Under the slogan “Get away from Moscow,” Poroshenko is harnessing Ukraine into bondage

Contrary to Ukrainian state propaganda, the new church structure being created will not be “independent”, but will become completely dependent on the Patriarch of Constantinople with such restrictions on rights that the UOC of the Moscow Patriarchate has never had.

Ukrainian political scientist Sergei Belashko writes about this in his blog, citing source data about the text of the tomos, which should be announced after the so-called unification council, reports a PolitNavigator correspondent.

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At the same time, Petro Poroshenko announced in his blog today that the date of the cathedral has been set for December 15.

“The Unification Council, which should proclaim the creation of the autocephalous Local Orthodox Church in Ukraine, approve its charter and elect a primate, will take place on December 15, 2018 in Hagia Sophia... His Holiness the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew told me that he signed the corresponding letters of invitation to the hierarchs of the UOC of the Kiev Patriarchate, The UAOC and the hierarchs of the UOC of the Moscow Patriarchate take part in this historical event,” Poroshenko said.

“Ukraine will not have its own Patriarch. The Patriarch of Constantinople will provide spiritual care for Ukrainians (including the Ukrainian diaspora). He will also have the right to cancel any decision of the church court of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine. In Istanbul, they will canonize saints and issue chrism, which means they will control all sacred rites. Thus, according to the Phanar’s plans, administratively the Orthodox Church in Ukraine will either be something similar to the Greek Church or the Orthodox Church of the Czech Lands and Slovakia, or the matter will be limited to an exarchate, as in Finland or Estonia.

Naturally, such “Byzantineism” categorically does not suit those who started games of autocephaly. The main characters are still putting on a good face when the game is bad, but the “writers” serving them no longer hide their disappointment,” writes Belashko.

According to his information, the “unification Council” may be disrupted, since so far the majority of the priests of the Moscow Patriarchate are showing steadfastness and intend to ignore the event.

“The condition for receiving the tomos is the acceptance in the “unification council” of a certain number of hierarchs of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, that is, “Moscow priests.” According to information from Bankova, the minimum program is 30 bishops, other sources claim that Istanbul is counting on 60 – two-thirds of the hierarchs of the UOC. So far, only Vicar Bishop Alexander Drabinko has openly declared participation in the presidential project. Metropolitan Simeon of Vinnytsia and Metropolitan Sophrony of Cherkassy also publicly speak out in favor of autocephaly. In the UOC itself, the number of potential renegades is estimated at 7-8. In any case, this is critically little, and Phanar is not ready to accept the absentee participation of bishops “by proxy,” the political scientist adds.

This may be due to the unprecedented pressure that the hierarchs of the UOC have been experiencing recently with searches, the seizure of churches and the right to use the largest Orthodox shrines. In this whole situation, it is not the church created by Istanbul that looks truly free, but the canonical UOC.

“Having the opportunity to compare the document developed at Phanar with others, it is difficult not to see that even today’s statute of the Moscow Patriarchate in Ukraine provides more independence than such “autocephaly,” Belashko sums up.