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Under the auspices of the Patriarchate of Constantinople in Kyiv, the first Metropolitan is the first for 350 years of Moscow

As the “new” predicted, 39-year-old Metropolitan Epiphanius (Dumenko) was elected the first Primate of the Autocephalous Orthodox Church in Ukraine. The unification cathedral of the Ukrainian churches, held in Sofia of Kyiv on December 15, finally approved the new contours of the Orthodox world, in which the role of the Patriarchate of Constantinople sharply increased and the role of Moscow fell catastrophically ...

Impotence of Moscow anathemas

The Ukrainian church went to this cathedral for at least a hundred years. On January 1, 1919, the UPR Directory adopted the Law on Autocephalia of the Ukrainian Church. Comfortable during the celebration of the 100th anniversary of this act, January 6, the Patriarch of Constantinople will solemnly present in his cathedral the new Kyiv Metropolitan Tomos about autocephaly in his Cathedral. The Ukrainian church will become the 15th in Diptich (official list) of local Orthodox churches, and even the Moscow Patriarchate will sooner or later accept this reality.

In the meantime, in the Danilov monastery they are quite belligerent. In order to interfere with the proclamation of autocephaly, Patriarch Kirill (Gundyaev) sent on the eve of the cathedral, December 14, a message to the heads of churches and political leaders of the world, including the Pope and Secretary General of the UN. He either complained or warned of a large -scale religious war in Ukraine, about an unprecedented violation of human rights - the very ones that in his sermons in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior called "the main heresy of the 21st century." So far, nothing is known about the reaction to this formidable message.

Only the right hand of the Patriarch-his “Foreign Minister” Hilarion (Alfeev)-in anger called the Jews of the two metropolitans of the Ukrainian Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP), who dared to appear on the cathedral in St. Sofia, Simeon (Shostatsky) Vinnitsa and Alexander Pereyaslav-Khmelnitsky. Now they will be deprived of the dignity, and maybe even anathematized, as they once did with the 90-year-old old man Philaret once sitting on the presidium of the current cathedral. But thanks to what happened in Kyiv, world Orthodoxy is no longer afraid of these anathemas and threats.

This whole story with Ukrainian autocephaly demonstrated the amazing weakness of the Moscow church (and not only) politics.

That is how the leader of the Russian opposition Alexei Navalny described the cathedral and the leader of the Russian opposition, which, although he recognizes the Ukrainian church as a “schism”, but considers its recognition by the world Orthodoxy the great political failure of Putin.

A couple of detective stories

In Kyiv, they were waiting for this “revenge” right today - the SBU reported on the prevented terrorist attacks, and the unification cathedral itself took place under the conditions of unprecedented closedness. Representatives of the press were not only not allowed for him, but the delegates themselves could not use mobile communications. Russian expert Sergei Chapnin, who, until 2015, edited the official “Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate”, and now this very patriarchy criticizes, believes that the excessive closeness of the cathedral is a sign of uncertainty of the Ukrainian authorities, “that the cathedral will pass without a scandal”.

However, gloomy forecasts have not yet been justified: in a crowd of many thousands gathered on Sofia Square, law enforcement officers identified only two people with cold weapons. But several thousand people took place on the square. During the day, the center of Kyiv was scored by buses with numbers of all regions of Ukraine.

Of course, not everything around this cathedral and it was smooth on it. Apparently, a few more bishops of the Moscow Patriarchate planned to arrive at him than two. It remains a mystery to the story with Metropolitan Mogilev-Podolsky Agapit, who went to Kyiv in Kiev in a circular way (from the Chernivtsi region). Having learned about this, the Kiev “Union of Orthodox Journalists”, related to the Moscow Patriarchate, hastened to say that the Metropolitan was escorted by SBU employees. On the evening of December 14, the main sponsor of the UOC MP, the Ukrainian oligarch of Russian descent Vadim Novinsky, who transported him to the Kiev Pechersk Lavra, from St. Sofia, was controlled by Agapit.

