Drabinko: Filaret was promised to lead OCU

Epifaniy says he promised Filaret nothing. Photo: Ukrainska Pravda

Former Metropolitan Oleksandr (Drabinko) said in an interview with the "Telegraf" that during the negotiations on the creation of the OCU, Filaret was promised actual leadership in it.

"The fact is that Filaret was promised that he would lead the autocephalous Local Church: Metropolitan Epifaniy would be elected exclusively for external activities, while Filaret would continue to lead the autocephalous Church recognized by Ecumenical Orthodoxy," said Drabinko.

According to him, for him personally, such a scenario was unacceptable, because "you don't pour new wine into old bottles".

"But even if it had happened so that Filaret became the head of the church, I would not have been the first to go to the council and would not have participated in the unification. And there's no getting away from the totalitarian style in which he led the Church. Filaret is an old party functionary, it is not a secret, and I would not be able to live in such an environment," Drabinko said of his principles.

According to Domenko, neither he nor Poroshenko promised Filaret anything when he set up the OCU. And if anyone said anything, only the signed document matters. "You can negotiate anything you like, but then a legal document is signed, which is guided to the end. Only what is written in ink and signed matters. And it cannot be based on what someone said or wished behind the scenes, I think," Serhiy Dumenko said at the time.

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