Head of OCU wishes Filaret “wisdom from God” on his birthday
On January 23, 2020, the head of the liquidated UOC-KP and the “honorary patriarch” of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Filaret Denisenko, turned 91 years old.
The head of the OCU Epiphany Dumenko congratulated “dear Vladyka” Filaret on his birthday. The text of the congratulations is published on the website of the OCU.
“Your work, which has become an important basis for the Ukrainian Church to receive Tomos of autocephaly, will forever be an example of service and sacrifice for us,” the congratulation says. “May the All-Merciful Lord bless us with unity and you to further be faithful to God's truth and the establishment of our single independent autocephalous local Ukrainian Orthodox Church. I wish you wisdom from God, health and all that’s good."
We recall that earlier the head of the liquidated UOC-KP Filaret complained that over the past year since the creation of the OCU, Epiphany had neither “served” with him nor “congratulated” on any holiday. On January 10, 2020, he withdrew his signature to the decree of the “Local Council” of the UOC-KP of December 15, 2018, on the liquidation of this church structure and subsequently officially demanded that the Phanar return the original decisions of the “Council”.
At the same time, Epiphany Dumenko still considers Filaret to be the self-isolated “bishop” of the OCU. This is also believed at Phanar, where the other day an official list of "hierarchs" of the newly formed church structure with Filaret in the first place was published.
