees from Poroshenko and Epifaniy. Otherwise, his sudden change of position is difficult to explain.
Filaret himself put it this way: “We did not put this agreement in writing because I trusted them. I trusted the President, and I trusted Epifaniy. And they deceived me.”
Why Poroshenko could not afford another 2008
In 2008, President Yushchenko tried to persuade Patriarch Bartholomew to make concessions in Filaret’s favor. When that failed, the project collapsed. In 2018, Poroshenko tried to achieve the same thing. He failed as well. But Petro Poroshenko did what Yushchenko had refused to do: he deceived Filaret.
What was the difference between 2008 and 2018? The answer is obvious.
In 2008, the project to create what would effectively have been the OCU was merely one episode in Ukrainian political life. By 2018, however, it had become Poroshenko’s single biggest political undertaking. His second presidential term was at stake.
Even people from his own political circle acknowledged this. In the summer of 2018, Taras Berezovets, a political strategist on Poroshenko’s team, said: “One could say this is an ordinary election campaign tactic. And that would be true…”
Of course, supporters of the project presented autocephaly as a matter of national independence, national security, and so forth. But by late 2018, it had become impossible to separate the issue from politics.
As his presidential term drew to a close, Poroshenko had no economic breakthrough to show the public, no significant improvement in living standards, and no peace in Donbas, which he had promised at the beginning of his presidency.
That is why he made the Tomos the centerpiece of his reelection campaign and his slogan, “Army. Language. Faith.” A last-minute collapse of the “Unification Council” would have been more than a failure of church negotiations. It would have amounted to a political defeat before the election had even begun.
And so, when Poroshenko found himself in virtually the same position as Yushchenko ten years earlier, just one day before the “Council,” he simply could not afford to fail.
But what does any of this have to do with the Church?
What is most striking about this entire story is not even the sheer number of intrigues, secret agreements, political pressure tactics, and betrayed expectations.
It is something else: What does any of this have to do with the Gospel and the mission for which the Church exists?
Politicians view the Church as a tool. They need it to win elections, mobilize voters, consolidate power, and pursue geopolitical objectives.
But let us ask ourselves: What geopolitical objective was Christ pursuing when He said, “…I will build My church…” (Matthew 16:18)? Whose power was He seeking to strengthen? What voters was He trying to mobilize?
Does the Church not exist to unite people with God? To make Christ’s words, “…that they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us…” (John 17:21), a reality for every believer?
Yet when we read Gregorios’ chronicle and the revelations of Filaret, Drabynko, Baloha, and others about how the OCU was created, it is difficult to escape the impression that all of this is leading in precisely the opposite direction.
https://spzh.eu/en/news/96121-uoj-usa-publishes-scandalous-phanar-document-about-chronicles-of-ocu-creation
28 September 2026
UOJ-USA publishes scandalous Phanar document on chronicles of OCU creation
In the document prepared for Patriarch Bartholomew, a Phanar representative described the SBU’s surveillance of the Constantinople delegation and Poroshenko’s pressure on the course of the “Unification Council.”
The Union of Orthodox Journalists of America has published an exclusive document in which the events preceding the OCU’s “Unification Council” of December 15, 2018, and the course of the Council itself were described in detail for Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew.
The author of the nearly twenty-page “Chronicle of the Week of the Clergy-Laity Council in Kyiv” is the current Metropolitan Gregorios of Ancyra, who in 2018 served as a patriarchal deacon at the Phanar and assisted in secretarial work for the head of the Constantinople delegation, Metropolitan Emmanuel of Gaul (now of Chalcedon). The document’s metadata shows that it was worked on by Gregorios from December 28, 2018, to January 8, 2019. At the time of publication, His Eminence has not responded to UOJ-USA’s request for comment.
The Patriarch as “guarantor” of the OCU’s statute
The main opponent of the Phanariots at the negotiating table was UOC-KP spokesman Eustratius Zoria, whom the author characterizes as a man “very skilled in diplomacy.” However, the “Chronicle” reveals that at the decisive moment Zoria himself fell into a trap set for him.
For a full hour the parties argued over a single phrase in the draft – that the guarantor of the statute is the Ecumenical Patriarch. Finally, Zoria asked for the phrase to be explained. Gregorios admits that this was precisely the question he had “been waiting for from the very beginning.” Having received Emmanuel’s permission, the Phanarist explained: today the new structure contains people who revere the Phanar and the Patriarch as their “benefactor,” but tomorrow “ungrateful” people may come and wish to introduce into the Statute provisions that contradict the Tomos. “Who in that case will be the guarantor of the statute’s conformity with the Tomos? Of course, it must be the Patriarch,” he declared.
In response, Zoria proposed spelling out this provision in detail, which was done. As a result, the role of Constantinople in the OCU’s Statute was enshrined even more firmly than in the original draft. By the end of the session Zoria realized this, but it was too late. “Thanks to the elaboration, [the wording] became more binding than the original, but since I myself asked for clarification of this passage and accepted it before everyone, I do not want to change it again. I should have been content with the original,” the author quotes him as saying.
