Metropolitan Jonathan. Archbishop Jonathan (Eletsky): At the origins of the birth of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church

Born on January 30, 1949 in the village. Shatalovka (Voronezh region, Russia). Parents - Ivan Fedorovich and Olga Semyonovna - decorated veterans of the Great Patriotic War.

After the war, my father was the director of a boarding school for orphans until 1949, studied at the Leningrad Military Academy, and rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel in the ranks of the SA. During his childhood and early school years he lived with his parents in the city of Severomorsk (Murmansk region). After his father was transferred to the Kiev Military District (1961), he secretly received baptism from the Kyiv priest Alexei Glagolev, known for hiding Jews during the years of Nazi occupation.

After graduating from high school in 1966, he served in the Soviet army.

Study and work in Leningrad

In 1970 he entered the Leningrad Theological Seminary, and then from 1973-1976 he studied at the Leningrad Theological Academy, studying at the same time in the regency class. He studied singing and attended the rehearsal hall of the Glinka Academic Chapel. He became close to avant-garde artists Sergei Spitsyn and Tatyana Glebova, who highly valued his musical talent. He attended exhibitions organized by Glebova in her workshop (which was considered dangerous in those days).

On April 5, 1977, Metropolitan Nikodim (Rotov) of Leningrad and Novgorod was tonsured a monk with the name Jonathan. On April 16, the same hierarch ordained him to the rank of hierodeacon.

He graduated from the academy with a candidate's degree in theology and was retained as a professor's fellow. For several years he taught church singing at the seminary and in the regency class, and also served as the regent of the choir of Leningrad theological schools. In 1986, this choir, under his direction, recorded a gramophone record, where Jonathan’s original works were voiced for the first time.

In December 1986, he was summoned to the KGB in connection with the distribution of the book “The Gulag Archipelago” by Alexander Solzhenitsyn among seminarians and was then deprived of his temporary Leningrad registration. For a year I could not find a new place of ministry due to the obstacles caused by the KGB.

Activities in Ukraine

In June 1988, he became a resident of the Kiev Pechersk Lavra, part of which (the Far Caves) was returned to the Church in connection with the celebration of the 1000th anniversary of the Baptism of Rus.

Bishopric

By the resolution of Patriarch Pimen and the Holy Synod of April 10, 1989 and on the recommendation of Metropolitan Philaret (Denisenko), he was determined to be Bishop of Pereyaslav-Khmelnitsky, vicar of the Kyiv diocese.

He became in strong opposition to Metropolitan Philaret (Denisenko) of Kyiv, actively opposing his course of separation from the Moscow Patriarchate. By a resolution of the Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of April 23, 1991, he was banned from the priesthood for a period of 3 years. From 1991 to 1992 he was without a place of ministry.

On June 3, 1991, he submitted a report-appeal to Patriarch Alexy II, in which he rejected the fabricated accusations against himself and brought counter-accusations against Metropolitan Philaret (Denisenko). In September 1991, at a meeting of the Synod of the UOC-MP, under pressure from the presiding Metropolitan Philaret, he was defrocked “for unrepentance.”

In April 1992, he created the “Committee of Clergy and Laity in Defense of Orthodoxy” in Kyiv.

After the election of Metropolitan Vladimir (Sabodan) as Primate of the UOC-MP, by a resolution of the Holy Synod of the UOC-MP, the defrocking was recognized as having no canonical grounds and therefore invalid.

Since December 1992 - Bishop of Belotserkovsky,

Jonathan (Eletskikh), Archbishop. The Penitential Great Canon of St. Andrey Kritsky. Four experiences of translation into Russian for spiritual and edifying reading. Kherson, 2003
Jonathan (Eletskikh), Archbishop. An explanatory guide to the divine liturgy of St. John Chrysostom. Prayer books, brief commentary, historical and theological articles. Kherson, 2003
Jonathan (Eletskikh), Archbishop. Venerable Theodore the Studite, mentor of monasticism, defender of icon veneration. Kherson, 2006
Jonathan (Eletskikh), Archbishop. Tlumachny traveler with the Divine Liturgy. Kiev, 2008
Jonathan (Eletskikh), Archbishop. An explanatory guide to the divine liturgy of Saints John Chrysostom and Basil the Great. M. 2009.

music collections

Christ is born. Solemn irmos of the Nativity of Christ. Kyiv chant. K. Musical Ukraine, 1993
Sedate antiphons of Matins of ancient chants. K. Musical Ukraine, 1994;
Orthodox church choirs. Works and transcriptions by Archbishop Jonathan (Eletsky). Kyiv: Musical Ukraine, 1995
Hymns for Sunday service, tone 1, Degree, first antiphon. M.: Life-Giving Spring, 1996
Hymns for Sunday service, tone 2, Degree, first antiphon. M.: Life-Giving Spring, 1996
Hymns for Sunday service, tone 3, Degree, first antiphon. M.: Life-Giving Spring, 1996
Hymns for Sunday service, tone 4, Degree, first antiphon. M.: Life-Giving Spring, 1996
Hymns for Sunday service, tone 5, Degree, first antiphon. M.: Life-Giving Spring, 1996
Hymns for Sunday service, tone 6, Degree, first antiphon. M.: Life-Giving Spring, 1996
Hymns for Sunday service, tone 7, Degree, first antiphon. M.: Life-Giving Spring, 1996
Hymns for Sunday service, tone 8, Degree, first antiphon. M.: Life-Giving Spring, 1996
Dressing for you. Chant of the Kiev Pechersk Lavra. Hymns of Holy Week. Part two. Great heel. M.: Life-Giving Spring, 1999
Dressing for you. Chant of the Kiev Pechersk Lavra. Sunday services of the Lenten Triodion. M.: Pilgrim, 2000
Liturgy for Peace (“De Angelis”). Library of the chamber choir “Kiev”, at the center. glory language from Ukrainian transliteration, 2003
Chornobyl liturgy. Choral score. Kherson, 2003
Hosanna. Collection of spiritual and musical transcriptions and compositions. Kherson, 2004
Irmos of the Great Canon (based on the melody from the Psalmist's Companion), ch. 6. For mixed choir. Triodion of church singing. Great Canon of St. Andrey Kritsky. M.: Publishing Council of the Russian Orthodox Church, 2006
Irmos of the Great Canon (based on the melody from the Psalmist's Companion), ch. 6. For three homogeneous voices. Triodion of church singing. Great Canon of St. Andrey Kritsky. M.: Publishing Council of the Russian Orthodox Church, 2006
My soul. Ch. 6 digits R. Triodion of church singing. Great Canon of St. Andrey Kritsky. M.: Publishing Council of the Russian Orthodox Church, 2006
God is with us. Chant of the Solovetsky Monastery. Triodion of church singing. Weekly services of Great Lent. Great Compline. M.: Publishing Council of the Russian Orthodox Church
Now the powers of heaven. The tune of the Valaam Monastery. Triodion of church singing. Weekly services of Great Lent. Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts. M.: Publishing Council of the Russian Orthodox Church, 2006
Glory to you, our God. The practice of church singing. Orders of the Trebnik. Wedding. M.: Publishing Council of the Russian Orthodox Church, 2006
You placed crowns on their heads. Prokeimenon sign disp. Ch. 8, Usage of church singing. Orders of the Trebnik. Wedding. M.: Publishing Council of the Russian Orthodox Church, 2006
Isaiah, rejoice. Troparion for a wedding, ch. 5. zn r. The practice of church singing. Orders of the Trebnik. Wedding. M.: Publishing Council of the Russian Orthodox Church, 2006
Lyra. Selected spiritual and musical compositions and transcriptions. Kherson, 2007
Zadostoyniks. Part 2. M.: Publishing Council of the Russian Orthodox Church, 2008

798.)
Born on January 30, 1949 in the village. Shatalovka, Voronezh (now Belgorod) region in the family of a teacher.

In 1966 he graduated from high school. After serving in the ranks of the Soviet Army, he entered the Leningrad Theological Seminary in 1970, and then in 1972-1976. studied at the Leningrad Theological Academy, studying at the same time in the regency class at LDAiS.

In 1976, he was tonsured a monk and ordained a hierodeacon by Metropolitan Nikodim (Rotov) of Leningrad and Novgorod, and ordained a hieromonk in 1978 by Archbishop Kirill of Vyborg (now Smolensk and Kaliningrad).

He graduated from the Academy with a candidate's degree in theology and was retained as a professor's fellow. For several years he taught church singing at the Seminary and in the regency class, and also served as the regent of the choir of the Leningrad Theological Schools.

Accused by the KGB of distributing the book “The Gulag Archipelago” by Alexander Solzhenitsyn among seminarians and deprived of his temporary Leningrad registration. For a year I could not find a new place of ministry due to the obstacles caused by the KGB.

From the spring of 1987 to June 1988 - cleric of the Kyiv Cathedral of St. Vladimir. Since June 1988 - a resident of the revived Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, since July 23, 1988 - acting governor of the Lavra.

On October 11, 1988, by decree of His Holiness Patriarch Pimen, he was elevated to the rank of archimandrite and on October 12 confirmed as vicar of the Kiev Pechersk Lavra with the blessing of His Holiness Patriarch Pimen of Moscow and All Rus' by decree of Metropolitan Philaret of Kyiv and Galicia, Patriarchal Exarch of Ukraine.

By the decree of His Holiness Patriarch Pimen and the Holy Synod of April 10, 1989, Archimandrite Jonathan (Eletsky), vicar of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, was determined to be Bishop of Pereyaslav-Khmelnitsky, vicar of the Kyiv diocese.

On April 22, 1989, on Lazarus Saturday, after the all-night vigil in the Vladimir Cathedral in Kiev, the naming of Archimandrite Jonathan as Bishop of Pereyaslav-Khmelnitsky was carried out by Metropolitans of Kiev and Galicia Philaret, Patriarchal Exarch of Ukraine, Lviv and Drohobych Nikodim, Archbishops of Chernigov and Nizhyn Anto ny, Kharkov and Bogodukhovsky Iriney, Ivano-Frankivsk and Kolomyia Makariy.

On April 23, on the feast of the Entry of the Lord into Jerusalem, during the Divine Liturgy in the Vladimir Cathedral in Kyiv, the bishops who participated in the naming consecrated Archimandrite Jonathan as Bishop of Pereyaslav-Khmelnitsky.

In 1990, he was appointed manager of the affairs of the Ukrainian Exarchate.

He stood in strong opposition to Metropolitan Filaret (Denisenko), actively opposing his separatist course; April 23, 1991 Met. Filaret (Denisenko, later anathematized) was tried in absentia on the basis of false testimony and banned from the priesthood. August 25, 1992, after the deposition of Metropolitan. Philaret by the Kharkov Council of Bishops of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, the Holy Synod of the UOC recognized the non-canonical nature of the ban against Bishop. Jonathan.

In April 1992, Jonathan created the “Committee of Clergy and Laity in Defense of Orthodoxy.” After the election of Metropolitan Vladimir, he was restored to all positions and appointed manager of the affairs of the UOC.

Since 1992, Bishop of Belotserkovsky, vicar of the Kyiv diocese. From June 22, 1993 to July 2000 - again the manager of the affairs of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, permanent member and secretary of the Holy Synod of the UOC.

Since December 29, 1993 - Bishop of Glukhov and Konotop. On July 28, 1994, the Primate of the UOC, His Beatitude Metropolitan of Kyiv and All Ukraine Vladimir, awarded the rank of archbishop.

Since August 27, 1995 - Archbishop of Sumy and Akhtyrsky. Since April 1999 - Archbishop of Kherson and Tauride.

On November 22, 2006, by a resolution of the Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, he was released from the administration of the Kherson diocese and appointed Archbishop of Tulchin and Bratslav.

Archbishop Jonathan is the author of church compositions and transcriptions of spiritual hymns, included in the collections “Christ is Born” (1993), “State Antiphons of Matins” (1994) and “Orthodox Church Choirs” (1995). He is also the author of several akathists.

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- Brothers! Let each of you now save his soul at his own discretion,
because now is a cruel time.
St. Theodore the Studite

The fact that they ban priests who do not commemorate heretical bishops and patriarchs who subscribed to the “mystery of lawlessness” is understandable and expected. But here is, probably, the first case, probably in the last century, of a precedent when a layman is excommunicated from the Church:

August 8, presided over by Metropolitan of Tulchin and Bratslav Jonathan (Eletsky), hierarch of the UOC (MP), a joint meeting of the Diocesan Council and the Council of Diocesan Deans was held in Tulchin, Vinnytsia region, reports “Religion in Ukraine” with reference to the diocese’s website.
The meeting approved the proposal of some deans to excommunicate from the Church a parishioner of one of the parishes of the Tulchin diocese “for the sin of slandering the Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church and for attempting to violate the canonical unity of the people of God in the parish” until her repentance. The diocese's certificate states that parishioner Elena Shvets condemns the meeting of Pope Francis and Patriarch Kirill of Moscow in Havana as a “betrayal” of Orthodoxy. By decree Metropolitan Jonathan she was excommunicated from the Church.
Earlier, on July 19, by decree of the bishop, with the same motivation, Priest Sergius Zhebrovsky, rector of the Church of the Holy Archangel Michael of God, in the village of Lysaya Gora, Ilyinets church district (deanery) of the Tulchin diocese, was excommunicated from the Church.
The excommunication of the priest took place, as the website of Bishop Jonathan writes, even when “Priest Sergiy Zhebrovsky insisted that he remains a member of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which is in Eucharistic unity with the Russian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) prays for its Holy Patriarch.”
On August 2, Bishop Jonathan issued a new decree, which declared that Fr. Sergius Zhebrovsky “fell into sinful microschism (microschism),” and declared all his sacred rites “invalid and unsaving.”
["Church and society in times of apostasy"]: Persecution in the UOC

[Thanks for the tip zemnoe_nebesnoe . Details on the case - see the second link].

Although no... over the last century, there was also such a layman Leo Tolstoy, who did not even know the Church, and chopped up the Gospel for himself, i.e. Elena Shvets was equated to the Freemason L. Tolstoy.

It is interesting that Metropolitan Jonathan, like the exiled Metropolitan Hilarion, have a special passion for playing music, one of his masterpieces is called “Liturgy of Peace”, and there is also “Chernobyl Liturgy”.

Information from the Metropolitan's official website:

In 2011, the Rectorate of the National Music Academy of Ukraine named after P.I. Tchaikovsky was awarded the highest order “ For outstanding achievements in musical art."
<...>
I. is the author of numerous spiritual music. compositions and arrangements (more than 1600 pages of musical text), partially published by the Publishing Department of the Moscow Patriarchate, the publishing house “Life-Giving Source” (Moscow), “Musical Ukraine”, “Choral Library of the Chamber Choir “Kyiv”, Kherson State University). “Stateful antiphons of ancient chants”, “God is with us” of the Solovetsky chant, “Now the powers of heaven” of the Valaam chant, “You who are clothed” by the KPL chant in I.’s arrangement, as well as his original compositions “Thy Chamber”, “Flesh Asleep”, etc. recorded by secular and church choirs on CDs and audio cassettes, heard in films and religious radio and television programs. For the first time in the Russian Orthodox Church it was used for Orthodoxy. liturgy singing Gregorian melodies(“Liturgy of Peace.” “De Angelis”), as well as melodies of famous Evangelical Lutheran hymns (songs of communicants with words by I.). The author of the “Chernobyl Liturgy”, dedicated to the memory of the heroes-liquidators of the consequences of the disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine and the “Voice Liturgy” for public singing, based on the everyday tunes of church osmoglasiya.
He took part in the international competition for the text of the National Anthem of the Russian Federation to the music of M. I. Glinka (1990; “Right God, Almighty”). Multiple member of the Jury of the International Festival of Church Music in Gainówka (Poland). Gave lectures in Russian. musical semiography and history of Russian liturgical singing at the Friborg Catholic University (Switzerland) and for the community of the Russian Orthodox Church in Amsterdam (2004–2006). Author of 4 attempts to present in Russian (including “metrorhythmic”) the Penitential Great Canon of St. Andrew of Crete, as well as the “Explanatory Guide to the Divine Liturgy” - a general educational manual with an extensive historical and theological commentary and a presentation of prayers of the Eucharist in Russian. and Ukrainian languages, articles (published on various Internet sites) about experiments in translation and “singing” presentation in Russian. and in Ukrainian deserving of the Nativity of Christ “Love us” and the hymn “Like the Cherubim”, about the use of ancient musical instruments in liturgical singing, as a local tradition of the Churches of the East, about the experience of serving missionary liturgy in the Kherson Cathedral. I. author of spiritual, lyrical and patriotic poems in Russian. and Ukrainian languages, poetic transcriptions in Russian. with white language, united by the theme of love for Holy Rus' - the single spiritual homeland of Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to look, but on SOYUZ-TV, on June 30, Saturday evening, they showed vespers from Optina Pustani, and it seemed to me that instead of the banner, Gregorian chants were played at the litanies.