Another muddy story is connected with the well -known Metropolitan of Polesie and Sarnensky Anatoly. On a pre-collection night, his appeal in support of the unification council spread on the network, but the press service of the diocese in very expressive expressions denied it. Metropolitan Sofroniy did not arrive on the cathedral and the Radical Nationalist, who at the last moment did not like the “degree of autocephaly”, provided to Ukraine by Constantinople.

Behind closed doors: voting results

About 170 delegates took part in the cathedral: 42 bishops of the Kyiv Patriarchate (UOC -KP), 12 bishops of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Church (UAPC) and two bishops of the UOC -MP. Each bishop was accompanied by one clergyman or one layman and monk. Such a quota was determined by the Ecumenical Patriarch at the end of November. Despite the rank and position in the church, each delegate had an equal right of voting, and the vote over the Primate took place secretly and in two rounds. The presiding Metropolitan Emmanuel did not declare a break until the vote and the counting of the votes end.

In the first round, it was possible to vote for any bishop, and the three lords who gained the greatest number of votes entered the second round. These became the Metropolitans of the UOC -KP Epiphanius and Mikhail and the Metropolitan of the UOC -MP Simeon, and the advantage of Epiphanius was indicated already in the first round. He has a reputation as Alter Ego Patriarch Filaret, who exactly 10 years ago made a talented young man who returned from an internship in Greece, his personal secretary. From that moment, the Epiphanius career was swift: in 2009, he became the vicar bishop of Filaret, in 2012-the archbishop, in 2013-the Metropolitan, managing one of the largest dioceses of the UOC of the Communist Party (Kiev region).

Although academic scientists do not recognize the special merits of the young metropolitan, he is considered the “face of theology” in the Kiev Patriarchate - he heads his training committee, the Theological Academy, and the editorial board of theological magazines. More precisely, he headed, because in the new church the old structure of the Kyiv Patriarchate will be subjected to some reformatting according to Constantinople. Metropolitan Mikhail, who has a reputation as a strong business executive, was mainly voted by members of the Kyiv patriarchy, who were in a particular opposition to Filaret, and for Metropolitan Simeon, members of the UAPC and the UPC MP. He was heavily discussed at the cathedral and the charter of the new church. And it is possible that this discussion will continue. The main subject of the dispute, of course, is the amount of powers of the Patriarchate of Constantinople and the volume of independence of the Kyiv metropolis in the newly created autocephaly.

The first forecasts

What will be the first changes in the life of the Church of Ukraine and in general world Orthodoxy after the proclamation of Kyiv autocephaly? It seems that Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine in order to “protect canonical Orthodoxy” is possible only if they acquire the massive nature of the “battle for temples”, especially for the symbolically important ones-Kiev-Pechersk and Pochaev lavra. There are no internal prerequisites for such battles in Ukraine, but whether the Poroshenko government can effectively resist external influences is still unknown.

From the Great Church Policy, the Soviet-Russian-Ukrainian veteran Filaret (Denisenko), on the threshold of his 90th anniversary, was waiting for his personal rehabilitation and the triumph of his work, leaves. He occupies the “non -canonical” Kiev Patriarchal throne for more than 23 years, and before that he managed to visit the locomotive of the Moscow Patriarchal throne and the second person of the Moscow Patriarchate under the elderly Patriarch Pimen. Most likely, in Ukraine, Filaret will still be titrated by the Patriarch, and Constantinople and the rest of world Orthodoxy will be considered his metropolitan. The real Ukrainian church administration will gradually pass into the hands of the young generation, which grew up in the era of independence and absorbed the values ​​of the Maidan and the “European choice”. In addition to the new Primate, this generation belongs, for example, Archbishop Evstratiy (Zorya) and Metropolitan Alexander (Drabinko).

The sharp transition of the monasteries and parishes of the Moscow Patriarchate to the “canonical” autocephaly will not at first, but over time this process will become quite stable and systematic. It takes several months to submit the passions that boil on the eve of the cathedral and the provision of Tomos about autocephaly, so that, in the end, the presidential elections (appointed in March 2019) will be passed, and the autocephaly project was cleared of political dust.