Gregorios does not conceal that the Phanar’s “concessions” were a tactical device. According to him, they only “demonstrated even more clearly the strength” of Patriarch Bartholomew with regard to the Statute. “Through such practical and partly illusory ‘concessions,’ the position of the Holy Great Church of Christ was consolidated,” he reports to the Patriarch with satisfaction.
“She teaches, and you learn”
During a break, Gregorious ran into Zoria, who asked how the Phanarist viewed the situation. The response, judging by the document, was blunt.
“We did not come here to negotiate, nor to call into question the rights of the Mother Church. She teaches, and you learn. In this case we are not negotiating as equals with equals,” Gregorios declared.
According to him, if Filaret insisted on “insane demands,” his supporters would “remain in schism.” “This is the last chance for the elder Filaret to become a hero. If he misses it, he will end his life as a schismatic,” the Phanarist said, adding that the representatives of Constantinople were in the position of “benefactors,” not the benefited.
Officials sided with Filaret
That same day, at a meeting with Pavlenko and Yurash, Eustratius Zoria read out a draft communiqué according to which Filaret would become chairman of the Synod and “Exarch of All Ukraine” with the rights of a Primate – to convene the Synod, elect and depose bishops.
In response to this, Metropolitan Emmanuel explained that this was impossible, “because it would constitute an unprecedented act in the ecclesiology of the Orthodox Church and would make us a laughingstock throughout Orthodoxy.” The UOC-KP hierarch threatened that without this assurance, no council would take place. He was backed up by the state officials, who Gregorios notes had agreed that they would persuade the elderly Filaret to back out of his quest for power until that moment. According to him, Metropolitan Emmanuel was left alone and proposed first holding the council, and after it acting as they saw fit.
A night in the Presidential Palace
On the evening of December 13, Poroshenko summoned Emmanuel to his residence at eleven o’clock at night. The other members of the delegation waited for him “in unspeakable anxiety and in the cold.” The head of the delegation returned only at 2 a.m. “downcast and deeply saddened”.
“Unfortunately, we shall fail,” Gregorios records Emmanuel saying. “They even asked me to remove my wristwatch, which I kept only by threatening to leave.”
In the office, besides Poroshenko, were Filaret and the chief of the security services.
“During the discussion, the elder Filaret was unyielding and inflexible… He also had the President’s silent support,” the author quoted Metropolitan Emmanuel as saying.
Notes on paper and a police escort
Due to the “constant surveillance of everything in the building”, the Phanariots began communicating with each other silently, using handwritten notes. Seeing the hopelessness of the situation, they decided to inform Patriarch Bartholomew that they were leaving Kyiv. Metropolitan Emmanuel had already purchased tickets by that point. In the morning the delegation sent the Patriarch a draft communiqué.
Upon learning of the departure plans, Pavlenko “in terror” informed Poroshenko. Emmanuel, who had already packed his luggage and called cars to the airport, was asked to stop by the presidential palace. About an hour later, police arrived for the remaining members of the delegation.
“After our initial reactions of perplexity, we all put on cassock and kalimavkion and, having resolved that above all we would prefer the all-sacred interests of the Mother Church, we were led there under escort by a strong police force,” Gregorios continued.
On the way, Archbishop Daniel of Pamphilon, himself Ukrainian by origin, lodged a protest with the escorts against the “forcible conveyance” and informed the US Embassy of what was happening. Metropolitan Amphilochios of Adrianople, in turn, contacted the Greek Foreign Ministry. At the palace the Phanariots were led into an operations room. Before entering it, the delegation’s mobile telephones were taken and they were subjected to bodily searches.
In the room were Poroshenko, Pavlenko, and one of the chiefs of the security services. There Emmanuel informed his companions that they were being detained and forbidden to leave the country.
“I am not going to sell the dignity of the Patriarchate”
A telephone conversation then took place between Poroshenko and Patriarch Bartholomew, which, according to the author, was heard by all those present.
“I honor you and respect you, but I am not going to sell the dignity of the Patriarchate to any Filaret. And if you are not in a position to impose order upon him, I am sorry, but my people must depart,” the head of the Phanar declared. After this, Poroshenko stated that if the Council did not take place, “there is a possibility of military intervention by Russia, which will see our weakness.” “Then correct the situation immediately,” the Patriarch replied.
Poroshenko read out a draft letter that Filaret was to sign: in it the head of the UOC-KP renounced any positions in the new structure except permanent membership in the Synod. The President personally went to Filaret, and the signed document was brought back by Pavlenko in less than an hour.
However, the surveillance did not end there. When the Phanariots went to a restaurant to discuss further steps, “throughout the ‘meal,’ more than ten secret agents moved around us, making little effort to conceal their secret character,” Metropolitan Gregorios writes.
Leaving no way for retreat
On the evening of December 14, Metropolitan Gregorios demanded that the UOC-KP and UAOC legally dissolve themselves before the Council, stating that otherwise Emmanuel would not come down to preside. When Zoria proposed doing this at the Council or after it, the Phanarist refused.
The document’s author frankly explains his plan to the Patriarch: “If something had gone wrong at the Council, they would have had a way out – to return to their former state. With the dissolution, this path of retreat would be closed, and they would be bound.”