Devil's Advocates. And again about fierce times

Returning to the very precedent of the excommunication of Elena Shvets and Father Sergius, on the Metropolitan’s website there is an interesting publication from the network of a certain “Monk Arkady” ( inok_arkadiy ), (presumably, in accordance with the publication of Metropolitan Hieromonk Ignatius (Mirolyubov)) “On the letter of the Holy Mountain residents justifying the non-remembrance of bishops” [original note], everything correctly says that the priests are, as it were, delegated by the bishop the right to conduct divine services - St. Simeon of Thessalonica: “In fact, the bishop performs everything in the Sacraments through priests and other clergy ordained by him.” But then there is a substitution in support of a silent combination with the heretical (which is now widely distributed in “academic theological circles”, supposedly, yes, “the snow is falling black, BUT de jure no violation of the canons occurs, so we must call black white”) a quote is given St. Theophan the Recluse, which is precisely more in support of the zealots of the purity of the confession of faith, for it is about the Truth that has preserved the Church, and not about weak-willed submission to ecumenist bishops. Let us then quote in full another characteristic quote from St. Theophan the Recluse:

“The truth accepted by the heart is like oil that has gone into the bones. Loving the truths of faith hates the face that contradicts them, and the thought, therefore, is safe from falling, and is the very pillar of faith. Therefore, this is the holiest and deepest duty: love the faith and all its rules.
G) He who has come to know and love the one true faith cannot help but testify to his devotion to it.. Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks (Matthew 12:34).
The actions in which this is expressed are:
aa) Confession of faith, that is, an open, sincere and unafraid demonstration in deed and word that this is the holy and only true faith. Such a confession can be and is of two kinds: one - universal and everlasting, another is special, revealed during persecution . The first is to openly, sincerely and fearlessly speak, act and live according to the rules of the holy faith in the place and in the circumstances in which one is placed, despite what they will say about us, how to judge and how in others will act towards us. This is required by sincerity of conviction. If this is the truth, and that is not the truth, why would I change one for the sake of the other? Or why should I be ashamed to act on my convictions? Shame and embarrassment are a sign of lack of faith and little conviction. This is required by the danger of damage to faith. He who is afraid to live openly according to his faith brings faith itself into suspicion. Everyone will say: it is true that the weakness or instability of their faith binds his tongue and hands. Especially one should not remain silent where faith is openly humiliated by others. Here it is necessary to express the truth and calm down the impudent one as a blasphemer. The Savior's clear commandment not to be ashamed to confess Him before men applies here (Luke 9:26; Matt. 10:33). And what is there to be afraid of? Will they laugh? Let be. This is their foolishness. The apostles rejoiced that they were deemed worthy to accept dishonor for the name of Christ. We must imitate them. Will they oppress? Even more useful. Here you can tell everyone: go for it! The martyr's crown comes down on your head. Moreover, should we be more afraid of people or of God? All such reproaches for insincerity of conviction and cowardice go only to those who, not demonstrating their faith out of fear, remain indifferent themselves, so that you cannot guess whether they believe or not. What can we say about those who, on occasion, assume the appearance of non-believers, fearing that by expressing faith they might convey an unfavorable thought about themselves? This is people-pleasing, playing with sacred things, empty hypocrisy. What does it feel like to put on the guise of being unreasonable because another unreasonable person will think it is unreasonable?! We must, however, remember that when such confession is made a duty, then this in no way justifies the fulfillment of the rules of faith only for show, otherwise: walk in the rules of your faith out of conviction and love, without hiding, but and not caring what others will say. That is, empty vanity, but this is true activity. And further: when you see a blasphemer, rise up and denounce him, the wicked, stop his mouth so that he does not trample on holy things. A special confession of faith, more solemn, godlike, apostolic, there is a confession of persecution for faith in general or for any dogma. Persecution happened often and was possible at any time. The examples of those who preceded them were described to us and the rules on how to behave in these cases... Persecution has arisen - remain silent and remain in your rank, surrendering to the Lord who builds everything, praying for strength and help. If you feel weak and afraid, and yet you have the opportunity to take cover, take cover. Many people did this. The whole church retreated into the forests and mountains. And the Lord said: when they are driving in one city, run to another (Matt. 10:23). Cover yourself a little, until the wrath of the Lord passes by, says the prophet(Isa. 26:20). Taken by force and presented for judgment: do not be ashamed, be afraid, show the power of love for the Lord you confess, stand for Him to the point of blood and death. But even without the one who feels himself bound by moral force, namely by some internal compulsion to confession, he is blessed, with the advice of the shepherd, if possible, or and without that, raise your voice of confession. Do the same when you see that those to whom you should confess are weakening, or when you are among those who have not yet been appointed to this honor, but are already ready, due to weakness, to renounce the truth. Many martyrs did this and not only saved those who believed, but also made unbelievers believers.
In general, open confession cannot in any way be superfluous when it is done out of love, drawn to the Lord, with healthy zeal, and not with violent fanaticism. Fears and restrictions are all aside... Go without fear, say the confession: The Lord is your helper. Every confessor is a strong warrior from the army of Christ. Weak? Run when you have the opportunity, and when caught, bear witness without fear. One should not allow oneself, even just for the sake of appearance, to do what is demanded as a sign of renunciation, for this is the same as renunciation. Such is the spirit of confession! It must and always be warmed within oneself; so that the time of adversity does not overtake the unprepared, one must constantly be ready to suffer and die for the name of Christ and the holy faith. This is spiritual confession or hidden martyrdom, when a Christian is crucified in heart, although alive in body.”
Saint Theophan the Recluse,
"The Outline of Christian Moral Teaching.
General reasoning and provisions on moral Christian life"

"Stop his mouth so that he does not trample on holy things"

This whole message directly concerns our times - times of unfolding persecution, when those who should care about the purity of the faith begin persecution against those who stand for the purity of the faith, and plus, with their ecumenistic antics they trample the Orthodox Faith, to the accompaniment of their overtures and symphonies .

In the finale, the hieromonk ends his apology for lawlessness with a quote from St. Theodore the Studite: “This is the situation: if one of the Patriarchs has deviated, then he must accept correction from his equals, as the divine Dionysius says.”

You need to know well the epistles of St. Theodore the Studite in order to understand how very selectively St. Theodore the Studite is quoted, whose epistles are replete with words that not only are heretical bishops commemorated, but one cannot sit at the same table with them [see a whole series notes in "Notes on the topic"]. And this also applies to those who commemorate them. And with those who commemorate them out of fear, you can have some kind of communication, but you cannot serve the Liturgy together.

St. Theodore the Studite especially mentioned the bishops who gathered at the Wolf Council, for St. Theodore lived during the time of the iconoclastic heresy. And they didn’t wait for the other Patriarchs to wake up, because they sold the faith. St. Theodore the Studite gathered desert monks to defend the faith.

St. Theodore the Studite especially notes "a time when heresy is rampant"- i.e. when bishops sell their faith en masse.

Therefore, you should not make such subtle substitutions. Let’s just say that there is “peacetime”, and there is “wartime”, when they live according to the laws of wartime. And for such a “time of war,” St. Theodore the Studite says that the ban on serving as heretics is not valid - and this without a church court.

It is strange that Hieromonk Ignatius does not cite sources. In general, thanks to the heresiarch Osipov, covered up by the Patriarch and the entrenched Judeo-Masonic lobby, I have already learned to double-check all the quotes from the Holy Fathers, because It always turns out that they are either taken out of context or are about something completely different. Full quotation from St. Theodore, at a time when heretics everywhere seized power into their own hands:

"...That is why everything that was once done and said by the royal power and the boldness of Constantine and Leo regarding the dogma of divine icons was rejected, as a result of which the local Church separated from the other four, subjecting itself to eternal damnation, sealed by the Holy Spirit. Then, by the grace of God, The horn of Orthodoxy was erected under Irene, who reigned gloriously with her son, and under them the divided things were united, but before the reign of the next Leo. the local Church separated again, being subjected, as before, to the curse of the former.
So, sir, it is impossible to mix the Divine court with the worldly, and it is also impossible for the local Church to convene a council without the consent of the five patriarchs. If anyone asks how this can happen, I will say: it is necessary, so that non-believers leave the churches of God and the holy patriarch Nikephoros receives his throne. Then he would have formed a council with those with whom he labored together, in the presence of representatives of other patriarchs, and most importantly - the Western one, who has the highest power at the Ecumenical Council, which is possible, if the emperor wants, he would complete the reconciliation and arrange the reunification of the Churches through his conciliar messages to the Roman throne.
If this does not please the emperor, and if, as he says, the chairman Nicephorus along with us has deviated from the truth, then we should send to the Roman Patriarch on both sides, and let the statement of faith be accepted from there. For this is the situation: if one of the patriarchs deviates, then he must accept correction from his equals, as the divine Dionysius says, and not be sued by emperors, at least all the Orthodox emperors rebelled. Our emperor should not despise this rule, but, on the contrary, should be most concerned about its observance, since both the well-being of the kingdom and the legitimate reign depend on it.”
Venerable Theodore the Studite
Message 129(188). To Leo, Sacellarium

After a short time, His Holiness Patriarch Nicephorus was overthrown by the evil king from the patriarchal throne and expelled from Constantinople; All Orthodox bishops were also sentenced to imprisonment. Then a terrible spectacle of terrible blasphemy was presented, which was committed by the wicked iconoclasts. They threw some holy icons to the ground, burned others, smeared others with feces and committed many other atrocities. Seeing such an atrocity, the Monk Theodore was deeply grieved and, marveling at God’s forbearance, he said with tears:
– How can the earth bear such lawlessness?!
But, not wanting to remain a worshiper of God in secret and mourn such a misfortune in silence, he ordered - (at the onset of Palm Resurrection) his brethren to take the holy icons in their hands and walk around the monastery, carrying the icons high above them and chanting loudly: “We worship Your Most Pure Image , Good" and other victory songs in honor of Christ. Having learned about this, the king again sent to the saint, forbidding him from such actions and threatening that otherwise he would face imprisonment, wounds and death. The saint not only did not cease to affirm the believers in the veneration of icons, but became even more strengthened in his courage, openly instructing everyone to adhere to the Orthodox faith and to give due honor to the holy icons. Then the king, convinced that it was impossible either by flattery or by threats to stop the courage and jealousy of the Monk Theodore, condemned him to imprisonment. The monk, calling all his disciples to him and teaching them soul-helping teachings, said:
- Brothers! Let each of you now save his soul at his own discretion, since Now is a tough time.

"Brothers! Let each of you now save his soul at his own discretion, since Now is a cruel time".

And all these lawlessnesses are unfolding exponentially under Patriarch Kirill, his connivance and his blessing. At first the priests, now they took on the laity so that others would not do the same. St. Theodore the Studite and other Holy Fathers say directly that prohibitions from heretics are not effective, no matter how they hide behind canons and cut-off quotations. God is on the side of the righteous. Run, these are tough times. God bless you all!

P.S. When it is convenient for heretics, they suddenly remember the canons, forgetting that they themselves walk under the canon. I don’t know how they think to avoid the Last Judgment. Or did the “satanic congregation” offer them more favorable conditions?

42 But woe to you Pharisees, because you tithe mint, rue, and all sorts of vegetables, and neglect the judgment and love of God: you should have done this, and not forsaken that.
43 Woe to you Pharisees, because you love presiding in the synagogues and greetings in the public assemblies.
44 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you are like hidden tombs over which people walk and do not know it.
45 To this one of the lawyers said to Him: Teacher! By saying this, You offend us too.
46 But He said: Woe to you lawyers too, because you impose burdens on people that are too heavy to bear, but you yourselves do not even touch them with one finger.
(Luke 11:42-46) and http://bloka.net, or others similar]

Archbishop Jonathan (Eletsky): At the origins of the birth of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church

“I am the only one who can tell about this...”

Archbishop Jonathan (Eletsky)

Memories

It was a proud procession of pride itself

My memoirs are my personal view from the inside on the events that led to the schism in Ukrainian Orthodoxy. Otherwise, they could be called “At the origins of the birth of the UOC” - the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate.

I’ll start from afar, from the time when I, as a 16-year-old young man, together with the Orthodox people of Kiev, met the new Patriarchal Exarch of Ukraine (representative of the Patriarch), Metropolitan of Kyiv Philaret (Denisenko), in the Vladimir Cathedral.

These were the 60s of the 20th century, the years of Khrushchev’s persecution of the Church, the time when the General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee publicly promised to show the Soviet people “the last priest.” Exarch Filaret, then still an archbishop, wearing a black hood with a cross, entered the Vladimir Cathedral. No one then could have imagined that he was a future schismatic, a man who would rebel against the Mother Church, which gave him the title of Metropolitan of Kyiv and Galicia.

The ancient teachers of the Church wrote in their writings that at the beginning of all sins lies pride. And I ask myself: “Where could Filaret’s pride have formed, leading him into disobedience to the Mother Church?” After all, he grew up in a poor family, came as a half-starved young man from Donbass to the Odessa Seminary, then studied at the Moscow Academy. They say that, having accepted monastic vows of lifelong celibacy, complete obedience and constant poverty, at first he even slept in monastic clothes and boots, exhausting his human flesh. And, suddenly, such a change in lifestyle and actions!

I think that Filaret is a splinter of the bureaucratic “Synodalism” and a moral victim of the totalitarian Soviet regime. That regime that enslaved the Church, trying to make it an appendage of the state’s atheistic system, to turn a considerable part of the clergy into resigned executors of instructions “from above”, and parishioners into a passive, silent “mass”.

Filaret is a reflection of the false Soviet axiology - the value system “on the contrary”, and “Filaretism” (the expression of the late “UAOC Patriarch Mstislav Skrypnyk”) is a form of existence of a part of the bureaucratic church apparatus raised in this system. Most of the bearers of these “values” were characterized by formalism, admiration for the authority of the leader, careerism, suppression of freedom and humiliation of dissenters, intrigue and hypocrisy.

The local council of the UOC in the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, chaired by Metropolitan Philaret (Denisenko), where the issue of autocephaly was raised. November 1-3, 1991

Looking ahead, I’ll tell you about such an episode. Once, at dinner with the bishops in the Kiev exarchate, Filaret, for some reason, turning to Bishop Macarius (Svistun), said: “You will all soon go into schism because of persecution, but I will still remain in the Russian Orthodox Church!” Bishop Macarius was offended: “How is this all happening and why are you turning to me?!” - “Everything, everything!” - the exarch, who aspired to become the Moscow Patriarch, repeated affirmatively. But Filaret left the Orthodox Church, and the bishops present in the hall, having gone through temptations, hesitations and suffering, remained in the bosom of the Mother Church.

Where and how did such a change happen to Filaret? Below I try to answer this question. Sometimes the thought occurred to me: “Is it not at the pompous services in honor of his own name days, with the participation of all the bishops of Ukraine, that Philaret’s exorbitant pride and delusions of grandeur grew and his ambitious desires arose?” After all, you should have seen how he ascended to the decorated altar throne - the seat of the Kyiv saints in the Vladimir Cathedral! He did not have the gait of a humble saint. No! It was a proud procession of the most embodied pride! The high place of the altar was filled with a host of bishops and presbyters. This magnificent spectacle was reminiscent of images of ancient Ecumenical Councils. It seems that even now I see how he, like the patriarch of Ukraine, sat on the throne and watched so that the reporters did not miss this moment of the Liturgy. And they bent over backwards to take in this magnificent picture with Philaret sitting in the center of the apse. Then the entire Ukrainian episcopate brought him congratulations. Monastery governors, abbess and parish rectors lined up in a long line with flowers and offerings. That day he gave a long sermon. Formally, he spoke about the life of Saint Philaret the Merciful. But, listening to him, one might think that he was talking not so much about the exploits and merits of this righteous man, but about himself, identifying himself with him and reading a laudatory akathist for himself. I believe that the spirit of sinful pride and exaltation gradually penetrated into his soul.

When I was a student at the Leningrad Theological Seminary, one of the subdeacons of the late Metropolitan Nikodim of Leningrad and Novgorod (now Abbot Markell Vetrov) told me an interesting description of Vladyka Nikodim given to the Kiev Exarch: “Filaret is a terrible person for the Church and he, I’m afraid, will bring many more troubles " The late saint turned out to be a prophet: Philaret, in terms of the scale of the schism (Bulgaria, the Ukrainian diaspora of Europe, the USA and Canada, etc.), can already be safely compared with the heresiarchs of ancient and modern times. He “went down” into history. But is it a great “honor” to get into it from the backyard and in such a capacity?

