Will the Phanar Abandon the OCU?

Earlier this week, Pavel Liberman published an op-ed in the Orthodox Times pleading for a “temporary Exarchate” in Ukraine under the Ecumenical Patriarchate. Frankly, it is a white flag disguised as a blueprint. 

Liberman urges Constantinople to create a sort of jurisdictional halfway house for those who wish to leave the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) under His Beatitude Met. Onuphiry and yet cannot bring themselves to join Epifaniy Dumenko’s schismatic "Orthodox Church of Ukraine" (OCU). 

The proposal is wrapped in canonical language: voluntary participation, no coercion, pastoral healing, etc. Yet, at its heart, it is an admission that the 2019 Tomos of Autocephaly has failed to deliver the unity it promised. There can be no question now: those who remained faithful to Met. Onuphiry and the UOC have been utterly vindicated.

The timing of this editorial is telling. The last month has seen a number of high-level defections from the OCU. The most notable is Filaret Denysenko. For those who don’t know, Denysenko served as head of the “Ukrainian Orthodox Church–Kyiv Patriarchate”: one of the two schismatic bodies that Pat. Bartholomew yoked together in order to create the OCU. Last month, Denysenko renounced his titles in the OCU and demanded that his funeral not be conducted by OCU clergy.

Another is Yaroslav Yasenets, an OCU priest known for his violent nationalist rhetoric. Recently, Yasenets announced his departure from the OCU and began to vocally criticize his former masters. He has claimed that Dumenko is ordaining bigamists, adulterers, alcoholics, and men who don’t even know the Nicene Creed! He also has the gall to ask why the OCU seizes parishes from the canonical Church, only for them to stand empty?

The reality is this: the Ukrainian faithful are tired of Pat. Bartholomew and Pres. Zelenskyy meddling in their affairs. They do not recognize Dumenko’s authority. They are appalled by the behavior of his “raiders,” who attack UOC parishes, arrest their bishops, conscript their priests, assault their laymen, arrest their monks, desecrate their monasteries, and defecate on their altars.

The OCU is not a church. It is a terrorist organization. The Ukrainian faithful know this full well. And they know that the Phanar is largely responsible for this terrorism. They will not—and should not—trust any further interference by Constantinople in the affairs of their Church.

In his article, Liberman writes:

The USCIRF 2024 reports highlighted the risks of disproportionate application of the law in the field of religious freedom, while the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, in December 2024, criticized certain legislative changes as potentially imposing excessive restrictions, urging Ukraine to align its legal practices with international standards.

Simply put, he recognizes that Zelenskyy—in cooperation with Pat. Bartholomew and Dumenko—are persecuting the canonical Church. Of course, this has been obvious for years. The government in Kyiv doesn't even deny it. They're proud of their work to stamp out the UOC. And yet, during his recent visit to the United States, Pat. Bartholomew greeted Zelenskyy with the nationalist slogan “Slava Ukraini!” 

Insiders at the Phanar now whisper what the UOJ has shouted for years.

A few months ago, the Orthodox Times published a separate report in which anonymous sources close to Constantinople:

• Describe the OCU as “a branch of the state.”
• Complain that its finances are controlled by Met. Eustratius of Bila Tserkva in service of “his own interests.”
• Lament that “there is neither mission nor theology.”
• Point out that Dumenko “is not a figure who inspires.”
• Bemoan the fact that information reaches Pat. Bartholomew only after “filtration” by Met. Emmanuel of Chalcedon.
• Warn that dissenters in the EP are sidelined. 

The irony is exquisite. Constantinople once condemned the UOC for alleged subservience to Moscow. Now its own creation mirrors the charge—only the puppet-master is Kyiv. The sources even concede that Met. Onuphry, dismissed as lacking “vision,” is a “spiritual father” who “tries to keep the Church united and independent from Russia.” 

They quote His Beatitude as saying, “When your Church is under persecution and you are its shepherd, you must save it.” Yet the Phanar remains silent on the very persecution it helped unleash.

Liberman’s Exarchate is a salvage operation for a ship that has already sunk. The Tomos promised unity; it delivered duplication. It vowed canonicity; it birthed a jurisdiction even its patrons privately scorn. The faithful of the UOC—harassed, hunted, often meeting in secret—stand taller every year. 

Let Constantinople keep its Exarchates and appeals courts. The unity Ukraine needs will not come from another Phanar decree. It will come when the persecutors lay down their laws and the inventors of schism repent. Until then, the canonical Church endures—and, by God’s mercy, prevails.

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