Metropolitan Gregorios, together with a Greek-speaking priest, drafted a text that dissolved as legal entities all structures of both groups “down to the smallest parish.” “Have no doubt that without these documents he will not come down, and you will be disgraced to the ends of the earth,” he warned.
“He is about to sign”
However, on the morning of December 15, Filaret refused to sign the decision on the dissolution of the UOC-KP. Viktor Yushchenko, the Speaker of parliament, and Poroshenko went to persuade him, but to no avail. The author describes these hours in terse strokes: “Bitter cold. Snow. Protests began from participants waiting at the Saint Sophia. Draconian security measures. The army and police operated jointly.”
Around one o’clock in the afternoon Emmanuel came out to assess the situation, and Poroshenko, according to Metropolitan Gregorios, “made a pleading gesture,” asking: “I beg you, do not leave now. Everything is already prepared. He is about to sign.” Shortly afterward, “breathless and tearful” Eustratius handed the head of the delegation the signed document, and the Council began.
Let us recall that on December 15, 2018, at the “Unification Council,” the OCU was created from two schismatic structures – the UOC-KP and the UAOC – and headed by Met. Epiphany Dumenko. On January 5, 2019, Patriarch Bartholomew issued a Tomos of Autocephaly to the newly created OCU. A month before the Council, the Synod of the UOC recognized the Phanar’s decisions on Ukraine as canonically void. Filaret Denysenko left the OCU shortly after the Tomos was received and revived the UOC-KP, in which he remained until his death on March 20, 2026.
As the UOJ reported, according to OCU “hierarch” Daniil Kovalchuk, the conflicts between the Phanar and the authorities at the “Unification Council” were so acute that members of the Constantinople delegation left for the airport but were brought back under escort.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5KiEy2N4Ro
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2barZc3feKM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-IXBTtn3Rw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f___FCqsATE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdxkAlknNOU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9qRnYe2BF0
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ!
May the Lord bless you!
Thank you for telling the whole world the truth about the persecution of the UOC and for writing such important articles.
Please read this extensive and important article written by the Union of Orthodox Journalists.
Also, please watch the videos at the links provided.
With love in Christ,
Your sister in Christ and your Ukrainian friend,
Tetyana Avramenko
https://spzh.eu/en/zashhita-very/96168-the-shameful-chronicle-of-one-week-how-the-ocu-was-born
Shameful chronicle of one week: how the OCU was born
30 September, 2026
Exarchs under escort, a call from the operations room, and 36 votes for Epifaniy: what a member of the Phanar delegation revealed about the 2018 “Council”.The UOJ-USA has published an internal report by a cleric of the Patriarchate of Constantinople who accompanied Metropolitan Emmanuel of France in Kyiv in December 2018. The document is addressed personally to Patriarch Bartholomew and was written about a month after the events, in January 2019. It covers exactly one week: from Monday, December 10, when the author flew to Kyiv, to Sunday the 16th, when the delegation returned to the Phanar. According to the publication’s sources, the author of the report is the current Metropolitan Gregorios of Ankara, who in 2018 was a young deacon of the Patriarchate. This is neither journalism nor memoir, but an official report of the kind written for a single reader, and therefore with utmost candor and in every detail.
It is precisely this that makes the document both valuable and dangerous for the Phanar. All public statements by the Ecumenical Patriarchate about the “Unification Council” of December 15, 2018, at which the OCU was actually created, were couched in the most solemn terms: the Patriarchate, “in praise of God and in great joy,” announced the successful conclusion of the Council. The report, however, was written by a direct participant in the events and was not intended for public scrutiny. Consequently, the picture it presents is entirely different, and so are the colors in which those events are depicted.
The authenticity of the document is indirectly attested by the author’s awareness: he knew the protocol of the Phanar delegation down to the smallest details, including the names of the Presidential Administration staff and the schedule of meetings with UOC bishops and OCU “hierarchs,” as well as the exact breakdown of the votes when the list of three candidates for the post of head of the newly created structure was compiled.
It should be noted that the Greek media have already managed to comment on the document, and in their opinion “it is concrete enough not to be left unanswered.” “If political pressure was exerted on the patriarchal delegation, this needs to be clarified. If the descriptions are inaccurate, an equally clear denial backed by facts is needed. Silence leaves room for suspicions surrounding the critical days of December 2018,” says “Ekklisia Online”. Well, let us see what the report of a participant in those very events says.
She teaches, and you learn
The author of the chronicle is convinced that the main task of the Phanar delegation in Kyiv was to protect the interests of the Patriarchate of Constantinople. It was precisely from this that the delegation proceeded in its work in Ukraine.
Here is a conversation in a restroom, where the author went “to splash a little water on his face” and met “Archbishop” Eustratius Zoria, at that time Filaret’s right-hand man. Zoria asks how he sees the situation. The answer is worth quoting, because it is, in essence, a manifesto: “We did not come here to negotiate, nor to call into question the rights of the Mother Church. She teaches, and you learn. In this case we are not negotiating as equals with equals.”
And further: “Do you want insane demands? You will remain in schism. This is the last chance for the elder Filaret to become a hero. If he misses it, he will end his life a schismatic. We are in the position of benefactors, not the benefited.”