Twenty-five years later I returned to Kyiv. In St. Petersburg, they reported me to the KGB that, supposedly, I was distributing the anti-Soviet book “The Gulag Archipelago” by Alexander Solzhenitsyn among seminarians. (At that time, this was persecuted and for storing it a decent “sentence” could be awarded in the camps). When I was summoned to the Smolninsky regional department of the KGB, they demanded that I hand over those who had given me this book. (Latin teacher Lidiya Georgievna Ovchinnikova gave it to me to read). I refused to do this and was very rude to the investigator. He promised to expel me from the city where I studied and worked for 16 years, and he kept his word. Three days later, the Commissioner for Religious Affairs in Leningrad (a certain Grigory Zharinov) refused to extend my temporary registration.

Speech by His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II at the Council of Bishops. March 31, 1992

My wanderings around the country began. For almost a year I could not find a place of service. As soon as you arrive in some city, submit a petition to the bishop, two weeks later, when information is received from the KGB services, it is refused. In the end, I decided to return to my parents in Kyiv. I arrived and introduced myself to Filaret. After some time, I received a call to the city council on Khreshchatyk. A nondescript, “faceless” man meets me and says: “You were summoned not to the city council, but to the KGB, let’s talk.” We talked right on the street. He was aware of all my affairs and difficulties. And then he says that Bishop Filaret would like to take me to the Vladimir Cathedral. And he asked: “How do I look at the fact that he, they say, has a family - a wife and children?” I thought that he was taking aim at me, but my instinct told me that he was asking me this for a reason. I answer evasively that I’m a new person here and then, these are all rumors, not facts, and that every person will give an answer for their personal sins before God.

For six months Filaret did not assign me a place. But he instructed me to serve in his house church in the Kyiv residence on Pushkinskaya Street, 36. I served among the nuns faithful to him, and they studied me from all sides and reported to him about everything. There I also met Evgenia Petrovna, who then introduced herself to me as the sister of Bishop Philaret. Apparently she liked me: I was young, I had a strong, well-trained voice, I knew the church rules, I could preach a sermon, after all, I had an academic education behind me. The KGB officer who met me at the walls of the Kyiv City Council also studied me, often challenging me to “heart-to-heart” conversations. Filaret, finally convinced that I did not pose a danger to him, assigned me church service in the Vladimir Cathedral.

The exarch was always very affectionate and considerate towards representatives of the highest authorities, but for “his own people” he was always strict and unapproachable. Here is a characteristic detail. The altar of the Vladimir Cathedral is large, but during the evening service at Vespers (which is four hours), only he sat reclining, and the serving priest stood at the altar, not breathing. All the rest huddled in the cramped sacristy and in the dirty sacristan - where the altar boys blew the censer, not daring to enter the spacious altar.

The Kyiv elders whispered that Filaret and Evgenia Petrovna did not organically perceive the institution of monasticism and constantly accused monastics of idleness and immorality (Filaret called monasteries “cesspools”), that Filaret was a person who did not know how to forgive.

In particular, Nikita Pasenko, a long-time cathedral protodeacon known to the people of Kiev, convinced me of this. I visited him in a small apartment on the Wind Hills in Kyiv, where Father Nikita “poured out” his soul to me. He talked about the difficulty of serving with Filaret, about his cruelty and injustice. He also talked about how everyone is afraid of his “sister”, Evgenia Petrovna Rodionova, who lives with him in Filaret’s personal apartment, also on Pushkinskaya Street. “Everyone” is the clergy of the cathedral, ordinary employees and... Ukrainian bishops.

Kyiv priests (Fr. John Chernienko and others) recalled the period of Philaret’s supervision at the Kyiv Theological Seminary at the turn of the 50-60s, where, contrary to the rules, he lived with his young “sister” Evgenia Petrovna Rodionova in the same room and had troubles on this basis with the then rector of the KDS, when he found himself in ambiguous situations. As Fr. recalled. John Chernienko, later Filaret, having become a bishop in Kyiv, cruelly took revenge on the poor old rector for his instructions about behavior and rules of residence within the walls of the seminary.

Evgenia Petrovna and the Koretsky Monastery

Filaret’s cruelty with his subordinates was demonstrated by the example of the abbess of the Koretsky convent in the Rivne diocese - Abbess Natalia, a nun, who restored the monastery and its splendor from the ashes. As Abbess Natalia herself told me, Evgenia Petrovna chose her monastery for spending her time. She came there on vacation with her three small children (Vera, Lyuba, Andrei), allegedly taken by her for adoption from an orphanage in Russia (Filaret was an inspector at the Saratov seminary, Evgenia Petrovna also lived there), and forced the nuns to babysit them. This violated the strict rules of the monastery and outraged the nuns. Just think, in a convent there are small children with Evgenia Petrovna, who lives with them in the personal apartment of the Exarch of Ukraine. This compromised the monastery and the abbess herself.

Mother Abbess refused to accept Evgenia Petrovna into the monastery and incurred Filaret’s fierce hatred. In a fit of anger, he somehow hit the abbess hard and she lost consciousness. Then, for many years, Filaret defamed Abbess Natalia and the nuns of Korets. Abbess Natalya managed to obtain the status of patriarchal stauropegia for her monastery and remove the monastery from the jurisdiction of the Kyiv metropolitan. With the “light hand” of Philaret Denisenko, the Koretsk convent is still under the canonical spiritual care of His Holiness the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church.

About Vera Medved, who calls herself Filaret’s own daughter

I was already persecuted by Philaret and came to Bishop Macarius for advice. It was in his apartment in Kyiv that I first saw Vera Medved (Rodionova before her marriage). She introduced herself as the daughter of Metropolitan Filaret Denisenko. Seeing her, I was struck by the external similarity between Vera Medved and Filaret. (Moscow journalist Alexander Nezhny, who came to Kyiv in 1991 to write an article about Filaret and his family and published it in the all-Union magazine Ogonyok, will also be surprised by this striking similarity.) Vera began to tell me about the dramatic events in her life, in the life of Evgenia Petrovna’s mother - Ksenia Mitrofanovna Rodionova, her brother Andrei and sister Lyuba in Filaret’s house, about other characters in the family drama (for example, about Filaret’s personal driver “Felix”, to whom her “dad” was allegedly very jealous of her mother Evgenia Petrovna).

Bishop Makaria’s mother (now deceased), a kind old peasant woman, nodded sympathetically, assenting to Vera’s story, who further said that Andrei, after two years in prison, lives in the Siberian city of Angarsk and works as an engineer, that Lyuba still lives with her mother and “ dad - Bishop Philaret on Pushkinskaya 5. (Later Lyuba’s “parents” purchased and renovated an apartment for her in Kyiv on Yerevanskaya Street).

Vera will set out everything that has been said about her “adopted” parents in her famous letter “I, Vera, Philaret’s own daughter.” She signed each page of the typewritten letter to the editor: “I read it. Agree. Vera Bear." Here are just some excerpts from Vera Medved’s confession letter, eloquently testifying to the terrifying atmosphere of the family life of the head of the UOC-KP:

“I want to appeal to the editors of newspapers and magazines with a request, on my own behalf and on behalf of my grandmother Ksenia Mitrofanovna Rodionova, who currently lives in Latvia, together with my two children, to publish my letter in your publications. And I want to do this so that people learn the whole bitter truth about the former Bishop Philaret - my own father, who renounced his children, my grandmother and grandchildren in order to save his position and spiritual monastic title.

I am twenty seven years old. For the first fifteen of them, I lived next to my father and mother Evgenia Petrovna Rodionova. I remember how, when I was still very little, together with Andryusha and my sister Lyuba, Bishop Philaret (that’s what we were taught to call dad in public) literally carried me in his arms, how, when returning from abroad, he always brought us gifts. We children never felt the need for anything.

Mom often brought us to dad to the exarchate on Pushkinskaya, 36, where priests and staff saw us. But for them, we were not the natural children of their metropolitan, but just children from the orphanage of his “sister” - Evgenia Petrovna Rodionova. For those who doubted, my mother always had certificates ready stating that all of us (Lyuba, Andrey and I) were taken from different orphanages.

Our childhood, despite the wealth in the house, was very sad and difficult. More than once my mother beat us with a rubber wire without any remorse. Sometimes it happened that she asked Vladyka Philaret to help her with this, and one day he beat Andryusha so much that there was blood all over the bathtub. This is how obedience and humility to our parents were beaten out of us.

We, the children, guessed that dad could feel very bad if outsiders found out about this, so we remained silent regarding our relationship with Bishop Philaret. Once I heard my mother ask my father: “Misha (Philaret’s civil name), aren’t you afraid?” To this, the bishop replied: “I’m not afraid, because for believers I am a monk, but for the KGB I am married.”

Yu-y N-ch’s mother’s personal doctor told dad that he must repent of his sin, because he has medical evidence that we are Evgenia Petrovna’s own children. Dad listened to him silently and then fired him. And in general, he brutally persecuted and persecuted everyone who in any way touched his personal life. Therefore, everyone was silent, although many saw and understood everything. It was in such an atmosphere of secrecy, fear and lies that we grew up. A feeling of protest against my mother’s lies, beatings and bullying grew within me. My grandmother experienced the same thing. One day, she and Andrei, unable to bear the humiliation, went to Moscow to Patriarch Pimen to tell him the whole truth about Bishop Philaret and Evgenia Petrovna. Pimen did not accept them. They talked with some bishop in his office. Therefore, the Patriarchate began to guess (or already knew) about Filaret’s “family” circle.

When we returned to Kyiv, my mother accused Andrey of stealing her jewelry (she had a huge safe with gold coins, diamonds and dollars) and after some time Andryusha went to prison. Now he is in Angarsk. Dad did everything to prevent him from living in Ukraine. “You will leave one prison,” he told Andrei, “to re-enter another.” Dad did not do anything for the sake of his son, as he was always afraid of losing his rank due to the fact that we were his own children. After all, according to church laws, monks should not have a family or children (including adopted ones) under pain of anathema.

I want to warn those who are now blindly defending my father Filaret and mother. Look at me, at my grandmother, at my children and husband, at all the relatives persecuted by Filaret, at the expelled first (now in Siberia) and second (former headman of the Vladimir Cathedral) husbands of my sister Lyuba, at the tears and suffering of the victims of the terror of my mother and rulers, and you will understand what terrible people they are. My grandmother said this about her own daughter, who cohabits with Bishop Philaret: “I am guilty before God, for I gave birth to the devil...”

Vera was sure that she was Filaret’s own daughter also because, while living with her mother in Filaret’s personal apartment (Pushkinskaya 5, apt. 16), she heard her threats against him: “If you do not follow my orders and If you are too smart, then I will say at the Holy Synod that you have children of my own and then you will walk around the city of Kyiv with a sack” (from a letter from Vera Medved to His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II on April 29, 1991).

Vera’s story about Filaret’s “family” recently received an unexpected continuation. One former student of the Leningrad Seminary, Vladimir R., once said that several years ago, in Abkhazia, he worked in the headquarters of mercenaries on the side of Georgia against the Abkhazians. His partner turned out to be a certain young man - also a mercenary. Once, in a conversation with him, V.R. noticed that he knew me from Leningrad. And he answered him: “Yes, what is your master! My dad works as the Patriarch of Kyiv!” And he called the name of “father” - Filaret Denisenko! He further talked about how he and “papa” Filaret lived near Riga in Jurmala, that “papa” was the bishop of Riga and Latvia. I was surprised by this story, because Vera Medved once mentioned the Riga life of “father” Filaret. And then an unexpected revelation came from the lips of the former mercenary. I checked the church calendar for the old years. I found a portrait of Filaret. Yes, indeed, Filaret was at one time the Bishop of Riga and Latvia. That's the story! Think what you want!

About how Filaret took away the house from the mother of his named “sister” in the village. Novosyolki.

But I will continue the story about Vera Bear. Both she and her grandmother Ksenia Mitrofanovna complained to Patriarch Pimen about Filaret and Evgenia Petrovna, who took away their private house in Novosyolki near Kiev (by decision of the Kiev-Svyatoshinsky District Court on July 27, 85 3/32 1723, allegedly in favor of the local Council. This the house, they say, “miraculously" turned out to be at the disposal of Filaret today. The reason for Ftlaret’s quarrel with Ksenia Mitrofanovna was the desire of her daughter Evgenia Petrovna to get a house for herself immediately, without waiting for her mother’s death.

This is how Ksenia Mitrofanovna Rodionova describes this episode in a statement addressed to Patriarch Pimen: “Your Holiness! I am the mother of Evgenia Petrovna Rodionova, who for many years lived in the same family with Bishop Philaret along with her children... When she found out that I went with a complaint to Patriarch Pimen that she was living illegally with Vl. Filaret, she set out to send me to a madhouse... She compromises Vladyka Philaret, without hiding her relationship with him... She continues to live in the same private apartment with Vladyka Philaret, not being his relative. (What a problem! How can we now believe the statements of “patriarch” Filaret Denisenko that Evgenia Petrovna is his “sworn” or “half-sister?”).

I will also give excerpts from an official document - the cassation appeal of Ksenia Mitrofanovna Radionova (mother of Evgenia Petrovna). This document was personally given to me by Vera Medved, who intended to sue the seized house from her “holy father” - Filaret. It is worth reading this historical document carefully to pay attention to what Ksenia Mitrofanovna calls the current “patriarch of the UOC-KP” Filaret - “Denisenko’s partner” (!).

“To the Kiev Regional Court, the judicial panel for civil cases. Ksenia Mitrofanovna Rodionova, Kiev region, Kiev-Svyatoshinsky district, village. Novoselki, st. Vasilkovskaya, 71, against the decision of the Kiev-Svyatoshinsky District Court of June 17, 1985 CASSATION COMPLAINT.

By the decision of the Kiev-Svyatoshinsky District People's Court of June 27, 1985, the claims of the executive committee of the Kiev-Svyatoshinsky District Council of People's Deputies for the gratuitous seizure of a residential building owned by me as personal property were satisfied.

I consider the court’s decision to be incorrect and subject to cancellation on the following grounds:

1. In accordance with the purchase and sale agreement (dated September 14, 1966) from gr. Petroshenko, I purchased a house located on Vasilkovskaya street No. 71 in the village. Novosyolki.

2. Due to the fact that I am old and in poor health, in the summer I annually travel to southern cities for treatment. Rodionov’s daughter, her partner Denisenko, and their grandchildren remained living in the house.

3. For three years, my granddaughter V.N. Bear has been living in my living space. with her husband and two young children, who is on maternity leave...

8. Taking into account the fact that the reconstruction of the house was carried out by my daughter and her partner (Filaret - author), I asked the court to involve them in the case accordingly, but my petition was not granted by the court.”

And here is an excerpt from another statement by Ksenia Mitrofanovna Rodionova dated October 5, 1992, in which the true terrible face of the “patriarch” of the UOC-KP is also revealed: “The last time Vladyka Filaret spoke with me he said: You don’t want to listen to your daughter and obey her , then we’ll take your house and go live in a one-room apartment with a 29 ruble pension per month.”

Not long ago, Vera sent her children to his house in Novosyolki, hoping that Filaret, seeing the poverty of his grandchildren, would take pity on them and take them in. But he, according to her, saw the children sitting on the fence, called them to him and said that their mother, Vera, was only the adopted daughter of Evgenia Petrovna and that they were not his grandchildren. The children began to cry. Filaret’s cruelty began to extend, alas, to the unfortunate numerous children of Vera.

Patriarch of the UAOC Mstislav Skrypnyk and Vera Medved

“Patriarch of the UAOC” Mstislav Srypnyk also knew about Filaret’s “family”. (I once had the opportunity to talk with him and I marveled at the sharpness and insight of his mind and the clear beauty and imagery of his Ukrainian speech, which was no match for the tongue-tiedness of the current “patriarch of the UOC-KP” - Filaret). Vera met him on one of his visits to Kyiv. The meeting took place at the Moscow Hotel (now the Ukraine Hotel). She was led to Mstislav’s room by Anthony (Masendich), the business manager of the UAOC. Mstislav himself wanted to see Vera, because friction had already begun between him and Filaret. He talked with Vera for about half an hour, listened attentively, asked questions and spoke of Filaret, his deputy, as a “dishonorable people.”

Filaret calls his “adopted” children impostors. But let the “most holy” sinner Filaret, not behind his back, but looking into the eyes of his children expelled and disgraced by him, in the presence of his “bishops,” try to publicly refute their arguments and arguments in favor of his kinship or “family” relationship with him and in the presence of his "bishops".

The persistent suspicion of the Orthodox people that monk Philaret Denisenko committed the sin of fornication can undoubtedly be washed away not by Philaret’s verbal balancing act and not by his demonstration of suspicious certificates (by no means a court order!) about the adoption of children by Evgenia Petrovna, but only by modern methods of establishing paternity - Philaret’s own blood, voluntarily submitted for genetic comparative DNA analysis to establish his relationship with the family of Evgenia Petrovna Rodionova, whom he called “half-sister”, and also made him “the mistress of all Ukraine.”

