One Week’s Shameful Chronicle: How the OCU was Born

UOJ-America has published an internal report by a cleric of the Patriarchate of Constantinople who accompanied Metropolitan Emmanuel of Gaul to Kyiv in December 2018. The document is addressed personally to Patriarch Bartholomew and was written about a month after the events, in January 2019. It covers exactly one week: from Monday, December 10, when the author flew to Kyiv, to Sunday the 16^th, when the delegation returned to the Phanar. According to the publication’s sources, the author of the report is the current Metropolitan Gregorios of Ankara, who in 2018 was a young hierodeacon of the Patriarchate. This is neither journalism nor memoir, but an official report of the kind written for a single reader, and therefore with utmost candor and in every detail.

It is precisely this that makes the document both valuable and dangerous for the Phanar. All public statements by the Ecumenical Patriarchate about the “Unification Council” of December 15, 2018, at which the OCU was actually created, were couched in the most solemn terms: the Patriarchate, “in praise of God and in great joy,” announced the successful conclusion of the Council. The report, however, was written by a direct participant in the events and was not intended for public scrutiny. Consequently, the picture it presents is entirely different, and so are the colors in which those events are depicted.

The authenticity of the document is indirectly attested by the author’s awareness: he knew the protocol of the Phanar delegation down to the smallest details, including the names of the president’s administrative staff and the schedule of meetings with UOC bishops and OCU “hierarchs,” as well as the exact breakdown of the votes when the list of three candidates for the post of head of the newly created structure was compiled.

It should be noted that the Greek media have already managed to comment on the document, and in their opinion “it is concrete enough not to be left unanswered.” “If political pressure was exerted on the patriarchal delegation, this needs to be clarified. If the descriptions are inaccurate, an equally clear denial backed by facts is needed. Silence leaves room for suspicions surrounding the critical days of December 2018,” says “Ekklisia Online”. Well, let us see what the report of a participant in those very events says.

“She teaches and you are taught”

The author of the Chronicle is convinced that the main task of the Phanar delegation in Kyiv was to protect the interests of the Patriarchate of Constantinople. It was precisely from this that the delegation proceeded in its work in Ukraine.

Here is a conversation in a restroom, where the author went “to throw a little water on [his] face” and met “Archbishop” Eustratius Zoria, at that time Filaret’s right-hand man. Zoria asked how the author saw the situation. The answer is worth quoting, because it is, in essence, a manifesto: “We did not come here to negotiate or to cast doubt upon the rights of the Mother Church. She teaches and you are taught. In this case we are not negotiating as equals with equals.”