PATRIARCH FILARET WANTS TO REWRITE PTsU CHARTER
There are certain shortcomings in the current charter of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (PTsU) and therefore it is necessary to change it at the next Local Council.
This is the opinion voiced by Honorary Patriarch Filaret in an interview with Glavkom.
"[The charter] does not satisfy me personally. And therefore we should conduct a session at the next Local Council and adopt a charter of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (sic). The Kiev metropolia is not a part of the patriarchate of Constantinople, because we are now using that charter, a Greek charter. As an autocephalous church, we should have our own Ukrainian charter, which we must confirm at a Local Council. Therefore we await the convening of a council of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (sic), at which a charter of our church must be adopted."
Among the shortcomings of the current charter of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine Vladyka Filaret named the procedure of appointing permanent members of the Synod.
"The main thing is to change the number of permanent members of the Synod. What is needed is not three, as now, but more, 12 or so. For the others there remains the possibility of rotation of temporary members of the Synod," he reported.
"The permanent members of the Synod should be authoritative bishops from various regions, from the center, the west, the east, the south, and the north. So that the whole of Ukraine will be represented in the Synod by permanent members, that is, as we had it hitherto in the patriarchate of Kiev. And as it was, incidentally, in the Ukrainian church before the division; there were such procedures and traditions which are not new for us," the honorary patriarch added.
Vladyka Filaret consequently proposes to start with convening a Local Council, at which the participants will adopt a charter, and then on the basis of the new charter, elect a Synod.
Honorary Patriarch Filaret also expressed confidence that the ecumenical patriarchate will not object to these initiatives.
"They said this to us: accept the charter for now, which we propose for you, but when you receive the tomos, you will be an autocephalous church and you will adopt the kind of charter that you need," the PTsU hierarch noted. (tr. by PDS, posted 18 March 2019)
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