If the result of the DNA analysis of the blood of Filaret and Evgenia Petrovna’s children is in his favor, then this may serve to rehabilitate him in the eyes of the Orthodox world and in court before the Patriarch of Constantinople, to whom he appeals. Otherwise, the persistent rumor about him as a fornicating monk and a “monster father” who expelled his mother-in-law and his own children for the sake of his career, money and power will remain with Filaret forever.

By and large, the question is not even whether the children of Evgenia Petrovna are Philaret’s relatives or the adopted children of his “sister”, but that he immorally expelled them from his own home due to property disputes and introduced temptation into the church environment of his “family " life. Children are always children, and Filaret, who calls himself a “spiritual father,” cruelly violated the commandment of love for one’s neighbors.

The future “patriarch” of the UOC-KP about Jews

Both Filaret and Evgenia Petrovna disliked Jews. It was as if they had personally offended them in some way. One day, Filaret, with a mysterious look, called me over and showed me some kind of samizdat brochure revealing, so to speak, the “secrets” of the composition of Lenin’s workers’ and peasants’ government. It contained oval photographs of figures of that period (Sverdlov, Trotsky, Kamenev. Zinoviev, and Lenin himself). Under their party pseudonyms were their real Jewish names and surnames. Filaret excitedly ran his finger over these names and said: “Do you see, do you see? These are all the Jews who destroyed our Church and country.”

But he once spoke disapprovingly of his Minsk namesake, Bishop Philaret (Vakhromeev): “He is a Jew! In Belarus he ordained Jewish priests and they will destroy the Church there.” When His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II, speaking in New York before the rabbis, expressed the patristic theological thought about the unity of the Old and New Testaments, as the relationship between prototype and image, then Filaret, playing on the anti-Semitic sentiments of nationalists and wanting to discredit the Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church, hinted that Alexy II , allegedly involved in the heresy of the “Judaizers.”

When I see Filaret “mourning” on the days of remembrance of the victims of the Holocaust or Babyn Yar, I remember these episodes. In the fifties, in our house, under the bed, my father hid a Jewish doctor from Stalin’s repressions. Then a trial was being prepared to punish them (“The Doctors’ Case”). I was a child and vaguely remember this episode, which sank into my soul. Since then, I have hated nationalism in all its terrible manifestations, no matter who it came from.

About Filaret’s “test” for “Ukrainian nationalism”

I recall Filaret’s attitude towards the Ukrainian language in Soviet times. Once, when I was the bishop of Pereyaslav-Khmelnitsky, I went there to serve. I asked the local priest Fr. Vasily, who, by the way, later went into autocephaly, what language does he use there to communicate with the people and deliver sermons? He replied that it was in Ukrainian. And, although at that time it was not customary to speak a sermon in Ukrainian, I delivered it.

Philaret was informed about this and he said to me: “Why did you speak the sermon in Ukrainian, because I don’t speak it? Don’t indulge the Rukhovites!” For some reason, he believed that everyone who spoke Ukrainian to him - the priests who came to him from the regions of western Ukraine - and did not switch to Russian in communication with him - were nationalists. In his family, too, everyone always spoke only Russian, Vera told me. He believed that the Ukrainian language is a mixture of “Jewish and Polish language.” Once Filaret shared with me his “know-how” - a test for “nationalism”: “I look at a person, speak to him in Russian. He speaks Ukrainian to me. I speak to him in Russian again. Again, he speaks Ukrainian to me. Yeah, nationalist!” Such a humiliating label was applied by Filaret, the current pseudo-defender of the national idea and a “supporter” of the Ukrainization of Slavic worship.

“They need to be crushed with tanks”...

I read in the anti-Filaret press that Filaret called for tanks to crush the national liberation movement in Ukraine. But nowhere did it say where and under what circumstances it was said. This was during the beginning of the Rukh movement in Lvov. Filaret visited there to familiarize himself with the situation on the ground and meet with the intelligentsia, many of whom are now members of parliament in Kyiv. Filaret was subjected to obstruction there, he was accused of all mortal sins, of collaborating with the Soviet regime, and so on. I met him at the Kiev Zhulyany airport. He returned very gloomy and worried. With his first words he said, somehow doomedly and bitterly: “There is no Soviet power there anymore. They need to be crushed there with tanks.” This was his reaction to the meeting with the Galician intelligentsia, the same one that he now uses like a tank to stay in power. This is the paradox of history. He wished her death under the tracks of tanks, and now he himself, like a dashing rider, controls their voices within the walls of the Ukrainian parliament.

On Filaret’s attitude towards Metropolitan Sergius of Odessa

Filaret used to have dinner at the same time, at one o'clock in the afternoon, at his residence and always invited the suffragan bishop there, which I had to be lately. I remember one day when I came to the refectory, Filaret was extremely animated. He was in a great mood and had a good appetite. In general, he was very picky about food and ate only organic products: water, fish, and much more. All this was brought by order from closed bases. He took great care of his health. During lunch, Filaret said that he had received news of the death of one of the most influential hierarchs of Ukraine - Metropolitan of Odessa and Kherson Sergius (Petrov).

He was an archpastor-gentleman, in some way a narcissist, who in his influence in Ukraine was close to Filaret. His jurisdiction extended to almost all southern, economically developed regions: Odessa, Nikolaev, Kherson, Donetsk, and therefore Metropolitan Sergius felt confident in relation to Philaret. They were, in a way, rivals. Metropolitan Sergius stood for the unity of the entire Russian Orthodox Church. At one time he was even the manager of the affairs of the Moscow Patriarchate. Documentary data about Filaret’s personal family life fell into his hands. These were some letters from Filaret and Evgenia Petrovna. In these letters, the “Mistress of Kiev” instructed Filaret how to deal with certain objectionable bishops, and gave advice on how to discredit their names with the help of slander. Evgenia Petrovna loved to travel to dioceses, to monasteries, and then, at her “tips”, certain rearrangements of bishops and abbots were made.

Bishop Sergius hoped that someday her letters would serve as an accusation against Philaret, and dreamed of a trial against him. After the unexpected death of Metropolitan Sergius, the archive fell into the hands of the now deceased Penza bishop. As one Russian saint, Metropolitan Nicholas of Nizhny Novgorod, told me about this, this happened when Philaret was Locum Tenens of the Patriarchal Throne, for which the last owner of Evgenia Petrovna’s letters soon received from him the Volga See.

About Filaret’s enmity towards the former Bishop of Zhitomir Ioann Bondarchuk

Another touch to the psychological portrait of Filaret is remembered in connection with the departure of the former Bishop of Zhytomyr Ioann Bodnarchuk into schism of the UAOC. It is known that John Bodnarchuk became one of the leaders of the autocephalous church. For some reason, Filaret hated him with all the strength of his soul. Constantly sent commission after commission to Zhitomir, accusing John of embezzlement and womanism!? In fact, he created an intolerable situation around Vladika John.

I will suggest that Metropolitan Philaret was carrying out someone’s instructions, trying to force Bishop John to retire, for the latter did not hide his national-patriotic convictions. He was disliked by the authorities (he had been a political exile for many years) and had to be eliminated. And they were eliminated by the hands of Filaret. Bishop John Bodnarchuk was a proud man, he did not want to bow low before Evgenia Petrovna, he did not want to carry out her decrees and kiss her hands. I think that Bishop John became a victim of Philaret’s despotism. And, in fact, Filaret himself pushed him into schism. For deviation into the schism of the UAOC, the exarch with great gloating deprived Bishop John Bodnarchuk of his episcopal rank.

Filaret demonstrated ignorance of his people.

Filaret's reign over the Ukrainian dioceses of the Moscow Patriarchate lasted over 20 years. Therefore, it is Filaret who bears personal responsibility for everything that happened in the church life of Ukraine during these years. Having occupied the chair of Kyiv metropolitans for so many years, Filaret, for example, could not have been unaware of the Uniate problem, stubbornly asserting that there are simply no Uniates in Ukraine. He held festive events in Lvov on the occasion of the anniversary of the complete, as he liked to think, liquidation of the Uniate system. Instead of positively revealing Orthodoxy in Western Ukraine, there, with his knowledge and on his verbal orders, ancient statues were taken out of churches, thrones, sometimes marble, were chopped off in order to bring the appearance of churches in line with the “Moscow” tradition. Now think about it, was it worth doing? What trace did all this leave in the souls of the believers who came to our Church from the Greek Catholic Church? Even now, and the priests know this well, any attempts to rearrange the icons in the church, much less donate anything to another parish, cause a storm of protest among the parishioners. And in Galicia and Transcarpathia in the 80s, on the orders of Filaret, even tabernacles made in the form of temples were removed from churches. All this played a negative role, and the enemies of Orthodoxy took advantage of this.

Filaret’s shortsightedness was also evident in the fact that he failed to recognize in time new trends in Ukrainian society on the eve of and during perestroika. He missed the moment when the Ukrainian intelligentsia was looking for allies in the Church and immediately refused, to please the communist authorities, to enter into dialogue with the then nascent Rukh. Fearing exposure, he defended the rotten system with his chest. In essence, he made a strategic blunder that was disastrous for the Church. All this refutes the popular legend about him as a certain Moses of the Ukrainian people, as a person with a prophetic gift. Both his political myopia and his long-standing spiritual blindness became apparent.

They say that Filaret allegedly stood at the origins of the organization of the national Ukrainian autocephalous church. His actions, which I witnessed as a business manager, speak of something else: he always fought against the national movement, which he contemptuously called “nationalist, bourgeois, Jewish.” Later, he himself will bet on the nationalists, sowing a split among the Orthodox. And this is also evidence of his mistakes and short-sightedness. He hoped for the support of the atheistic government, for the power of money, and for the fact that the Ukrainian episcopate, intimidated by him, would not find the strength to object.

But, the most important thing is that Filaret demonstrated complete ignorance of his people. And in this confrontation, the highest degree of Filaret’s alienation from the people and his imperious, arrogant contempt for him were revealed. He probably thought that the flock was a dumb, blind crowd that would not understand the terms “autocephaly”, “local Church”, “Mother Church”, “Gracious Orthodoxy”, “sacred apostolic canons and rules of the Universal Church” . He was fatally mistaken. It was the People, and not the bishops only, that rejected their schismatic exarch, did not follow him, and defended their original thousand-year-old grace-filled Orthodox Church in Ukraine.

And who supported him? Politicians who taught party activists how to close churches in Ukraine during the preparation for the 1000th anniversary of the baptism of Rus' (L. Kravchuk). Moreover, former political prisoners and extreme nationalists, offended by fate and Stalinist repressions, are not very ecclesiastical. And also that part of the people who were blinded by the nationalist propaganda that overwhelmed weak souls on the eve of the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Filaret is not a titan of thought, but an ambitious, pompous tyrant. He is a skilled adventurer and a petty personality: he has never been interested in music, literature, poetry, or art in general. Filaret is the Ukrainian “naked king”, the new “great schemer”, a clever tactician and a bad strategist. Keeping your nose to the wind of politics is his only inviolable commandment.

His subservience to the godless authorities was especially evident in the story of the Ukrainian poet Vasily Stus, who was tortured in Siberia. Now I am amazed to read that Filaret very emotionally expresses grief over the martyrdom of this poet at the hands of that Bolshevik-communist regime, to which he himself was devoted and sincerely served. Let it go down in history as Filaret and a KGB representative in his residence on Pushkinskaya 36, in the hall where he now speaks jingoistic nationalist sermons, together developed a plan to disrupt the funeral of Stus’s body, brought to Kyiv. The time was calculated minute by minute to extend the rite of requiem in the Church of the Intercession on Priorka, so that the coffin would not be carried through the city, as the funeral participants wished. Filaret personally instructed the old man, Father Nikolai (Radetsky), rector of the Church of the Intercession, how, contrary to church regulations, to prolong the twenty-minute memorial service from morning to 16:00 in the evening. Isn't this an example of his true "patriotism"?

Later, Father Nikolai called and said that nothing came of this idea, that Rukh entered the church with yellow-blakite flags, that the Rukhovites removed Father Nikolai from the service and some Uniate Galician priests served the requiem. Filaret was very annoyed. And now he hypocritically participates in various memorial events and academies, declaring his love for the poet tortured in the dungeons of the camps! Isn't this a national disgrace? And doesn’t this scandal characterize Filaret as an unprincipled person who changes masks depending on the circumstances?

How Filaret became one of the honorable three candidates for the Moscow Patriarchal Throne

After the death of Patriarch Pimen, the moment came for Philaret to “be or not to be” the Moscow Patriarch. The fact that for a long time he occupied the first historical see in the Russian Church - Kyiv and became the Locum Tenens of the Patriarchal Throne (in fact, the head of the Russian Church), gave him confidence that he would certainly be a Patriarch. After all, becoming a Locum Tenens in those days was possible only with the approval of the Politburo of the CPSU, because in Soviet times church elections were not completely free. (Filaret did not take into account the fact that during the long period of his locum tenens the entire episcopate of the Russian Church had sufficiently felt his authoritarianism. He also did not take into account the fact that the first compromising publications of the human rights activist Father Gleb Yakunin appeared in the Moscow press, where his marital status was mentioned Later, Gleb Yakunin himself, anathematized by the Russian Orthodox Church, will join Filaret, whom he exposed).

I remember seeing off the locum tenens to the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church for the election of the Patriarch. Filaret was especially solemn, apparently already anticipating that he would return to Kyiv in the green robe of the Patriarch. At the highest level in Kyiv, he was already informed that the choice of the “leadership” fell on him. In the Kiev Florovsky Monastery, Evgenia Petrovna ordered Filaret a snow-white doll of the Moscow Patriarch. Calling me aside on the platform, he said importantly: “I’m leaving, probably for a long time. Take it into your own hands." Evgenia Petrovna also did not hide from me her plans to move to Moscow to the dacha of the Moscow Patriarchs in Peredelkino and was sincerely indignant that Filaret suddenly invited her to stay in Kyiv. How can you figure out who? Igumen e (!) “monastery” at Pushkinskaya, 36, i.e. at the residence of the Kyiv metropolitans! Filaret, as you can see, did not want to let her out of his hands. They apparently wanted to leave a young, inexperienced bishop as metropolitan in Kyiv, and Evgenia Petrovna hinted that their choice had long ago fallen on me. That is why Filaret uttered mysterious, but at the same time transparent words: “Take everything in your hands” on the platform of the Kyiv station near the train with the sign “Kyiv - Moscow”. They wanted to rule the Ukrainian Church undividedly and from Moscow.

All this gives me the right to assert that if Filaret had become the Moscow Patriarch, the Ukrainian Church could not even dream of any independence, for he only wanted to leave Evgenia Petrovna forever as the “Mistress of Kyiv.”

About the immediate events at the Bishops’ and Local Councils in Moscow and how I helped Filaret “not to lose face”

At the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church, an “honorable troika” of candidates for Patriarchs was elected (in the Danilov Monastery), and at the Local Council in the Trinity Lavra (with the participation of the laity).

I arrived in Moscow later. Found Filaret. He “modestly” occupied one of the hotel rooms in the Danilov Monastery, demonstratively, as a Locum Tenens, without occupying the Patriarchal chambers. At first I even felt emotional: what modesty! I laugh now at my naivety. Everything was calculated. He took this room with a long-term calculation. He did not leave it for hours, did not communicate with the bishops, laughing at other candidates who tried to demonstrate their “openness” to the episcopate. He never left the treasured room with the telephone for a second. He waited. But not legal elections, but a call from the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee with the message that the choice of the Communist Party fell on him. Anatoly Lukyanov, the then chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, according to rumors circulating among the bishops, after the election of the Patriarch, explained to him the lack of a call by saying that times were no longer the same, perestroika was in the air and that the Politburo could no longer influence the episcopate in conditions of openness and pluralism.

I believe that for the Politburo of the CPSU it was, in essence, all the same which of the three or four real candidates would become the Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church, because they were all quite experienced long-term administrators and each of them had a chance to become the new Patriarch. But I think that, in the general scenario, three factors played against Filaret: 1) the growing distrust of the top Moscow leadership towards L. Kravchuk, the Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR (then the struggle of Ukrainian nationalists for the independence of Ukraine began, and Kravchuk was very delicate with them) ; 2) The leadership of the USSR needed a church leader who was not so openly connected with the “authorities” and not so clearly reflecting the administrative-command style of management; and 3) Filaret’s super affection for his “sister” - Evgenia Petrovna Rodionova, which has long become “the talk of the town” (publications in the central press, etc.). Probably, the Politburo simply withdrew and allowed elections to be held for the first time by secret ballot, fully assuming that the majority would not elect Filaret. The very presence of a second Ukrainian, besides Filaret, in the honorable trio of candidates (Metropolitan of Rostov and Novocherkassk Vladimir) already introduced discord into the ranks of Filaret’s possible sympathizers and created considerable intrigue in the elections. But Filaret did not stop believing in the old administrative mechanisms and his influential secular connections until the last minute.