And all this is said not by a metropolitan or a patriarch, but by a Phanar deacon – in a restroom, to a Ukrainian “archbishop” who formally stands far above him in the hierarchy. It is telling that Zoria not only was not offended by his interlocutor’s brazen tone, but even thanked him.
The same intonation is heard from Metropolitan Amphilochios of Adrianople, when on the day after the Council he serves at St. Michael’s Monastery and says that the Mother Church “baptized the Ukrainian people anew.”
The author relays this without a shadow of embarrassment, as a very felicitous remark. But let us consider what this phrase meant for those who heard it: a people with a thousand-year Christian history is declared baptized anew because a Constantinople delegation spent a week in Kyiv and organized a “council” at which schismatics received legitimacy. This position strongly resembles colonial rhetoric, and for Ukrainian church self-awareness it is offensive regardless of jurisdiction.
No less expressive is the scene concerning the dissolution of the structures of the Kyiv Patriarchate and the UAOC.
First, the author writes their names only in quotation marks. Second, he explains to Zoria that the document on self-dissolution must be signed before the Unification Council, because dissolving at it an organization that “the Mother Church never recognized” would mean indirectly recognizing it (!). Thus a representative of the Patriarchate of Constantinople effectively confirmed that the Phanar never considered the UOC-KP and the UAOC to be a Church. But the author goes further and adds a threat: if there is no dissolution, Metropolitan Emmanuel will not take part in the forthcoming event, “and you will be disgraced to the ends of the earth.” And immediately, in parentheses, he reveals to the reader his “hidden calculation,” writing about it bluntly: if something went wrong, the Ukrainians would retain a path back, but with dissolution “this path of retreat would be closed, and they would be bound.”
In essence, this is the key phrase of the entire document. It explains very well why the Phanar needed the self-dissolution of the UOC-KP and the UAOC on the eve of the Council rather than after it: not for the sake of ecclesiological purity, but to bind the participants and deprive them of room for maneuver. The author himself calls it a calculation and himself calls it hidden. It turns out that the Patriarchate of Constantinople understood perfectly well that the representatives of the UOC-KP were capable of any “maneuvers” and could simply deceive the Greeks without a twinge of conscience.
Filaret’s break with the OCU in 2019, when he tried to revive the Kyiv Patriarchate and discovered that legally it no longer existed, only confirmed the fears of the Phanar delegation.
The guest residence and the operations room
The official version of the events of December 2018 has always insisted that the state merely “assisted” the Church. However, the chronicle shows with utmost candor what this “assistance” looked like from the inside.
The cleric of the Patriarchate who arrived in Kyiv was met by “Presidential Administration staff accompanied by police” and taken to the President’s guest residence, where the exarchs were staying. On the evening of December 11, representatives of the special services came to this residence “for briefing” and reported to Metropolitan Emmanuel about “the real intention of many (bishops) from Onuphry’s group to come to the Council” and about their “fears of Moscow.” In other words, the Ukrainian intelligence services served as a source of information for the Constantinople delegation regarding the sentiments of the episcopate of the canonical UOC. The sessions on drafting the Statute of the future OCU were held “in the presence of Mr. Rostislav Pavlenko on behalf of Mr. President and Andriy Yurash” – the deputy head of the Presidential Administration and the then director of the Department for Religious Affairs of the Ministry of Culture. Filaret’s demands concerning the Council were discussed at a meeting with the same Pavlenko and Yurash.
Then begins what in any other country would be called a scandal. To run ahead: after the failed night meeting with Poroshenko, which will be discussed in the next chapter, the exarchs decided to leave. Understanding that any discussion “aimed at working out a radical solution would be disrupted due to the constant surveillance of everything in the building,” they switched to communicating “silently, by means of handwritten notes on paper.” And the draft communiqué was sent to the Patriarch only in the morning – “solely because we knew that everything said in telephone conversations was being heard.” Metropolitan Emmanuel demonstratively bought a plane ticket at his own expense, “so that those in power would see it,” packed his luggage, and called cars to take him to the airport.
What happened next, the author recounts almost in a matter-of-fact, report-like manner. The President asked Metropolitan Emmanuel to stop by the palace “for a short while.” An hour passed, but there was still no word from him. Then a message arrived “that the police were coming to take all of us together to the Presidential Palace.”
The delegation was released only after a conversation with the Patriarch, and went to a restaurant to discuss matters “in another place.” The author notes: “throughout the ‘meal,’ more than ten secret agents moved around us, making little effort to conceal their secret character.”
Here it is worth recalling that all this is not “Moscow propaganda” but a documentary report by a Phanar cleric. It records that the exarchs of the Ecumenical Patriarch were in fact detained by the Ukrainian authorities, deprived of communication, and delivered under escort to the President, so that in their presence he might obtain the desired decision from Patriarch Bartholomew. The presence of the head of the security services at the late-night meeting involving Poroshenko, Filaret, and Emmanuel is mentioned by the author almost in passing, like a detail of the setting but it is a highly telling detail.
Separately, it is worth noting how the chronicle describes the state’s participation in the “Council” itself.
Poroshenko personally persuaded Filaret to sign a renunciation of all positions in the new church structure and a document on the dissolution of the UOC-KP. Earlier, parliament speaker Andriy Parubiy had also gone to Filaret with the same purpose.
