Defense of The Faith
Eyewitness to a Train Wreck
Then-Hierodeacon Gregorios (Frangakis) chronicled what he witnessed as the Ukrainian government intervened in the council that created the OCU.
The leaked 2019 report on the December 2018 “Unification Council” has been released, and its contents are nothing short of unbelievable. Some commenters have already reacted to the revelations by claiming it is a Russian fake. But the metadata does not lie, and the author has been established with near certainty as then-Hierodeacon Gregorios (Frangakis).
In December of 2025, Fr. Gregorios was consecrated Metropolitan of Ankara. It must be said from the outset that this is not a criticism of a hierarch of Christ’s Church. Rather, it is an analysis of his own eyewitness account: a report to Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, entitled “Chronicle of the Week of the Clergy Laity Council in Kyiv.” At several points, the account left me shaking my head. How could the delegation continue with this obvious farce, and why would they do so? The expectations were high, but the reality they encountered on the ground should have presented an insurmountable obstacle to the false council they facilitated.
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