At the Council of Bishops in the first round, he lacked one vote (Metropolitan Yuvenaly and he equally received twenty-five votes each. Metropolitan Alexy (now Patriarch of Moscow) and Metropolitan Vladimir of Rostov and Novocherkassk (current Primate of the UOC) immediately entered the “troika”. Thus, one of the other two candidates - Metropolitan Yuvenaly or Filaret - had to be among the three candidates from which the Patriarch would be elected. Filaret was gloomier than a cloud, guessing that he had miscalculated somewhere, that he had been “framed.” He understood that he would no longer be the Patriarch of Moscow. In this situation, it was necessary to “save face” and try to enter the honorable three candidates in order to try to “annoy” his rivals at the Local Council, manipulating the votes of the laity and ordinary clergy of Ukraine and, in order to join bargaining with the winners for their privileges in Ukraine.

When the Council of Bishops opened, I reminded him that the sick (now deceased) Bishop of Poltava Theodosius was in Moscow, at the Ukraine Hotel. And if I had a car, then in an hour and a half I would have brought a bulletin with the voice of Theodosius. Filaret didn’t hesitate to lend me his car.

At crazy speed we rushed through crowded Moscow, as if in a nightmare. I found Archbishop Theodosius’s room in the hotel, handed him a ballot paper and immediately said: “On the instructions of Metropolitan Philaret, you must vote.” And, in violation of all procedural rules, Bishop Theodosius filled out the ballot in front of me, knowing that I would give it to Philaret. (At the same time, I was left with the impression that Bishop Theodosius did not want to vote for Philaret and therefore withdrew and called in sick.) I managed to arrive at the Danilov Monastery and hand Philaret the package with the ballot. Bishop Theodosius. He, having violated the voting procedure, glanced briefly and threw it into the ballot box. (If only I knew who was destined by my hands to enter the honorable three candidates - my persecutor and enemy of the Church of Christ in Ukraine!).

When the results were announced, Filaret had 26 votes, and Yuvenaly had 25. (May Vladyka Yuvenaly forgive me...) Filaret was pleased with this, but said that, according to his information, Vladyka Macarius (Svistun) gave the command to his delegation at Pomestny The Council voted against him, called him a “traitor” and promised to “thank” him for it later. When Bishop Macarius found out about this, he was very worried, because he knew what it meant to fall out of favor with the exarch. He came up to me and asked me to tell Filaret that he had been slandered. But many already knew that the delegation of Bishop Macarius voted against Filaret.

(Evgenia Petrovna once told me that Philaret hated Metropolitan Alexy. But for some reason, most of all, they both disliked Metropolitan Vladimir (Sabodan), who was previously Philaret’s subordinate vicar bishop. And, in fact, who did they ever love? After all, They even drove Evgenia Petrovna’s own mother out of her home in Novosyolki and did not communicate with her until her death.The old woman, on the run (she said they wanted to send her to an insane asylum), died in distant Latvia.

So, when before the opening of the Local Council the question arose: “Who should be elected from the two - Vladimir or Alexy?”, then Filaret, realizing his complete fiasco, said: “Tell all our bishops that we must vote for Alexy. You have to choose the lesser of two evils (!),” he explained. During the work of the Local Council in the Trinity Lavra, on the instructions of Filaret, I again went to the Ukraine Hotel in Moscow ((90 km from the Lavra) to Feodosius with his ballot (90 km), but it was no longer possible to bring it on time: the elections were over and The ballot boxes were taken away to count the votes.

About the fact that it was as if Satan himself had entered Filaret’s soul

All the bishops gathered late in the evening in the Refectory Church to announce the official results of the last round of voting. Metropolitan Filaret of Kiev entered the hall looking tense and somewhat lost. Metropolitan Alexy followed him, peaceful, calm, with a green handkerchief in his right hand. Behind them came the second candidate for the patriarchate - Metropolitan of Rostov and Novocherkassk Vladimir (Sabodan). Filaret, with a broken voice, and, it seemed to me, with annoyance, read the protocol. The choice fell on Metropolitan Alexy of Leningrad. Oh, you should have seen how Filaret’s face jumped nervously when he had to give up the place of chairman of the Local Council to the newly elected Patriarch Alexy II!

After the election of the Patriarch of the Russian Church, the bishops breathed a sigh of relief, signed a Certificate of Obedience to him and lined up to congratulate the new High Hierarch on his election. (And Filaret was already standing at the exit of their temple and gloomily watched this ceremony). I approached the Patriarch: “Your Holiness, I must admit that I did not vote for you. But the election of the Patriarch is the work of the Holy Spirit. Now you are our legally elected Primate. I ask you not to cast your servant away from your presence.” His Holiness the Patriarch hugged me and said: “Vladika! You did what you had to do as suffragan bishop of the Kyiv Exarch. We will serve with you again and again!” Such was the generosity of our new Patriarch! He strove for peace and harmony. This was visible to the naked eye.

When I approached the loser Filaret, he, with a hunted look, uttered unfortunate words that made me go cold inside: “You see, Vladyka, the last Patriarch of the one and only Russian Church. They (?) made a mistake." Without a doubt, at the Local Council, at this solemn moment, it was as if Satan himself entered the unfortunate soul of Philaret, just as he entered Judas along with the bread extended to him by the Savior. It was then that the idea of separating the Ukrainian dioceses from the bosom of the Russian Orthodox Church arose and matured in Philaret’s mind. Irrepressible pride! This is the snake that has always bitten the body of the Church with schisms and heresies. Now - in the image of Filaret’s UOC-KP and the UAOC in Ukraine.

About Filaret's legal terrorism

Almost immediately at the Local Council, Filaret began to implement the planned schism. He demanded (as moral compensation for defeat?!) to abolish the name “Ukrainian Exarchate”, leaving behind only the name “Ukrainian Orthodox Church” and the right to have a Synod of the UOC. Previously, before the elections of the Patriarch, Filaret did not want to hear about any internal independence of the UOC. But after the defeat at the Council, he immediately began to support this idea and fill it with real content in Kyiv at his own discretion.

Filaret’s first step towards a schism was the introduction of an ambiguous phrase into the definitions of the Local Council by means of blackmail (he threatened to refuse to sign the definitions of the Local Council), namely, that the opportunity opens up for the UOC “to further improve its independence...”.

As Filaret told me, this was not easy for him, because the text of the Council’s definitions had already been adopted by the fathers of the Council, that is, it had been finally voted on. According to Filaret, it turns out that the phrase about further improving the independence of the UOC was included by the Editorial Commission in the definitions of the Local Council without canonical conciliar discussion. Whether this was so or not, obviously, should be determined by an analysis of all the stenographic records of the meetings of the Local Council. And, if this is so, then many of Filaret’s further steps to expand the legal and practical basis of the split in Ukraine are canonically more than questionable from the very beginning.

Apparently, in the atmosphere of the successful completion of the election of the new Patriarch, not everyone immediately noticed this extremely important insertion. And those who brought it in or noticed it from the outside hardly attached much importance to this circumstance. It was very difficult and even incredible to foresee that the candidate for Patriarch of Moscow would begin to implement the plan to split the united Russian Church already at the Local Council. But it is precisely this phrase about improving the independence of the UOC that Filaret will refer to countless times in the future, blackmailing the Patriarch and the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church, fooling the Ukrainian episcopate with it and justifying his claims to the “patriarchal kukol” in Ukraine. A legal “mine” of delayed action was placed by Filaret under the solid foundation of the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine, paradoxically, right at the Local Council of the Russian Orthodox Church, which elected a new Primate - His Holiness Patriarch Alexy. This was Philaret’s cruel revenge on the entire Russian Church. And his revenge was always unexpected, insidious and cruel. It must be admitted that Filaret managed to turn his defeat in Moscow into a kind of triumph. He declared a secret war against the Russian Orthodox Church for “his” patriarchal kukul in Ukraine, brought to Moscow from the Kiev Florovsky Monastery, but not claimed by church history in Moscow.

Upon returning to Kyiv, Filaret was depressed. He sat gloomily, shaking his head, in the altar of the Vladimir Cathedral. Protodeacon Nikita Pasenko approached him with words of consolation: “Vladyka! Don't be so upset..." He raised his head and (as Father Protodeacon told his relative, the cleric of the Kherson diocese, Archpriest Vasily Pasenko) muffledly repeated several times: “Father Nikita! We (!) will not give up Ukraine to him!” Apparently, from resentment for the defeats, Filaret’s mind was so darkened that, identifying himself with Ukraine, he began to see in the Patriarch, to whom he had sworn allegiance yesterday in the Certificate of Allegiance, his personal enemy. In his hardened heart the sin of schism had already been committed. All that remains is to carry out the planned terrible intention.

A persistent manic desire for revenge and revenge for the defeat in Moscow took possession of him so much that Filaret from a saint of God turned into a sign of the Antichrist in Ukraine. He constantly imagined his dismissal from the department of the Kyiv Metropolitan. (Evgenia Petrovna told me about this). Believe it or not, sensing trouble, she began preparing furniture and chandeliers for removal from the residence on Pushkinskaya. Evgenia Petrovna said that she would not even leave tiles in the toilets for the new metropolitan in Kyiv.

Wanting to forestall an unfavorable development of events for him, Filaret began to urgently take steps to gain a foothold in Kiev as the lifelong “head” of the Ukrainian Exarchate, in order to bind all Ukrainian bishops with mutual responsibility, drawing them into his secret schismatic games and making of them a silent screen for his active opposition to Patriarch Alexy and the entire Russian Church. Unfortunately, he formally managed to do this.

After the Local Council in Moscow, on July 9, 1990, Filaret urgently convened a bishops' meeting in Kyiv (not a statutory Council!), allegedly in connection with the sudden aggravation of the religious situation in Ukraine. And at the meeting he unexpectedly proposed to them to form (!?) from the Ukrainian Exarchate a certain “Ukrainian Orthodox Church” (as part of the Russian Orthodox Church), and to approve him as its “Primate”. At the same time, Filaret began to skillfully play on the fact that the last Local Council had already abolished the name “Ukrainian Exarchate”, and the Bishops’ Council of the Russian Orthodox Church back in January 1990, approved the new “Regulations on the Exarchates”, which included a clause on the second name of the Ukrainian Exarchate as the “Ukrainian Orthodox Church” actually “blessed” this act. There was a dishonest substitution of concepts and a deliberate distortion of the meaning of the conciliar definitions of the Mother of the Church on the renaming of the Ukrainian Exarchate. At the same time, Filaret persistently made it clear that the issue of the formation of the UOC was agreed upon with the Hierarchy of the Russian Orthodox Church. The bishops were at first taken aback. Filaret insisted, convinced that there was nothing wrong with this, that he was already in fact the “Primate” of the UOC, as the Exarch of Ukraine, that everything would remain the same, that this was just a smoke screen for the nationalists.

Of course, there have not yet been any regulations on the management of the UOC, and the procedure for secret voting on such an important issue (election of the Primate of the UOC) has also not been adopted. The meeting of some of the bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church, acting without the blessing of the Hierarchy of the Mother Church, had no canonical authority to resolve issues of this kind. (An exception to the rule can only be the threat of deviation into schism or heresy. Then you can depose the culprit from the pulpit without waiting for any decisions of the Councils).

In Kyiv in July 1990, Filaret created a precedent that was canonically illiterate and dangerous for the existence of the Church. Think for yourself: within a single Church, a group of bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church arbitrarily formed some kind of Church and elected its “Primate” without the consent and knowledge of the Hierarchy of the Mother Church, before the canonical decision of its Bishops or Local Council. The trouble was that Filaret laid another pseudo-legal “canonical” foundation for further schismatic actions in Ukraine. In order to somehow cover up his unseemly actions, he passed the decision of the bishops' meeting through the newly formed Kiev Synod, pretending that he was solving purely internal issues of the UOC. In fact, he continued to prepare the departure of the Ukrainian dioceses of the Russian Orthodox Church from the Mother Church.

In the Orthodox Church, the canonical norm is invariably and always in force: “Let the lesser, without any contradiction, be blessed by the greater.” For the Ukrainian bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church and Philaret, as the exarch of the Patriarch in Ukraine, the “big” is the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church, the Local Council of the Russian Orthodox Church or the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church, finally! But there was no documented blessing from these authorities for the formation of the UOC at that time! This did not bother Philaret: he deliberately entered into a split with the Mother Church for purely personal, ambitious reasons and dragged the episcopate, which he had intimidated, into this adventure.

The first visit of His Holiness to Ukraine. Pochaev sufferings

Further events to expand the pseudo-canonical base for the future split developed as follows. According to tradition, the new Holiness visited the main cities and sees. Filaret decided to give the Patriarch the coolest reception in Ukraine. No matter how much the Ukrainian bishops asked, he did not allow them to meet the arriving Patriarch at the Kiev train station. He wanted to demonstrate to His Holiness that his (Filaret’s) non-election in Moscow was a tragic mistake by the authorities and hierarchy and that the people of Ukraine were indifferent and even hostile to the Moscow Patriarch.

Filaret settled the Patriarch next to the residence, far from the most prestigious hotel “Ukraine”, which was located on Pushkinskaya. Having remained in Kyiv for some worthless pretext, he entrusted me with accompanying His Holiness around Ukraine. In violation of church etiquette, he ordered me to get into the Patriarch's car. But I was neither the manager of the diocese nor a famous bishop. With this, Filaret wanted to humiliate the Patriarch. (He would later successfully apply this experience of humiliation on his “colleagues” in the autocephalous schism - on “patriarch” Mstislav Skrypnik and on “patriarch” Vladimir Romanyuk). I did not dare to do this and followed the Holy One in another car.

By the arrival of the Patriarch in Ukraine, obviously, with the knowledge of the authorities (L. Kravchuk), the so-called “Pravda Ukrainy” was published in the communist newspaper “Pravda Ukrainy”. “Appeal of the Ukrainian episcopate to the Patriarch of Moscow...” with a request to grant the Ukrainian Exarchate broad internal autonomy. By fabricating this document, Filaret again deceived the Ukrainian bishops, saying that he was doing this only to divert the eyes of the Rukhovites from our Church and to fight the union, which declared itself to be the national Ukrainian Church. They still believed him and therefore no one seriously thought about the consequences of Filaret’s legal “documentary terrorism” against His Holiness the Patriarch, and the entire episcopate of our Church. Then Filaret will more than once refer to “documents” obtained in such dishonest ways, justifying his schismatic activities with the opinion of the “majority”. Alas! Many stood at the murky origins of Filaret’s “UOC” out of ignorance or carelessness. His Holiness the Patriarch was stunned by this “reception” and, I think, suffered a psychological blow. And in such circumstances, I, the vicar bishop, had to accompany the Primate of the great Russian Orthodox Church on his first trip to Ukraine.

The route ran from Kyiv through Zhitomir, Rivne, Lutsk, Pochaev and was not chosen by Filaret by chance. In the far west, the first troubles began (under pressure from local authorities, the transfer of churches to the Uniates). Filaret, wanting to show the Patriarch how tense the situation in Ukraine was, hoped for manifestations of the enemies of Orthodoxy against His Holiness and thus prepared a moral justification for his further schismatic actions.

While the enthusiastic Orthodox people were meeting the new His Holiness Patriarch in Zhitomir, Rivne and Lutsk (everyone saw hundreds of thousands of people, open faces, joyful, jubilant), Filaret was secretly preparing a dirty intrigue for the Patriarch in Pochaev. He settled in the residence and, through his minions, laid out nets for His Holiness at a meeting with the clergy of Galicia in the Pochaev Lavra. He wanted to intimidate His Holiness with information about the unbearable oppression of the Orthodox by the pro-Rukhov authorities, autocephalists and Uniates and wrest from him consent to the internal independent management of the Ukrainian Exarchate as a way out of the difficult situation, as well as consent to granting him the title “Most Beatitude” (This most honorable title as would have opened the way to the independence of the UOC and made it impossible in advance for its re-election if the plan was successful).