And when Denysenko from the rostrum of the “Council” demanded the right to run for the post of primate of the OCU, “a man dressed in military uniform approached the President and demanded Filaret’s candidacy, but the President restored order.” In other words, the rules at the “Council” were determined by the President and his aides. In fact, it was a state-organized event to which “bishops” had been invited.
You are not ready for autocephaly
The central episode of the chronicle begins at eleven o’clock in the evening of December 13, when Poroshenko summons Metropolitan Emmanuel for a “consultation.” The other exarchs wait in the reception room “in a state of unspeakable anxiety and in the cold.”
Filaret was “unyielding and inflexible” and “had the President’s silent support.” The outcome: “Unfortunately, we shall fail.”
The author describes in the utmost detail everything Filaret demanded. The day before, Zoria had read to the exarchs a draft communiqué according to which the future “Unification Council” elects a primate, but Filaret remains “Chairman of the Holy Synod, Exarch of All Ukraine with the rights of a Primate, that is, convening the Synod, episcopal elections, depositions, etc.” Metropolitan Emmanuel explained that this “would be an unprecedented step in the ecclesiology of the Orthodox Church and we would become a laughingstock throughout Orthodoxy.” However, Zoria “insisted very stubbornly, threatening that without this there would be no Council.”
And here the author drops a phrase that explains well what was going on: “The paradox is that the representatives of the state, who had repeatedly assured us that they would in the end persuade the elder Filaret, at that hour took no more and no less than the position of Mr. Eustratius. His Grace the Exarch was left alone.”
That is, at the decisive moment Poroshenko was ready to hand Filaret the actual governance of the new Church under a nominal primate, just so that the “Council” would take place. The Phanar refused this, and this is indeed an important point in the whole story – the one at which the interests of Constantinople and Kyiv genuinely diverged. Representatives of the Patriarchate of Constantinople understood perfectly well who Filaret was and what he represented.
And here a logical question arises: did they understand this in Constantinople when they decided to lift the anathema from Denysenko, recognizing it as imposed for political considerations rather than for schism? The answer, it would seem, is obvious.
The denouement of the “Council” story comes on the afternoon of December 14 in the operations room, to which the exarchs were brought, again, under escort. Poroshenko sets up a speakerphone connection with the Patriarch. According to the report, Patriarch Bartholomew said to the President of Ukraine: “I have learned from His Eminence of France about the difficulties, and I am sorry that the problematic behavior of one person alone proves that you are not ready for autocephaly.” And further: “I honor you and respect you, but I am not going to sell the dignity of the Patriarchate to any Filaret. And if you are not in a position to impose order upon him, I am sorry, but my people must depart. At the Phanar we learned to fear no one and nothing where its rights from the ages are concerned.”
Poroshenko’s answer looks both strange and habitual for Ukrainian politicians, who are used to covering their actions with threats from Russia: “Your Holiness, the situation in Ukraine is such that if we do not hold the Council tomorrow, there is a likelihood of military intervention by Russia, which will see our weakness.” The Patriarch replied: “Then correct the situation immediately.”
Next, Poroshenko read out a draft of a letter that he himself would give Filaret to sign.
According to the draft, Filaret renounces any position in the new Church except permanent membership in the Synod. In the end, Patriarch Bartholomew agreed to continue, but only if “my Exarchs assure me that none of the privileges of the Mother Church is under threat.” Poroshenko “immediately and joyfully said goodbye to everyone and hurried to the elder Filaret to obtain his signature with his own authority.” The signature was brought an hour later. What Poroshenko said to Filaret we do not know. We know only that in 2019 Denysenko, reviving the UOC-KP, stated that he had been deceived – by Poroshenko, and by Dumenko and Zoria.
But let us return to the document and try to assess the situation. The Patriarch of Constantinople, in the presence of the President and his special services, states that Ukraine is not ready for autocephaly. The President responds not with a church argument but with a military one: without the “Council” there will be an invasion by the Russian Federation. And the next day the “Council” nevertheless took place. It was held not because “readiness for autocephaly” had suddenly emerged, but because teh President had obtained a signature from the ninety-year-old “hierarch,” which the latter would subsequently claim had been received through deception.
The author, of course, reports this with delight, but a reader who does not belong to the Phanar delegation sees something else here. He sees that the Tomos was issued after pressure from Poroshenko, who used the argument of war, and that the Patriarch himself at the decisive moment knew that he was granting autocephaly to a church that he himself had called unready for it.
There is also a human dimension in the situation, which the author was unable to hide.
On the morning of December 15, when Filaret refuses for hours to sign the dissolution of the “Kyiv Patriarchate” and the entire square in front of St. Sophia’s is waiting in the cold, the author writes: “In our hearts, we understood such an act. It was perfectly natural. The ‘Kyiv Patriarchate’ was a matter of a lifetime and of deeply held convictions for the ninety-year-old hierarch.” And at the end, when Zoria, “in tears,” hands Emmanuel the signed document and says, “Father, I think you know what this document means to us,” the author replies: “The Mother Church is a physician. Every operation causes pain, but it heals.”
