I agree with you. He absolutely is NOT a Ukrainian patriot!
...and he certainly does not deserve the honor being given him.
He will have much to answer for, some day.
...pretending to be a shepherd...and the whole time leading the flock astray.
Couldn't agree more. He only became a Ukrainophile when he wasn't elected Patriarch of Moscow. Not to mention his wife and kids.
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ACT OF EXCOMMUNICATION of the monk Filaret Denisenko
1. The blessed Bishops' Council considered the antichurch activities of the monk Filaret Denisenko who was deprived of all priestly ranks by a Court order of the Bishops' Council on 11 June 1992 and who was warned by the Bishops' Council of 1994 that "should he continue to act uncanonically he will be excommunicated by anathema".
The blessed Bishops' Council now has to state with regret that the monk Filaret has not heeded the call addressed to him by the Mother Church to repent and in the period between Councils has continued his schismatic activities which he extended beyond the Russian Orthodox Church by facilitating the deepening of the schism in the fraternal Bulgarian Orthodox Church and by taking into communion schismatics from other Local Orthodox Churches; criminally ignoring the grounded banishment imposed by the lawful church authorities - his deposition - he has continued to perform sacrilegious "divine services", including blasphemous false consecrations without possessing the holy priesthood; the monk Filaret, to the temptation of many, has dared to call himself "patriarch of Kiev and Rus-Ukraine", while the ancient throne of Kiev is lawfully occupied by a canonical representative of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in the rank of metropolitan; the monk Filaret has not ceased to blaspheme against the bishops, clergy and the faithful of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church which is in canonical communion with the Russian Orthodox Church and through her with the universal Orthodox Church, continuing to harm Orthodoxy in Ukraine by his criminal actions.
In view of the aforesaid, the blessed Bishops' Council on the basis of Apostolic canon 28 which says : "If a bishop, or a presbyter, or a deacon, lawfully deposed for his apparent faults dares to perform services once entrusted to him, he will be completely cut off from the Church", and also on the basis of canon 14 of the Council of Sardica, canon 4 of the Council of Antioch, and rule 88 of St.Basil the Great, unanimously decided:
To excommunicate monk Filaret (Mikhail Antonovich Denisenko). Let him be anathema before all people.
2. The blessed Bishops' Council, in view of the lack of repentance on the part of the monks Iakov Panchuk and Andrey Gorak, who participate in the criminal schismatic activities of the former monk Filaret, once again calls them to repent and stop these blasphemous outrages and warns them that otherwise they will be excommunicated by anathema.
3. The blessed Bishops' Council, caring for those who have erred and have been drawn into schism by the former monk Filaret, reminds all who dare communicate with him in prayers that according to the sacred canons, they, in case they do not break this communion, are subject to excommunication. St.Basil the Great said in rule 88, warning Protopresbyter Gregory whom he suspended: "If you without correcting yourself dare to celebrate, you will be anathema before all people, and those who accept you will be excommunicated".
4. The blessed Bishops' Council informs the Primates of the Local Orthodox Church of the excommunication of the former monk Filaret (Mikhail Antonovich Denisenko) by anathema.
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Filaret - Autobiography
He was born into a working-class family in the Donbas region of Ukraine in 1926. He graduated from the Odessa Seminary and the Moscow Spiritual Academy. He took monastic vows during his second year at the Academy and was a close associate of Patriarch Alexei I of Moscow. After graduating from the Academy he taught in seminaries and academies and was rector of the Kyiv Seminary.
In 1962 he received episcopal ordination. In 1966 he was named archbishop and later metropolitan of Kyiv and Halych; he was the first ethnic Ukrainian in the post of Metropolitan of Kyiv for 150 years. He has taken active part in international religious organizations. He has traveled to more than 80 countries, has a great number of Church awards and also received Soviet honors.
Consistently opposed to the idea of an Autocephalous Ukrainian Church and the Greek Catholic Church, he criticized Ukrainian nationalism. On the eve of a national referendum in March 1991, he called his faithful to vote in favor of the renewal of the USSR. At the same time, from the very beginning of Mikhail Gorbachev’s reforms, Filaret made significant efforts to renew the Church’s infrastructure and Church life.
In 1990 after the death of Pimen, Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus, Filaret became the administrator of the Moscow Patriarchate. In October of that year the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Moscow Patriarchate received the right to govern itself and Filaret received the title «Metropolitan of Kyiv and All Ukraine.»
After the dissolution of the USSR he led a movement for «full canonical independence, namely, autocephaly» for his Church. In November 1991 he headed a working council which requested the hierarchy of the Russian Orthodox Church to grant the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Moscow Patriarchate autocephalous status. Leonid Kravchuk, then President of Ukraine, supported the request but the Moscow Patriarchate strongly opposed it.
Soon afterwards a number of articles appeared in the press accusing Filaret of severe violation of his monastic vows and abuse of his ecclesiastical authority. The Hierarchical Council of the Russian Orthodox Church, which met from March to April 1992, demanded that he leave his position. He promised that he would but, upon his return from Moscow, he announced that the promise was given under pressure and he would not leave. In May 1992 at a Hierarchical Council held in Kharkhiv the majority of the bishops of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Moscow Patriarchate voted to depose Metropolitan Filaret from his office and suspend his clerical functioning.
Relying on the support of political authorities in Ukraine, Filaret with three other bishops united with the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church. In June of 1992 they created a new Church, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Kyivan Patriarchate (UOC-KP). Though only chosen as assistant to 94-year-old Patriarch Mstyslav, Filaret was actually in control of church affairs. Opposing this situation, some of the Autocephalous bishops and clergy refused to join the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Kyivan Patriarchate.
After the death of Patriarch Mstyslav, the Council of the UOC-KP chose Filaret to be the successor of newly-elected Patriarch Volodymyr Romaniuk, though full ecclesiastical power remained in Filaret’s hands. Upon the death of Patriarch Volodymyr in July of 1995 he was elected head of the UOC-KP. This led to yet another split: four hierarchs left the Church with their faithful.
After his election as Patriarch, Filaret began to take a very active part in church politics. He tried to gather around his Church all groups with a nationalist orientation and all church structures which did not have canonical recognition. He admitted the error of his previous opposition to the idea of autocephaly and Ukrainian Greek Catholics. He is of the opinion that Ukraine needs a national Church, to which all the Orthodox in the country should unite, and only the UOC-KP is capable of fulfilling this role. He made a few unsuccessful attempts at gaining canonical recognition for the UOC-KP.
The Hierarchical Council of the Russian Orthodox Church in 1997 excommunicated him from the Church and put him under anathema. He has not acknowledged the validity of this act: he says he has simply left one national Church and chosen another.
Text adapted from the Ukrainian-language journal "Liudyna i Svit" ("The Human Being and the World"), February, 1998.
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Orthodoc