HAVING RECOVERED FROM CORONAVIRUS, 91-YEAR-OLD PATRIARCH FILARET CALLS LOCAL CHURCHES NOT TO RECOGNIZE P.Ts.U. AND RESIST "PAPISM"
The nominal head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kiev Patriarchate, Patriarch Filaret, appealed on 19 October to local Orthodox churches, urging them not to recognize the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (PTsU), which was created with his participation in 2018 at a Unification Council in Kiev. The text of the appeal was published on the official website of the UPTsKP.
"To recognize the tomos [concerning the autocephaly of the PTsU] of 6 January 2019 means to agree to the emergence of its own kind of papacy within Orthodoxy. Proceeding from the fact that this tomos violates the purity of Orthodoxy, any Orthodox church that wishes to remain Orthodox cannot recognize that tomos," Filaret declared.
He emphasized that the recognition of the tomos concerning the autocephaly of the PTsU means the recognition "not of the primacy of honor of the patriarch of Constantinople within Orthodoxy, but his primacy of authority." Filaret's arguments in this part repeat in full the official position of the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate.
It was reported in September that the 91-year-old patriarch had contracted the coronavirus, from which he has managed to recover successfully. (tr. by PDS, posted 20 October 2020)
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