In Pochaev there was not a meeting between the High Hierarch and the clergy, it was a conspiracy by Filaret against the unity of the Orthodox Church. In the lower church of the Lavra there was a continuous howl of “priests” who had come from all over Galicia, who were instructed how to behave, what to say and how to act. (Most of them later went into union or schism). Patriarch Alexy, Archbishop Kirill (Gundyaev), and all those accompanying them were literally crushed by the flurry of passions of uncontrollable people. The Patriarch in Pochaev, in the shrine of Orthodoxy, found himself trapped among an “uncontrollable” crowd of clerics. The meeting dragged on, it had been going on for 4 hours, it had gotten dark, some way out was needed, and I noticed how Archbishop Kirill leaned towards the Patriarch, whispered something in his ear, the Patriarch nodded. Archbishop Kirill stood up and said that His Holiness the Patriarch, having listened to everyone and seen that in order to normalize spiritual life in Galicia, it was necessary, as stated here, only to bestow the title of His Beatitude on the Kyiv Exarch, and agreed to this. But with the condition that this decision is approved by the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church. All noise immediately stopped, toasts began in honor of the Moscow Patriarch, and to the thunderous “Many Years,” His Holiness left the church.

Filaret triumphed! He won the second round in the fight “for his white cock,” using the grief and tears of the Galician Orthodox people and blackmail of His Holiness the Patriarch. But we must remember that this should be seen as the “economy” of the Church: the condescension of His Holiness the Patriarch and the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church. Avoiding a schism, the Church made concessions to Filaret.

For, as mentioned above, from the very beginning, Philaret’s formation of his “UOC” through a meeting of part of the bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine was illegal, since he did not have authority for such an act from the Supreme Canonical Authority of the Russian Orthodox Church. Therefore, the “election” of Filaret as “Primate of the UOC” was a gross violation of church discipline, an anti-canonical act, criminally imposed on the Ukrainian bishops by the Patriarchal Exarch - the representative of the Patriarch (!) Filaret (Denisenko). Undoubtedly, this period of Ukrainian church history still awaits an impartial assessment by Orthodox canonists.

The second visit of the Patriarch to Ukraine. First Sofia Massacre

In Moscow, after some time, Philaret was given the famous Tomos - a letter that said: “The Ukrainian Church should be independent in governance, and Philaret, as a unanimously elected Primate, should lead it.” And I already talked above about how he was “unanimously elected” by a meeting of bishops that did not have the authority to do so, without the Charter of the UOC.

After the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church granted the Ukrainian dioceses broad independence in governance, everyone expected the second visit of His Holiness to Kyiv with the decision of the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church on the formation of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and for the Letter (Tomos) on the formation of the UOC to Metropolitan Philaret in the St. Sophia Cathedral. The arrival of Patriarch Alexy to Kyiv was organized by Filaret so that the Patriarch would receive here another moral slap in the face in the form of the so-called. the first Sofia massacre.

In my opinion, this was another grandiose provocation by Filaret. On the one hand, he allegedly demonstrated loyalty to the Patriarch and reconciliation with a fait accompli. On the other hand, the beating of believers of the UOC-MP in Kiev, perpetrated by the RUKH and UNSO during the Patriarch’s service of the liturgy in St. Sophia Cathedral, was supposed to demonstrate to His Holiness that “not everything is calm in the Kingdom of Denmark”, that the Charter for internal autonomy is only the first step, the next - this is the granting of the rights and dignity of an autocephalous local Church to the Ukrainian self-governing canonical territory. Filaret seemed to hide behind the shield of the UNSO and the Rukhovites, hiding with them his intentions and his true intentions. (The second is usually called the clash between the police and Filaret members during the scandalous funeral of Vladimir Romanyuk). And that's why.

Firstly, Filaret could not help but know that on the day of the visit of His Holiness the Patriarch to Kyiv, a congress of Rukh would be held, in which there were a large number of extremists and extreme nationalists. If Filaret had not known about this, then, without his knowledge, troops would not have gathered at St. Sophia Cathedral on the eve of the patriarchal service. In addition, I, as a business manager, informed the Moscow Patriarchate that a provocation of the Rukhovites was being prepared (and some details had already become known to me), and that it would be better to postpone the Patriarch’s visit to a few days later, when they had left All these warriors from Kyiv, including former UPA soldiers. Filaret commented on my message: “Jonathan stabbed me in the back.” He was furious and now I understand why: after all, I almost destroyed all his insidious plans, for the Patriarch hesitated. Vladyka Kirill began to advise to wait. The entire plan of Filaret’s blackmail of the Patriarch was shaken. And Filaret suspected me of playing some kind of double game in favor of the Patriarch. And those whom Filaret suspected of disloyalty, as Evgenia Petrovna said, he dealt with mercilessly.

When His Holiness arrived at the Kiev station, I managed to whisper to him that on Sofiyskaya Square (at that time the square named after Bohdan Khmelnitsky) Rukhovites were already standing and blocking the entrances to the Cathedral. His Holiness expressed his desire to serve in the Vladimir Cathedral. But Filaret insisted (!) on serving in Sofia: skirmishes and conflicts, as the background to His Holiness’s stay in Ukraine, were part of the schismatic’s plans. The Patriarch, under pressure from Filaret, trusted him and relied on his experience.

This was the first service of the Primate of the Russian Church in the ancient Cathedral - the cradle of our great Church after the Horde conquest of Rus'. I had to give a sermon, express my joy in connection with the granting of autonomous rights to the UOC. But I was so upset by the characterization of Filaret addressed to me and scared (and I was still young then) that I could not say anything. Filaret himself spoke and in his speech he angrily denounced the Rukhovites, who, due to their bewilderment, do not understand the significance of the event that took place in the St. Sophia Cathedral. “Our Ukrainian Church returned to the status of the Church of Cossack times, it received the rights that the Kiev Metropolis had, while still being part of the Patriarchate of Constantinople,” he asserted at all subsequent receptions. Now, I hear Filaret’s statements that our Ukrainian Orthodox Church is a church under the jugular, which is oppressed by Moscow “church imperialism”, I think about the unprecedented duplicity and unprincipledness of this man.

I repeat that the first Sofia massacre, in which the Unsovites and Rukhovites, who were aggressive towards the Russian Orthodox Church, dealt with the Orthodox residents of Kiev on the day of His Holiness Patriarch Alexy presenting the Certificate of independence of the UOC - is an outright, pre-thought-out provocation, an adventure by Filaret and another blackmail of the Patriarch of Moscow to consolidate himself in the Kyiv department and obtaining greater powers in Ukraine. He needed the status of the Local Church for the Ukrainian Exarchate to satisfy vanity and ambition - this is one of the true motives for his schismatic actions. After all, more than once he told me that besides himself he sees no one who could (be a worthy Patriarch in the Russian Orthodox Church. It didn’t work out in Moscow. Now he began to devote all his strength to becoming a “patriarch” in Ukraine. Later, the Moscow Council of Bishops approved the decision of the Moscow Synod to grant the Ukrainian Orthodox Church independence in its internal life. But in Moscow they reacted to this rather formally. They did not yet fully realize and, perhaps, did not even suspect that Filaret was planning a large-scale church schism. Filaret made significant progress towards “to your doll” in Ukraine.

While blessing the issuance of the Certificate of independence of the UOC, the Moscow Council of Bishops did not specifically specify what exactly this internal independence of the UOC “in governance” consists of, i.e. did not fill the Tomos with real content. And Filaret stubbornly worked to ensure that the formulation of the Council of Bishops was not specific, but was as vague and streamlined as possible. In Moscow, he argued that with the granting of the Charter, the Ukrainian dioceses would still be in unity with the Russian Church. He was lying.

Having received the formal determination of the Bishops' Council of the Russian Orthodox Church, Filaret, without having the authority to do so, convenes a non-statutory (!) All-Ukrainian Church Council of the UOC and at it adopts the Charter on the governance of the UOC. This Charter is copied point by point from the Charter of the Russian Orthodox Church. Filaret inspired the participants of the Council: “We are not creating anything new. We simply take the charter of the Russian Church as a basis and change the word “Russian Orthodox Church” to “Ukrainian Orthodox Church”. But an anti-canonical essence has already begun to be traced in his actions.

I noticed that the clause on the lifelong tenure of the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church was mechanically transferred to the draft Charter on the governance of the UOC. It did not provide for the institution of permanent members of the Kyiv Synod. Nowhere in the draft Charter of the UOC was the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church mentioned as the highest authority between the Local Councils of the Russian Orthodox Church, which included the UOC. There was no mention of His Holiness the Patriarch and his role in the UOC. . In the Charter, the Primate of the UOC was not yet called a “patriarch,” but by rewriting the chapter on the Patriarch from the Charter of the Russian Orthodox Church into the Charter of the UOC, Filaret actually became the bearer of patriarchal dignity. Thus, the Primate of the UOC, according to the Charter on the governance of the UOC, in violation of the principle of conciliarity, received personal, unlimited power by nothing and no one

I guessed that a document was being prepared that was destined to become the legal basis for Filaret’s schismatic actions, for the violent separation of the Ukrainian dioceses from the Mother Church. I realized that a canonical crime was being prepared. But who to turn to? The authorities - President L. Kravchuk - are on Filaret’s side, people do not suspect anything, you don’t know which bishop to trust with your suspicions. Just before the Council, when the bishops began to arrive at the residence at Pushkinskaya 36, I decided to express my doubts to Metropolitan Nikodim of Kharkov.

I remember I took him aside and, worried, cautiously said: “Vladyka! I am very alarmed by some points in the draft of our Charter, in particular, on the lifelong tenure of the Primate of the UOC. This is the prerogative of only the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church. And the functions vested in the Metropolitan of Ukraine, as the head of the UOC, will be equal to those of the patriarch in Ukraine. But there is no blessing for this from the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church and it has not clearly defined the boundaries of self-government of the UOC. This all looks like arbitrariness."

There was no more time, 5 minutes remained before the Council, Metropolitan Nikodim replied: “Vladyka! I can see for myself that something is wrong here. You start performing, and I will support you and maybe someone else.” And so, at this first Ukrainian Church Council, I protested against the clause on the lifelong tenure of the Metropolitan in his position, against the expansion of the rights of the Primate of the UOC to the rights of the Patriarch, spoke out for the inclusion in the charter of the institution of Permanent Members of the Synod of the UOC, mention of the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church, etc. That is, he actually accused Filaret of evil anti-canonical intent for a schism and the desire to become the patriarch of the UOC in the future without elections, automatically.

Filaret did not expect such an attack. He turned pale. He interrupted me rudely: “Sit down!” The council proceeded without regulations. And, after all, the regulations are the first thing that must be mandatory at this kind of Council, since it protects the rights of each member of the Council. Metropolitan Nikodim tried to support me, but Filaret rudely interrupted him: “Be silent!” There was deathly silence. Bishop Evfimy Mukachevsky, now deceased, tugged at my sleeve: “Sit down, be silent! Are you tired of being a bishop? And I, being young, could no longer stop, something in me said that I had to do something. When the Charter of the UOC was adopted, the only hand that voted against it was mine. I already knew that the hand raised against Filaret meant my death. Death not only as a bishop, but possibly also as a physical person. I was not far from the bitter truth. Already on the second day, repressions followed: I was deprived of all posts and later, in the middle of winter, having neither housing nor money, I was evicted from Pushkinskaya 36 and exiled to Pereyaslav-Khmelnitsky.

Later, I penetrated into his “family” secret, having met Vera Medved and his mother-in-law, Ksenia Mitrofanovna Rodionova, who, as I mentioned, told me about their misadventures, bullying from Filaret and Evgenia Petrovna, gave me their letters where they accused Filaret in cruelty, they said that Filaret was violating his monastic vows and had a family. When all this became known to Filaret, he dealt with me in the most cruel way. He called me into his office, sat with his unseeing gaze fixed on me, and said in a barking voice: “You have penetrated into areas in which you will burn. I will mix you with dirt!” Having controlled myself, I answered: “Lord! Do not touch me. God will punish you for me and the people will not understand you.” “Well, Vladyka,” he said slowly, “you know, God is high, and the people are cattle.” I was amazed at this answer. But this is his assessment of the Ukrainian Orthodox people.

It gets worse! After some time, he tried me in absentia and banned me from the priesthood. To simulate a “church trial,” already two days before the meeting of the Holy Synod of the UOC, “in my case,” Filaret personally prepared a synodal protocol with false accusations of three false witnesses and a verdict banning me from the priesthood.

This is how the former typist of the Kyiv Metropolis Tatyana Melnichenko described this episode: “In the spring of 1991, I was instructed (by Philaret (!) - author) to print documents of the Synod of the UOC, which dealt with the ecclesiastical crimes of Bishop Jonathan. ...Filaret threatened me that no one should know about this (“I’ll break my neck” - author), and that I must observe official discipline. But when I realized that this trial and punishment were obviously predetermined, that these charges were actually fabricated against Bishop Jonathan, which he did not even know about, I decided that it was my Christian duty to tell him about this.”

Almost a year and a half after I left the Lavra for the position of Administrator of the Exarch, Filaret drew up a legally illiterate and absurd denunciation report against me, forcing three weak-willed people, whose names I will not name, to sign it in the corridor of the chancellery. (They themselves later confessed to me this atrocity imposed on them). In this denunciation, I was accused of stealing property from the Kiev Pechersk Lavra (“about a bucket of silver”, etc.), of wanting to sit in his place, of having contacts with “occultists.” The apotheosis of the absurd “accusations” was the alleged theft of 12 meters of carpet, etc. by me. In total there were more than ten charges, many of which could have been punished by Soviet law. Everyone who even slightly knew me saw the absurdity of false testimony and secretly sympathized. This was the hardest blow to me in my entire life.

I sometimes ask myself: “Did the Ukrainian bishops of that time know about the illegal cohabitation of Philaret the monk with Evgenia Petrovna? After all, their signatures are under the document about my ban and about depriving me of my rank as a slanderer... And I answer: “Yes, probably many knew.” After all, even the very idea of writing a report against Filaret as a fornicator was suggested to me by Metropolitan Nikodim (Rusnak) of Kharkov.

This took place in Moscow, in the already mentioned hotel “Ukraine”. I was banned from the priesthood. I didn't see any way out. No stake, no yard. Some kind of celebration was taking place in Moscow. All the bishops arrived. I decided to go to Nicodemus and get advice on what I should do? “Lord! - Metropolitan Nikodim told me, “You’re already finished anyway: Philaret will never restore you.” So do a good deed for the Church - write a report to His Holiness about this fornicator - Philaret, and send a copy to all the Heads of the Local Churches. We must put an end to this evil in the Church!”

So I wrote my famous report-appeal to His Holiness Patriarch Alexy with a complaint about the lawless trial carried out on me by Philaret through the Kyiv Synod on the basis of false testimony and demanded a trial against him as a violator of monastic vows. The elder of the Darnitsa Church in Kyiv in the name of St. took me to Moscow with a report in an old UAZ. Archangel Michael Vladimir Makarchikov, who strongly insisted that I send my report to the Patriarch.

Filaret’s “Church Courts” are a clerical copy of Stalin’s massacres of the 30s of the twentieth century - without the right to life

Filaret was furious with my report and demanded that the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church deprive me of my rank. They turned him down and said he needed to figure it out. Then he called me for reprisals against the Synod of the UOC, which was obedient to him. Before the start of the meeting, an adventurer from the Baltic states, a certain Yuri Mishkuts (some called him Minkus), Filaret’s assistant in dark affairs, approached me and said: “Filaret wants to first familiarize himself with my supporting documents.” And I, naive, gave them to him! Filaret stole all my supporting documents! I didn't see them again. (Thank God, there were copies left, which I later provided to His Holiness Patriarch Alexy).

At the next Kiev Synod, Filaret accused me of slandering him. He convinced, showed Soviet certificates (note, not a court order, as required by law) about the adoption of children by Evgenia Petrovna. He said that I was mistaken, that my report served the benefit of the Uniates and autocephalist schismatics, and that I must make a sacrifice of repentance for the good of the Church, i.e. take the blame. He, accused by me of crimes against the Church, himself tried me, contrary to the sacred canons. I was literally killed by a gross violation of the judicial procedure, and by more than a year of moral pressure on me from Filaret, and by the stubborn silence of the Synod members. Moreover, Bishop Irinei Seredny even shamed me, saying that “how could I claim in a report to the Patriarch that Bishop Philaret is a family man, after all, he doesn’t even have time for his personal life?!” (After I was restored to rank, Bishop Lazar, now of Simferopol and Crimea, apologized to me for my silence at the Synod, saying that everyone was dominated by fear of Philaret).

When I realized that my exculpatory documents were hidden from the members of the Synod and were actually stolen by Filaret, that in front of me was only an imitation of the Church court, then, being shocked, breaking down, as if in a fog, in a state of shock, I literally incriminated myself, writing under the supervision of Filaret a confused “statement” that now often appears in many of Filaret’s books as “proof” of his “innocence.”