The Statute as an instrument
Disputes over who wrote the Statute of the OCU and whom it benefits have been going on since December 2018. Filaret, as we remember, claimed that the Statute was written in the interests of Constantinople. The chronicle of the Phanar delegation member essentially confirms this. The Statute was indeed written by the exarchs, “defending by all means the eternal privileges of the Holy Great Church of Christ,” while the Ukrainian representatives merely accepted the text. The final edit the author made himself: “first I corrected it in Greek, and then in their language through English and Ukrainian translations.” The Ukrainian text of the OCU Statute is thus a translation from Greek via English.
The most candid part of this section of the report is devoted to the technology of negotiations. The author puts “concessions” in quotation marks and explains that these were merely ruses for advancing the interests of the Phanar. He chooses the example himself.
The draft stated that the guarantor of the Statute is the Ecumenical Patriarch. They worked on this phrase for an hour. Finally Zoria asked what it meant, and then-Deacon Gregorios, by his own account, had been waiting for this question “from the very beginning.”
He declares that “today in the new Church there are grateful people, but tomorrow ungrateful ones will come and want to introduce provisions contradicting the Tomos, so the guarantor of the Statute’s conformity with the Tomos must be the Patriarch.”
Zoria proposed spelling this out in detail. They did. However, at the end of the session Eustratius admitted that the detailed wording “had become more binding than the original,” but did not go on to change it. “I should have been content with the original,” Zoria said. The author sums up: “By means of such practical and partly illusory ‘concessions,’ the position of the Holy Great Church of Christ was secured.”
The second example concerns the name of the new structure. During the final editing, Zoria proposed removing the word “Autocephalous” from the Church’s official name, calling it “non-ecclesiological.” The author agrees, but explains to the Patriarch the true background: Zoria did not want this word because of its association with Makariy’s UAOC. As for the Phanar, Zoria’s proposal suited it, “since ‘autocephalists’ is an odious and unacceptable notion.” Thus, the new ecclesiastical structure, for whose autocephaly the whole process had supposedly been undertaken, ended up without the word “autocephalous” in its name: to one side, it was a reminder of the rivals; to the other, of the schismatics. As for the Ukrainian people, supposedly yearning for autocephaly, no one even remembered them in this situation.
The third example, self-dissolution, has already been mentioned. But here one should also say something about the procedural side. On the morning of December 14, even before the call to the Patriarch, the author, with Met. Emmanuel’s permission, sets Pavlenko a condition: before the “Council” the legal entities of the Kyiv Patriarchate and the UAOC must be dissolved. Yurash suggests telling the representatives of these structures about it “privately, not in front of everyone.” The author replies: “His Grace the Exarch will not come down to the Council if this is not done.” Zoria tries to move the dissolution into the framework of the Council or to the time after it, but is refused. Then the Ukrainians ask to have a draft of the dissolution prepared for them, and… it is drafted by a deacon of the Patriarchate.
Thirty-six votes
How exactly Epifaniy was elected had until now been known only from the retellings of participants, which differed in details. The chronicle, however, gives figures from a person who himself affixed the Council’s seal to the ballots and was “constantly present” at the vote count, which was led by Bishop Daniel (Zelinsky) of the Patriarchate of Constantinople.
First, Metropolitan Emmanuel announced that all hierarchs could be candidates, “with the exception of two bishops – Filaret and Makariy.” Filaret objected from his seat: “Are we deprived of the right of election? Everyone here has a name and a title. I have none. Why?” He was answered first by UOC Metropolitan Symeon (rather sharply), and then by Makariy. After that Metropolitan Emmanuel “with gravity and gratitude read out Metropolitan Filaret’s letter to Your Holiness, in which he renounced any position in the new Church.” Thus the letter obtained by Poroshenko the day before was presented to Filaret himself as a fact of renunciation, and this was done before two hundred delegates.
Then 121 people voted for a secret ballot and 41 for an open one. After that a list of three candidates was drawn up, in the formation of which “hierarchs,” “clerics,” and laity took part: Epifaniy – 81 votes, Symeon – 56, Mykhailo Zinkevych – 38.
And here there is an interesting moment: “Metropolitan” Mykhailo Zinkevych refused inclusion in the list. The next in votes, “Metropolitan” Dimitriy, also refused. After that, according to the author, everyone refused, “to the point that the elder Filaret was forced to beg someone who had received one vote each, even without their knowledge, to agree to inclusion among the ‘three persons,’ which is what ultimately happened.”
That is, the third candidate in the final list turned out to be a person with a single vote, who was included there without even obtaining his consent! Only after this did Filaret “approach and, having voted, bless the ballot box with an effective and symbolic gesture.” In the final vote, in which only “bishops” of the UOC-KP, the UAOC, and two bishops from the UOC took part, Epifaniy received 36 votes and Symeon (Shostatsky) 28.
Of the 64 “bishops” who voted, 36 spoke for Epifaniy, that is, slightly more than half. Symeon, the only one of the two bishops who had come over from the UOC to be nominated, received 28 votes. In all likelihood, besides Drabinko, a significant part of the UAOC “episcopate” voted for him, as well as those “hierarchs” of the Kyiv Patriarchate who did not want to see Filaret’s protégé at the head. Had Mykhailo – according to the chronicle, the “opposition candidate” – not withdrawn his candidacy, the outcome could have been different. In the end, the first “Primate” of the OCU won by a margin of eight votes in an election in which the two main figures had been excluded beforehand, while the third candidate was added to the list without his knowledge.
