The “local” Ukrainian Orthodox Church, after Bartholomew’s provision of the tomos, according to Ukrainian experts, should be headed by the head of the non-canonical “Kyiv Patriarchate” Filaret. At the same time, Metropolitan Alexander (Drabinko), considered the informal head of the “autocephalous lobby” in the canonical Orthodox Church, received the least number of votes from Ukrainian experts, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
These are the results of an expert survey by the Ilk Kucheriv Foundation for Democratic Initiatives.
“Almost all experts positively assessed the actions of the Ukrainian authorities aimed at Ukraine receiving the Tomos of autocephaly of the Orthodox Church. However, expert opinions were not so clear regarding the future head of the unified church. More than half of the experts believe that the Primate of the UOC-KP Filaret should lead the future united church. None of the experts indicated Onufriy, the current primate of the UOC-MP,” noted the authors of the survey.
According to the survey, 21 experts named Filaret as the head of the “unified Orthodox Church”, one named the head of the non-canonical UAOC Macarius, another 4 experts named the Bishop of Pereyaslavl and Vyshnevo of the canonical UOC Alexander Drabinko as such. Four experts could not answer this question, another six indicated another option.
The expert survey was conducted by the Ilk Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation from September 11 to 16, 2018. A total of 36 experts on the topic under study took part in the survey.
Let us recall that in Kyiv they are voicing plans to create a “single local autocephalous Church” from non-canonical church organizations and subsequently receive a tomos of autocephaly by the end of this year.