Later, I read other documents that were presented to me by Philaret’s relatives (see excerpts from the letters above) and realized that I had been deceived: he is really a “family” monk-bishop, which, due to the possibility of tempting believers, is prohibited by the canons under penalty of deprivation of the priesthood ! But it was already too late. My protest was no longer of interest to anyone and was not published or voiced in the Ukrainian Kravchuk press, television or radio. In the closed part of the meeting, some bishops (Bishop Onufry and others) tried to save me from reprisals, but Filaret retorted: “Do you feel sorry for him? Don’t you feel sorry for me?” A witness to this massacre, Metropolitan Leonty (Gudimov), described Philaret’s actions as follows (according to his Kherson secretary, Father Vitaly Doroshko): “Filaret crushed Jonathan like a mosquito!”

Why was Filaret so cruel to me? Firstly, I think, because of the fear of being exposed, that he is a family man. Secondly, by brutal reprisal against me, Filaret wanted to protect himself from the possible consideration of my report at the Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church and at the same time to frighten the Ukrainian bishops with it on the eve of the so-called. the first Local Council of the UOC, at which it planned to adopt a document-petition for the granting of autocephaly for the UOC (read - for Filaret). I greatly hindered him in achieving his cherished goal - to become a “patriarch” in Ukraine. That is why Filaret, fearing that at the next Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church I would again speak out against him and his plans to separate the UOC from the Russian Orthodox Church, hastily convened a Synod in Kyiv to deprive me of my bishopric. By depriving me of holy orders, Filaret automatically removed me from participation in the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church, which was supposed to confirm the autonomy of the UOC and its false “presidacy.”

Filaret lies that I allegedly agreed with his unjust verdict

I never agreed with the accusations fabricated by Filaret against me and with the illegal deprivation of my rank. I understood that I would never achieve justice from Filaret. Therefore, after each judicial repression against me, I went to His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II to protest. In the harsh conditions of persecution against me by Philaret, I “blindly” collected evidence of my innocence, since, contrary to the norms of church and secular legal proceedings, I have not received a written official accusation of false witnesses with a list of my alleged crimes from the “merciful” Philaret, and to this day. I described all this in my report to His Holiness Patriarch Alexy.

Only many years after Philaret’s unjust “judicial” reprisal against me, I was able to see a photocopy of the statement of three false witnesses against me, distributed in the city of Sumy by the false bishop of the UOC-KP, Gerontius Khovansky, who had previously been defrocked for evading the schism, with the points of all my imaginary “crimes”, This is the outrage that Filaret committed, saving himself from defrocking.

His Holiness the Patriarch knew about Filaret’s intention to finally deal with me, and once, when I brought him an appeal after being banned from the priesthood, he even warned me about this: “Vladyka,” said the Patriarch, “do not return to Kyiv before the beginning of the Council of Bishops.” - "Why?" - I asked. “Filaret is a mafia,” the Patriarch of All Rus' said quietly, “he will stop at nothing, even physical violence.” The blood began to rush in my head. I, a young bishop, was literally crushed by the terrible picture that opened before me. How!? Metropolitan of Kiev and - “mafia”! His Holiness gave me money, hugged me and blessed me. But I did not listen to the wise High Hierarch and, to my misfortune, returned to Kyiv...

Alas, what my sister Antonina told me with tears about many years ago has come true. During my consecration to the rank of bishop in the Vladimir Cathedral, Evgenia Petrovna suddenly unexpectedly approached her, took her hand, and, looking intently into her eyes, said: “Do you see how great the exarch’s mercy is for your brother? There will be more. But know that Bishop Filaret cruelly deals with everyone who does not obey him. Let him remember: I nominated him to be a bishop, I can strip him... down to his underpants (!).” That is, in this way, Evgenia Petrovna made it clear what fate could await me in the event of disobedience to the Exarch of Ukraine.

As you know, subsequent Ukrainian church history put everything in its place: the canonical Kiev Synod, chaired by the new Primate of the UOC, His Beatitude Metropolitan of Kyiv and All Ukraine Vladimir, restored my honor and dignity as a person and returned my episcopal rank. For this I will forever thank the Lord God, His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II, His Beatitude Vladimir.

Filaret lies that I was allegedly not restored to the clergy

Here is the text of the Resolution of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church (acting on the unanimous instructions of the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church, of which, by the way, Filaret was a participant), on the restoration of Bishop Jonathan to the rank of bishop:

“By the Resolution of His Holiness the Patriarch and the Holy Synod of December 23, 1992, Journal No. 121, DEFINED:

1. Agree with the decision of the Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of August 25, 1992. Journal No. 8, which stated that the defrocking of Bishop Jonathan Yeletsky (by Philaret - author) has no canonical basis, and therefore is ineffective t e l n o.

2. Place Bishop Jonathan (Eletsky) at the disposal of the Primate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

Permanent member of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Yuvenaly. »

Filaret, after returning me to the spiritual rank of bishop by the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church on the basis of the decision of the Synod of the UOC, tried to set the General Prosecutor's Office of Ukraine (Prosecutor General of Ukraine Mr. Potebenko) against me and put me in prison. Some nationalist people’s deputies (including Vladimir Romanyuk, the future “patriarch of the UOC-KP”), at the instigation of Filaret, presented him with a false statement from three unfortunate unfortunate witnesses and demanded that a criminal case be opened against me “for the theft of the Ukrainian people’s land from K-P Laurels.” Filaret thus hoped to confront me with the unfortunate victims of his tyranny - with woeful witnesses...

But Filaret’s new idea against me burst, like a soap bubble already on state grounds... Investigating, on behalf of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine, Mr. Potebenko, the absurd Filaret’s charges against me, according to procedural norms, the Pechersk prosecutor’s office revealed their complete inconsistency. (As an investigator from the Pechersk prosecutor’s office told me privately, all three would-be witnesses renounced their written testimony against me and testified that the testimony was fabricated by Filaret and his inner circle (Evgenia Petrovna) and that they were forced to sign this false denunciation).

Here is the text of a legal document from the Pechersk prosecutor’s office addressed to His Beatitude Vladimir, Metropolitan of Kyiv and All Ukraine, testifying to my complete innocence.

“In response to your request dated March 12, 1993, we inform you that the statement of the “All-Ukrainian (Filaret - author) Committee for the Defense of Orthodoxy” about the abuses of Bishop Jonathan Yeletsky was considered in the Pechersky District Department of Internal Affairs of Kiev. The initiation of a criminal case was refused on the basis of Art. 6 clause 2 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. During the investigation, the facts stated in the statement were not confirmed.

Head of the Pechersky District Department of Internal Affairs of Kyiv B.M. School".

Filaret went berserk

However, Filaret, despising the law, with the tenacity of a maniac continues to denigrate me, both as a person and a bishop, in order to deprive me of the right to be a participant in the court of the Ecumenical Patriarch, to whom he appealed, if only the latter can take place. I wanted to sue Philaret for libel, but His Beatitude Metropolitan Vladimir did not bless me to do this, obviously rightly believing that the head of the UOC-KP, anathematized by the Church, was provoking me to sue not so much with him, but with the unwitting participants in Philaret’s intrigues, who had extracted from them false witness to punish me. All of them have long since repented of their perjury both before His Beatitude Metropolitan Vladimir and in the Pechersk prosecutor’s office, and this is enough for me. After being defrocked, two of them secretly took care of me for two years. They are still alive and well and are on good terms with me. I have no grudge against them, realizing that they are just as much victims of Filaret’s despotic tyranny as I am.

In 2007, Filaret published the so-called “historical-canonical declaration” (“Kiev Patriarchate – Local Ukrainian Orthodox Church”) in a circulation of 50,000 copies, in which he again tried to whitewash his sin of schism and prove his moral “infallibility” by once again denigrating the bishops of the UOC. Bishop Jonathan especially got it in the “yellow book” from the raging Philaret. I again appear in the book as a thief, an immoral type, a defrocked bishop, etc., etc. Filaret sent his pseudo-canonical concoction throughout Ukraine, taking the trouble to translate it into the “damned” Russian language. His entire vicious apology for schismatic activity boils down to a single thought: “Now, if it weren’t for this “immoral criminal” Jonathan, then everything would have been as I planned.”

One can only ask a simple question: why is Bishop Jonathan still not in prison, but serving in the high rank of archbishop, receiving high church awards from the Patriarch and His Beatitude the Metropolitan, respected in the Orthodox world as a church composer and author of several spiritual translations, as an interpreter of divine services in Ukrainian and Russian? Yes, because all of Filaret’s many years of attacks against him were always based solely on lies and lawlessness, on the play of his sick Stalinist-manic fantasy. And, as you know, the father of lies is the devil.

Let me remind the former bishop Philaret Denisenko of the words of his description when presenting the abbot of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, Archimandrite Jonathan (Eletsky), to His Holiness Patriarch Pimen for ordination to the rank of bishop: “Archimandrite Jonathan is an educated clergyman, devoutly (reverently - author) performs divine services, preaches well, has administrative abilities. He managed to organize monastic life and restore church singing in the Kiev Pechersk Lavra.” In his speech at the Kiev Vladimir Cathedral after my consecration, Philaret especially emphasized the complete selflessness of the new Bishop Jonathan and the providence of his consecration as bishop.

This is how Philaret’s right hand does not know what his left hand is doing, according to the saying: “I do what I want,” and “Orthodoxy and its canons are me!” Yesterday Vladika Jonathan was an ideal clergyman for him, and today this same Vladika Jonathan has become for Philaret the repository of all evil! Is it because Philaret does not want to die accused by the entire episcopate of the Russian Orthodox Church (and not just Bishop Jonathan), with the “glory” of a schismatic, a violator of monastic vows and a blasphemer - a plunderer of the church treasury of the UOC, for which he was condemned by the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church, in including by the episcopate of the UOC, according to the 25th rule of the Holy Apostles, and was anathematized.

On the resignation of Filaret from the post of Metropolitan of Kyiv

By brutally punishing me, Filaret thought to intimidate the Ukrainian bishops before making a decisive move towards schism. He brandished reprisals against me like a club over the heads of the bishops. And maybe that’s why in Kyiv, seeing my fate, they almost resignedly accepted and signed what Filaret demanded. Soon the heads of the following victims rolled: Metropolitan Agafangel of Vinnitsa was dismissed and slandered, having dared to oppose the schismatic actions. Bishops Onuphry, Sergius, Theodore and Alypius were punished for refusing to sign Philaret’s letter to the Patriarch, written in the most inappropriate tone.

Only outside Ukraine, in Moscow, did the Ukrainian bishops gain spiritual freedom and there their voice of truth, the voice of truth, sounded. The last hours of Filaret's despotism were approaching. The Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church was in progress. My appeal was heard there and Filaret panicked. During the break, he blackmailed me through Bishop Jacob Pinchuk, then intimidated the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church (he would name out loud the names of “unworthy” bishops, then forced the Ukrainian bishops to sign an ultimatum to the Council (either give him autocephaly immediately, or we will all leave the meeting room). Then there is, he, anticipating his resignation, was already ready to commit a schism at the Council and drag the Ukrainian episcopate into it.

At the moment of criticism of his actions, it seemed that this would happen. Filaret rose from the table of the Cathedral Presidium and, looking around, slowly walked along the wall from the hall. About five Ukrainian bishops stood up hesitantly, but did not move further. Filaret instantly assessed the uncertainty of the situation, stopped, pretending to listen to the loud cry of Bishop Kirill (Gundyaev): “Brothers! Now you take on enormous responsibility for the step you want to take! Think!” The cathedral was silent, awaiting developments. The Patriarch turned pale and somehow became haggard. I looked around the frozen hall and saw that no one followed Filaret! I realized that the crisis was over. This was a victory for common sense, it was a radical change in the Ukrainian church drama. And then Filaret could not stand it: his nerves gave way. Fearing that he would remain in the minority, he reluctantly began to return and sat down in his place on the presidium. A break was announced.

The Ukrainian bishops realized that if Filaret now sits in the place of the Kyiv Metropolitan, he will not forgive them for “betrayal” and immediately started talking about his resignation. Philaret was exhorted, for the good of the Church, to resign from the post of Metropolitan of Kyiv voluntarily. He did not give up, bided his time, bargained. But the time of his despotism was fading into oblivion. The only thing he bargained for himself was the forced gratitude of the Council for the labors he had endured and the choice of any department in Ukraine. He will then constantly hide behind this “gratitude” from the Council, like a fig leaf, justifying his further actions in Kyiv and his departure into schism. The Ukrainian episcopate wanted to immediately elect a new Metropolitan of Kyiv, not trusting Philaret’s promises (before the cross and the gospel) to resign in Kyiv. They knew their “primate” very well. But one bishop, not the last in Moscow, advised the Patriarch not to do this, reasonably noting that the nationalists would certainly say that “Moscow” put pressure, they removed Filaret and the “Muscovites” sent a new Metropolitan. The Patriarch agreed: “Let the Ukrainians in Kyiv choose their own Primate.”

The fullness of the Council of Bishops, as the highest canonical authority, approved and blessed the re-election of the new Metropolitan of Kyiv in Ukraine. The decisions acquired the force of irreversible church law.

Filaret's Last Rubicon

But, as we already know, the Ukrainian bishops hit the mark: Filaret, as he himself put it, “twiled everyone in Moscow” and became an oathbreaker. Upon arrival in Kyiv, he immediately organized a press conference at which he stated that he was supposedly a kind of “redeemer” for Ukraine, because in Moscow, you see, he was elevated to Golgotha. He compared himself with the prophet Jonah, whom the sailors threw into the sea in order to save the ship, like an extra load. He reviled His Holiness the Patriarch, the Russian Church. Before the press conference, as Vera Medved told me, he managed to confer with L. Kravchuk and Evgenia Petrovna. President Kravchuk promised him support in the fight against the Russian Orthodox Church, and Evgenia Petrovna allegedly said this: “Misha (Filaret’s secular name)! Do you want to let someone else in here? If you do this, I’ll send you around the world with my knapsack: I’ll tell you everything about our relationship.” And Filaret took a risk.

This was Philaret’s “Rubicon,” a watershed beyond which the Metropolitan of Kiev turned into an obvious schismatic and enemy of the Church of Christ.

Conducting the first anti-Filaret Zhitomir meeting of bishops of the UOC

In this situation (and I was still defrocked at that time), I came up with the idea of organizing the Committee for the Defense of Ukrainian Orthodoxy, which was formally headed by Archpriest Mikhail Boyko, confessor of the Kyiv diocese, clergyman of the Intercession Monastery. I drafted the first appeal to the clergy and bishops against Filaret. It was necessary to carry out such canonical actions that would lead to the execution of the decision of the Council of Bishops in Moscow on the re-election of the Metropolitan of Kyiv. The Committee for the Defense of Orthodoxy began sending telegrams and letters to bishops demanding that they immediately meet and resolve the issue of Philaret’s re-election in accordance with the decisions of the Council of Bishops in Moscow. The headman Vladimir Makarchikov, mentioned above, provided great assistance. His apartment turned into a kind of headquarters for the revolution against Filaret. Calls, letters, telegrams, meetings... (Unfortunately, due to personal grievances and ambitions, Vladimir moved to the camp of Filaret, whom he once persistently fought against. I remember how he collected signatures for the request of the Verkhovna Rada deputies to Patriarch Alexy to remove post Filaret, copied leaflets of our Committee at some embassy at night and distributed them in the city in his old car. In difficult times for me, he was my friend. I am grateful to him for his moral and material support and hope for his return to the fold of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church Churches.).

A huge role in organizing the anti-Filaret Zhitomir meeting was played by Bishop Metropolitan Agafangel, the current Metropolitan of Odessa and Izmail, and Bishop Job of Zhitomir, who risked providing his residence for the meeting. Representatives of Orthodox brotherhoods and monasteries were invited to the meeting on behalf of the committee. There was no time to waste, because Filaret was not sleeping. He became aware of the bishops' intentions to gather for a meeting in Zhitomir. As Bishop Job later said, Filaret repeatedly called and threatened. He said that this meeting was illegal, had no canonical force, and that everyone who gathered there were “schismatics” because they opposed it. The fact that he himself is an oathbreaker, a violator of the church oath, a blasphemer of the Mother Church and, in fact, a schismatic, Filaret did not take into account: he always considered himself infallible. Vladyka Job was filled with great courage to answer with a refusal, with tears in his eyes. He said that his bishop's conscience does not allow him not to hold this meeting in his diocese.

And so, amid the Easter celebrations, the bishops gathered in Zhitomir. Some sent telegrams of their support, some hesitated and only later sent telegrams of support for the Zhitomir meeting and its decisions. The situation was truly dramatic. Everyone understood that there was no turning back. As a result, the Zhitomir Conference became the forerunner of the Kharkov Council. It dispersed the darkness and dispelled the fear of Filaret in Ukraine. If the Zhitomir meeting had not taken place, at which the bishops overcame their fear, perhaps the Kharkov Council would not have taken place.