The question of legitimacy should also be raised in connection with the author’s assertion that the Phanariots themselves voted at the “Council.” According to him, he “insisted that the list be brought to the Exarchs, and that this be done in the middle of the procedure, so that – neither at the beginning nor at the end – it would be possible to see how each person had voted.” In other words, the Exarchs of Constantinople voted in the election of the “Primate” of the Ukrainian church.
Two out of the “many”
The entire plan for the “Unification Council” rested on the expectation that the episcopate of the UOC would split and that a significant portion of it would join the new structure. The chronicle shows where this confidence came from and how it ultimately fell apart completely.
On December 11, then-Metropolitan Oleksandr (Drabinko) of the UOC came to see the Exarchs. He is described as a representative of “Onuphry’s group.” According to the author, he “warmly expressed his support for the canonical actions of the Mother Church and reported that many secretly wished to join the new body, but feared, on the one hand, that the Phanar would ultimately take no action to protect them, and, on the other, that Moscow’s actions against possible ‘defectors’ would be merciless.”
Metropolitan Emmanuel assured Drabinko that the Patriarch, “exercising his right to provide assistance through appeals beyond his borders, would in no way abandon clergy of any rank who joined,” and asked him to “convey this in the strictest confidence to all sides, in order to encourage those who wished to join.”
That evening, the Ukrainian security services confirmed the “genuine intention of many from the group of His Beatitude Onuphry to attend the Council.” A dinner with Shostatsky and Drabinko then took place, paid for by the latter. Clergy members who were “intending to follow them” were also present at the dinner.
In the end, however, the only representatives of the UOC who came to the “Council” were the same Shostatsky and Drabinko. The chronicle does not even discuss this fact; the author simply moves on to describing the presidium, where Symeon is seated “as the first of Onuphry’s group,” which consisted of him and Drabinko.
This point is important for two reasons. First, it documents the mechanism: Constantinople promised UOC bishops protection through the right of appeal, that is, through the very same disputed canonical instrument on which the entire Phanar argument concerning the Ukrainian issue rests, while obtaining information about the sentiments of the episcopate from the Ukrainian security services.
Second, it shows just how far the picture presented to the Exarchs diverged from reality. Both Drabinko and the security services spoke of “many.” According to them, public opinion “warmly supported” everything that was happening. Yet only two out of the 98 UOC bishops at the time attended the “Council”, which, in practical terms, is little more than a statistical margin of error.
The meeting with the “bishops” of the UOC-KP on the evening of December 13 is also telling. “Metropolitan” Mykhailo arrived with seven “hierarchs,” who are described in the document as being “among those who resisted.” It turned out that “they had no knowledge or information whatsoever about the course of the discussions,” that they “were afraid to express their views in a vote because the gray-haired elder Filaret was imposing an open vote on them,” and that they “demonstrated a lack of inner readiness.” According to the author, “Metropolitan” Anthony (apparently Makhota) “moved everyone deeply”: “We have lived in schism for so many years, in darkness and in the shadows, like prisoners of our own choice… We have become accustomed to living in schism and, as it were, to self-sufficiency. We often fail to realize the pitiful state we are in. Help us at least to understand our problems.”
This is said by a serving “hierarch” of the Kyiv Patriarchate. The author presents these words as a touching testimony of repentance. But in reality, they sound quite different: the “episcopate” that Constantinople recognized as canonical by a single synodal decision – without repentance or reordinationm – was itself describing its condition as schism, darkness, and captivity just 48 hours before the Council. This admission has never been made public until now.
It has happened before
Church history knows of many acts adopted under pressure from secular authorities. The chronicle inadvertently places the events in Kyiv in this category, and it is useful to recall how such acts ended.
The closest parallel and the most uncomfortable one for the Phanar is 1589.
Ecumenical Patriarch Jeremiah II came to Moscow seeking financial assistance and spent more than six months there, actually in the position of an honored prisoner. Tsar Feodor I and Boris Godunov secured his agreement to the establishment of the Moscow Patriarchate, and according to the sources, Jeremiah agreed reluctantly and under pressure. Constantinople later spent centuries reminding Moscow that the patriarchate had been granted to it “under constrained circumstances.”
The December 2018 chronicle describes essentially the same pattern with striking precision: the Exarchs at the residence of the head of state, their phones confiscated, a ban on leaving, and a president who, in the presence of the head of the security services, obtains the desired decision. The only difference is that Jeremiah needed six months, while Emmanuel needed just one night and a phone call.
The second parallel is the Council of Florence in 1439. Emperor John VIII Palaiologos brought a Greek delegation to Italy in pursuit of military assistance against the Turks and secured the signing of the union. The argument was the same as Poroshenko’s: if you do not sign, the enemy will come. All the Greeks signed, with the exception of St. Mark of Ephesus. After returning home, those who had signed withdrew their signatures one after another, while the people never accepted the union with the Catholics.
Just fourteen years later, Constantinople fell. The military argument in an ecclesiastical matter proved futile, and the signatures placed under pressure were not worth the paper on which they were written.
There is a third parallel, closer in time. In 1870, a sultan’s firman established the Bulgarian Exarchate, and in 1872 the Council of Constantinople declared the Bulgarians schismatics, condemning “ethnophyletism,” that is, the subordination of ecclesiastical organization to the national principle. The schism lasted 73 years. For the Phanar, it became enduring evidence that the Church cannot be created by the state along national lines. In Kyiv in 2018, the country’s president pushed through the creation of a new Church with the participation of the parliamentary speaker and other officials and did so on a purely national basis. The word “autocephalous,” as we have seen, was removed from the name for tactical reasons. But removing a word is easier than removing a precedent: the Bulgarian history has not gone anywhere.
The fourth parallel is Estonia in 1996. It shows how such situations usually end. Constantinople revived its 1923 Tomos and established a parallel structure in the canonical territory of the Moscow Patriarchate. Moscow broke communion with Constantinople, and several months later the parties reached an agreement on two parallel jurisdictions. This was possible in Estonia because the matter involved dozens of parishes. But in Ukraine, the issue concerns thousands of parishes and dozens of monasteries! This is precisely why an “Estonian compromise” proved impossible on the Ukrainian scale. A member of the Phanar delegation to Kyiv explains why: Constantinople’s entire calculation was based on a mass defection of the UOC episcopate, which ultimately did not happen.
Finally, it is worth recalling how Constantinople itself experienced pressure from secular authorities. Patriarch Constantine VI was expelled from Turkey in 1925 as part of a population exchange. Patriarch Maximos V was forced to step down in 1948 under the pretext of illness, while his successor, Athenagoras, flew from America aboard a plane provided by President Truman. The Phanar remembers these events as humiliation and violence against the Church. Yet in Kyiv, the guardians of this memory did not voice the slightest protest when the state organized a church council and effectively held them hostage.
Once again: in all the cases listed above, the outcome was the same. An act adopted under pressure did not simply disappear, but neither did it acquire the necessary fullness and authority within the Church. It remained a subject of dispute for subsequent generations until the Church found the strength either to affirm it freely or to revoke it. The 2018 Kyiv act has so far been confirmed by neither of these means, and the report to Patriarch Bartholomew explains very clearly why it is so difficult to regard it as a free act.
Who will read what into this
A document written for a single reader has now become public, and everyone will find something different in it.
Moscow will find confirmation of everything it has been saying since 2018: the “Unification Council” was a state-organized event; autocephaly was granted under pressure and on the basis of political rather than ecclesiastical arguments (that without the “Council”, Russia would supposedly attack); the Exarchs acted in contact with the security services; and attempts were made to lure UOC bishops over with promises of protection. For Moscow, this document is more valuable than any statement of its own because it was written by an opponent. The one thing Moscow will have to keep quiet about is the parallel with 1589, which cuts against Moscow no less than it does against the Phanar.
The Churches of Serbia, Antioch, Poland, Bulgaria, Georgia, and others that have not recognized the OCU will gain an argument they have long needed. Their position has always been that the issue is not Moscow, but the manner in which the new structure was created in Ukraine. That very process is what the report to Patriarch Bartholomew describes.
The situation is different for the Churches of Alexandria, Cyprus, and Greece, which have recognized the OCU: for them, the document is extremely inconvenient. Publicly, they will most likely remain silent. But within these Churches there are many bishops who agreed to recognition reluctantly and under pressure, or even refused to support it altogether. For them, the report will become yet another argument against further legitimization of the Ukrainian schismatics.
The situation looks most difficult of all for the OCU. For it, the document is not merely inconvenient but directly destructive. It indicates that the Statute was drafted by the Greeks and translated through English; that the “concessions” were merely nominal; that the name was shortened for tactical reasons; that the “Primate” was elected with 36 votes after the two principal contenders had been excluded; and that the “bishops” of the OCU were describing their own condition as schism just two days before the “Council.” Each of these details has long been discussed, but there had been no documentary evidence to substantiate those discussions. Now there is—and it has been provided by the Phanariots themselves.
Instead of an Epilogue
The main question remains: what will the Phanar say in response? Our Greek colleagues are right: silence in a situation like this is also an answer, and far from the best one. The only way to refute the document is to produce facts that contradict it. But the person who would have to be refuted is not some “Moscow propagandist”, but their own cleric, now a metropolitan, who wrote not for the public but for his Patriarch.
And if the document is authentic, then the Ecumenical Patriarchate will have to acknowledge the obvious: the OCU was born not out of “great joy” and not from the will of the Ukrainian church people, but out of late-night negotiations under the watch of the security services, a phone call from the operations room, and a signature obtained from a ninety-year-old elder in exchange for promises that he himself would later call deception.
Almost eight years have passed. The chronicle of one week has turned out to be a chronicle of a mistake that the Phanar made deliberately. And the longer it remains silent, the more obvious it will become that it has nothing to say in its own defense.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ad5F1RjIt7U
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9qRnYe2BF0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-IXBTtn3Rw
My dear friends!
Thank you very much for this important article!
God bless you!
Yous sister in Christ
With love in Christ
Tetyana Avramenko