I think church history must still evaluate the spiritual feat of the Ukrainian bishops, and in particular, Metropolitan Agafangel and Archbishop Job for its organization and implementation. For the first time, Ukrainian bishops gathered not in Moscow, not in the residence on Pushkinskaya 36, they gathered at the call of their hearts, outraged by Filaret’s provocative press conference on the Volyn Orthodox land. I would say that the color and dignity of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church gathered in Zhitomir.

I remember how worried Bishop Job was while performing a prayer service before the start of the meeting. I remember how Bishop Irinei arrived there, having previously visited Philaret in Kyiv, where he instructed him to somehow neutralize the meeting. When Bishop Irenaeus arrived there, he himself signed the documents of the meeting and, instead of the apologist Philaret, became one of his active accusers. But those gathered in Zhitomir did not know how this could turn out for them. And they operated on the territory of Ukraine, where the all-powerful Filaret and his comrade in the split of Ukrainian Orthodoxy L. Kravchuk ruled.

I repeat again that many of Filaret’s cruelties are out of fear of exposure of his double life as a monk and a family man. He defended himself and, trying to protect himself, created an atmosphere of terror, violence, cruelty and suppression of the slightest freedom. The ignorant claim that Filaret is a strong personality. No! He is a desperately cowardly man. Generosity is the lot of the strong, and Filaret never belonged to them. The fear of exposure pushed him to desperate and daring self-defense, to demonstrate “a bond with the authorities” and higher power. His weapon is of a low quality - throwing out incriminating evidence. For decades he collected the most base anonymous reports and rumors against the bishops. He filed denunciations in his office, blackmailed and dealt with unwanted and, as a rule, the wrong hands using “dirty” technologies. Once, already in schism, he, speaking on television, agreed to the point of transparently but unfoundedly hinting: he was allegedly defrocked on suspicion of having a relationship with Evgenia Petrovna (?) ... a powerful party of gays ... among the episcopate of the Russian Orthodox Church ! Truly, when God wants to punish, he deprives a person of reason.

But at the Zhitomir meeting, the fear of Filaret was overcome. And Vladyka Job, at the end of it, joyfully repeated: “How free I feel now! I have no fear of this man!” Thank God! I also had to take part in the Zhitomir meeting and even become a co-author of the famous document, where the Ukrainian episcopate first formulated accusations against Filaret as an oathbreaker and blasphemer of the Church of Christ, demanding an immediate church trial of him. This historical document was forwarded to Moscow to His Holiness Patriarch Alexy and the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church and delivered to Metropolitan Philaret in Kyiv by elder Vladimir Makarchikov.

It is curious that when a bishop's meeting took place in Zhitomir, which decided to bring Filaret to the church court for perjury, he falsely declared that it had no force, because he, Filaret, did not have his blessing to hold it. But I will repeat the counter-argument once again: “And which His Holiness Patriarch gave the blessing of part of the bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church for the formation of the “UOC” within its composition and for the “election” of him, Philaret, as primate, when there was not even a Charter on the management of the UOC and even the very procedure for electing a primate ? There was no such canonical blessing. And, “what is not blessed is not holy,” says the popular saying. Not a word was said about the Zhitomir meeting in any media outlet in Ukraine. But the free voice of the bishops, sounded in Zhitomir, was heard by the Mother Church and served, in fact, as the canonical basis for the start of the trial in the case of the schismatic metropolitan, which led to his deposition and excommunication from the conciliar Body of the Ecumenical Orthodox Church.

Events in Kyiv after the Zhitomir Assembly and about the Kharkov Cathedral

The decisions of the Zhitomir conference had to be conveyed to ordinary believers, to the abbots of the Kyiv churches. And so at night, I and other members of our Committee had to, like revolutionaries, travel around Kyiv churches and monasteries and post it all on poles and doors. The reaction of the clergy, intimidated by Filaret, was curious. Some of them happily read our leaflets and appeals, and some (there are not many of them) refused to accept them and even tore them off the doors. In one of the monasteries, the decisions of the Zhitomir meeting were returned to us. Mother Abbess told us to tell us to take it all. Later, this same abbess herself suffered greatly from Filaret for refusing to accept autocephaly.

As for the Kharkov Council, I was not present at it for the reason that I had not yet been restored as a bishop. But, nevertheless, I prepared certain theses for the Council that needed to be resolved before electing a new metropolitan and which I voiced at the memorable first Church Council of the UOC, where the Charter on the governance of the UOC was adopted. These theses were transferred to Metropolitan Agafangel Vladimir Makarchikov.

In particular, it was necessary to cancel the discriminatory and anti-canonical formulation imposed by Filaret that the Kiev Metropolitan could only be elected from among the Ukrainian episcopate. Not a single Local Orthodox Church knows such a practice. Bishops from other Local Churches were invited to the primatial sees. You don’t have to go far for an example: Metropolitan Peter Mohyla of Kiev was from Moldova, and we consider him our Ukrainian saint. Secondly, it was necessary to cancel the clause on the lifelong tenure of the Metropolitan of Kyiv in this post. And, finally, it was necessary to introduce the institution of Permanent Members of the Kyiv Synod.

The introduction of these provisions into the Charter of the UOC restored the conciliarity of the management of the Church and guaranteed the transformation of the Kyiv Synod into a freely functioning church body, and not into an instrument of personal dictatorial politics. All these points, to great joy, were accepted.

The Kharkov Council of the UOC deposed Filaret and banned him from the priesthood, bringing against him the same accusations of immorality and schism for which I once suffered, adding accusations of embezzling the church treasury of the UOC. The acts of the Kharkov Council of the UOC became moral satisfaction for me for all the persecution from Filaret.

The Kharkov Council is a significant milestone in the history of not only Ukrainian, but also Russian Orthodoxy in general. He showed that the Ukrainian episcopate, in times of difficult trials at turning points, found the courage to become a herald of truth and justice, to defend the trampled conciliarity of the Church of Christ. At the Kharkov Council, the episcopate of the UOC preserved the Gracious Holy Orthodoxy for future generations of Ukrainians. Theologically, this is the undoubted importance of the Kharkov Council. In it, one can apparently see how God leads His Church to salvation through the divinely appointed episcopate, which, despite pressure and blackmail, fulfilled the sacred duty of defending Orthodoxy before the Mother Church.

Of course, at the Kharkov Council there were doubts and hesitations. Some still wanted to avoid direct confrontation and asked Filaret to come and solve everything peacefully in accordance with the decisions of the Bishops’ Council of the Mother Church. One bishop even lost consciousness twice from excitement. Some people persistently proposed other candidates for the post of Primate of the UOC.

But, when everything happened, the moment of truth came: the Church in Ukraine found its new, now canonically elected Primate - Metropolitan Vladimir (Sabodan). The Kharkov Council of the UOC, canonically conducted flawlessly, i.e. with the blessing of His Holiness the Patriarch and the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church, he returned church life in Ukraine to the canonical conciliar channel. I think it would be correct to consider in the textbooks of our Church history the moment of the beginning of the historical existence of the UOC, as canonical and conciliarly self-governing, not from the arbitrary “election” of Philaret as the “primate” of the “UOC” he created for himself, but from the time of the election of His Beatitude Vladimir to this post (Sabodan), Metropolitan of Kyiv and All Ukraine, whose election was confirmed almost immediately by all the Heads of the Orthodox Local Churches.

In Kyiv after the Kharkov Cathedral

After the Kharkov Council, on the initiative of the Committee of the Clergy in Defense of Ukrainian Orthodoxy and with the blessing of His Beatitude Metropolitan Vladimir (he had not yet arrived in Kiev), a meeting of the clergy of the Kiev diocese was held in the Refectory Church of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, then still a museum. I spoke there to explain the position of the episcopate of our Church, spoke about the Zhitomir Conference, about the Kharkov Council. Unanimously, all the priests present welcomed the deposition of Philaret and the election of His Beatitude Metropolitan Vladimir to the post of the new Primate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. But the forces of evil did not give up. Filaret, through the state media, announced the non-recognition of the decisions of the Kharkov Council, and the Presidium of the Verkhovna Rada (Speaker I. Plyushch) promulgated an unconstitutional resolution on the illegality of the Kharkov Council, which provoked a wave of seizures of UOC churches by schismatics-Filaretites, Rukhovites, Uniates and Unsovites for decades to come.

An attempt to seize the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra by the UNSO on the night before the arrival of His Beatitude Metropolitan Vladimir in Kyiv

His Beatitude Metropolitan Vladimir was supposed to arrive in Kyiv. The night before, in the Vladimir Cathedral, as one of its workers told me about it, a farewell prayer service was served for the pogrom makers from the UNSO. A prayer service was served for those who went to the Holy Lavra with bladed weapons, to which even the Moscow Tsars walked. Filaret himself, as the leader of the UNSO admitted in front of video cameras. Dmytro Korchinsky, blessed the Unsovites to capture the Lavra.

The plan was this: UNSO seizes the governor’s house and the monks’ cells. Those who resist are taken to an unknown direction. The Unsovites dress in monastic clothes and report that the Lavra - the shrine of Orthodoxy - has gone over to the side of the schismatic Filaret. (Looking ahead, I will say that when the operation failed, the Ukrainian radio, without receiving information about its failure in advance, broadcast throughout the country the news that the Kiev Pechersk Lavra “is controlled by national-patriotic forces faithful to Ukrainian Orthodoxy.” All this says that the seizure action was planned at a high level, perhaps not without the knowledge of Kravchuk, who was then President. Perhaps that is why all the materials about the beating of monks and believers and children by the Unsovites, which were received by the Pechersk prosecutor's office, then disappeared from there and the case was quiet discontinued).

The Kiev “Berkut” prevented the seizure of the Lavra by Filaret’s UNSO. It was like that. Late at night my sister called me and said that shots and screams were heard in the Lavra. She remembered that she had an acquaintance at Berkut - Nikolai Grigoryevich Bogdanenko, who was the operational duty officer in Kyiv. I asked him to call him, report the riots and do everything possible to expel the hooligans, and I urgently went to the Lavra. Law enforcement officers, called by N. G. Bogdanenko, in full equipment, arrested the criminals. I then handed over the videotape with the events captured to His Beatitude Metropolitan Vladimir and he saw all this disgrace. The video footage was especially stunning when “riot police” laid out cold weapons seized from the Unsovites in the corridor of the Metropolitan’s residence: sticks, iron rods, sharpened saws, knives, and even firearms. How insensitive one must be to the shrine in order to raise a hand with a weapon against the Kyiv Lavra, against the holy of holies of Orthodoxy, like the Horde conquerors. And then I thought: “Were many people really right when they suspected that Filaret was a great atheist in his soul?”

Triumphant arrival of the Primate of the UOC in Kyiv

On the platform of the Kyiv station, people gathered to meet the Primate of the UOC, His Beatitude Metropolitan Vladimir, elected by the Kharkov Council. I arrived at the station square. The police detachments were lined up in a huge letter “P”. The authorities feared provocations or clashes with the UNSO. Everything was commanded by General Nedrygailo, who often visited Filaret at Pushkinskaya 36 and, according to some information, could not have been unaware of the impending assault on the UNSO Lavra. The general spoke rudely to me, threatened me with arrest, trying to prevent me from getting onto the platform. But then he waved his hand somewhat sluggishly and I quickly walked behind the human fence.

The entire platform was filled with people with flowers. Everyone was eagerly awaiting the arrival of the train. The train, very late, slowly pulled up on the platform. He paused and walked a few tens of meters again. The concentrated face of His Beatitude flashed through the window. People rushed behind his carriage. There was confusion. Then they told me that the authorities tried to get His Beatitude off the train on the approach to Kyiv, convincing him to change into a car. He was told that an uncontrollable crowd was waiting for him in Kyiv, thirsting for his blood. But His Beatitude refused to leave the carriage and decided to meet what God had prepared for him.

When he saw a crowd running along the platform through the window, he at first thought something bad. But, gathering his courage, he calmly headed towards the exit. I saw him slowly step onto the platform. He was immediately surrounded by bishops, priests, monks, and ordinary believers. Flowers flew under my feet. There were a great many of them. The air was saturated with some kind of joy. Everyone saw the rightful High Hierarch. Out of delight, I sang the Easter troparion: “Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death and giving life to those in the tombs.” A minute later, the entire thousand-headed crowd, with one mouth and one heart, glorified the victory of Christ the Giver of Life over death and corruption, righteousness over evil. As a reflection of the Easter message, the new High Hierarch of the Ukrainian land came out to the people and entered the land of ancient Kyiv.

Many cars set off and at high speed, right along the central line of the road markings, past the barricaded Vladimir Cathedral, where the Unsovites had settled, they arrived at the very heart of Ukrainian Orthodoxy - the Kiev Pechersk Lavra. The bell rang from the Great Lavra Bell Tower and in the Refectory Church in the name of Saints Anthony and Theodosius, Protodeacon Nikita Pasenko announced the first anniversary of the arriving Metropolitan. Out of excitement, the protodeacon almost uttered (out of habit) the name of Philaret. But, quickly mastering his feelings, he shook his head and sang: “To our Most Beatitude Vladimir, Metropolitan of Kyiv and all Ukraine, grant, Lord, many and prosperous years!” The entirety of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church answered earnestly: “Many, many, many years!” Orthodoxy was saved! The next page of its history in Ukraine, the church history of the land of ancient Kievan Rus, began to be written...

Without martyrdom?!

Once in my youth (I was 16 years old) I studied Church Slavonic reading at the Kiev Intercession Monastery. One day my mentor, Mother Angelina, traditionally performed, as she said, placing an emphasis on the last letter, “trivo,” i.e. The musical trio on the choir, looking at me, suddenly said: “But, you will be a martyr!” “Here,” I thought, “wonderful! What kind of martyrdom can there be now? We live in a free country...in the Soviet Union!” Now that I am in my seventh decade, looking at the young generation of priests of the UOC, I ask myself: “What awaits you, in what country will you live?” And I answer, with a fair amount of irony within myself: “In Ukrainian, free, democratic?!” Kherson, 1999

Epilogue

It's June 2010. Outside the window, Tulchin is a small provincial town in Podolia with a population of eleven thousand, in which the Lord destined me to be a bishop. Behind us are twenty years of life in independent Ukraine, obvious or open persecution of the UOC, a series of moves from one see to another, awards from the hands of two of His Holiness Patriarchs of Moscow and All Russia - Alexy II and Kirill, His Beatitude Metropolitan of Kyiv and All Ukraine Vladimir, and... ongoing stubborn struggle with former Metropolitan Philaret for the unity of Orthodox Ukrainians with the Moscow Patriarchal Throne. The older archpastors were replaced by a younger generation of hierarchs. Where and how will they lead the Ukrainian Church? This is known only to God, in the ways of whose good providence its Fullness abides. Humanly speaking, outwardly, my career path is a paradoxical “ascent down”: from the post of business manager and member of the Holy Synod of the UOC to unnoticed service in a provincial department, which greatly pleases Filaret and his minions, who in their pride do not know about the holy obedience of the Mother. Churches. I listen not to their poisonous lips, but to the good word of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill addressed to me when he was still Locum Tenens of the Patriarchal Throne (on the occasion of my 60th birthday): “I believe that by Divine Providence you were appointed to serve in the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, where over the past decades, despite many trials, they have selflessly defended the canonical system and church unity.” Thank you for this! And so wake up, wake up...!

Continuation of the epilogue. About the beginning of a new new chapter in the history of the UOC

In 2014, to replace the seriously ill and wheelchair-bound late His Beatitude Metropolitan Vdamimir (Sabodan), Metropolitan of Chernivtsi Onuphry (Berezovsky), a hierarch of a strong monastic formation, was elected to the Kyiv cathedra by a free vote.

In the first month of the reign of His Beatitude Onuphry, the bishops, driven to the outskirts of church life, veterans of the fight against philaretism, became metropolitans and archbishops. Among them is the 65-year-old author of these memoirs, Metropolitan Jonathan of Tulchin and Bratslav (pictured).

What else did the election of Metropolitan Onufry as Primate of the UOC bring to the life of the UOC? I will express a subjective assessment: it brought the abolition of the voluntaristic “era” of unlimited favoritism and its consequences, which were detrimental to the conciliarity of the Church.

The providential election of Metropolitan Onuphry to the Kyiv See undoubtedly contributed to the preservation of the Orthodox canonical status of the UOC, the strengthening of its canonical unity with the Mother Church, and therefore with the canonical Ecumenical Orthodoxy. In other words, grace-filled Orthodoxy in Ukraine was saved by his conciliar election.

At the same time, in Ukraine, since the spring of 2014, a tragic war has broken out in the mining Southeast! It's time for new challenges! May the Lord strengthen our Church on the path of fulfilling His blessed commandments! Most Holy Theotokos, save us! Amen.

Since 2006, Markell Vetrov has been Bishop of Peterhof, vicar of the St. Petersburg diocese.

KGB operatives were often called “neighbors” in those years.