Philaret (Denisenko)

Patriarch Filaret (secular name ''Mykhailo Antonovych Denysenko'', born 23 January 1929) is a Ukrainian religious leader, currently serving as the primate and Patriarch of the unrecognized Ukrainian Orthodox Church – Kyiv Patriarchate. The Orthodox Church of Ukraine, that he left in 2019, views him as the Honorary Patriarch emeritus, while the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople recognises him as former Metropolitan of Kyiv. He was formerly the Metropolitan of Kiev and the Exarch of Ukraine in the Patriarchate of Moscow (1966–1992). After joining the Kyiv Patriarchate, he was defrocked and in 1997 excommunicated by the ROC.

On 11 October 2018, the Patriarchate of Constantinople reinstated him in church communion. However, while restored to the episcopate, the Ecumenical Patriarchate never recognised him as Patriarch and views him as the former Metropolitan of Kyiv.

On 15 December 2018, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate united with the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church and some members of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (MP) into the Orthodox Church of Ukraine; the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate thus ceased to exist.

Early years

Mykhailo Denysenko was born on 23 January 1929, into a worker's family in the village of Blahodatne in the Amvrosiivsky Raion (district), now in the Donetsk Oblast (province) in Eastern Ukraine. His parents were Anton and Melania Denysenko. He obtained his theological education at the Odesa Seminary (Moscow Patriarchate) and the Moscow Theological Academy where he became a close associate of Patriarch Alexius I of Moscow. He took monastic vows in 1950 assuming the monastic name ''Filaret'' and was ordained hierodeacon in January 1950 and priest in June 1951. After his graduation he stayed at the Moscow Theological Academy as a professor (from 1952) and Senior Assistant to the Academy inspector. In 1956 he was appointed Inspector of the Theological Seminary in Saratov and elevated to the rank of hegumen. In 1957 he was appointed Inspector of the Kyiv Theological Seminary. In July 1958 he was further elevated to the rank of Archimandrite and appointed seminary rector.

Hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church

In 1961, Filaret served in the mission of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) to the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria. In January 1962 Filaret was elected vicar Bishop of the Leningrad Eparchy and, in February, was ordained bishop in Leningrad by Metropolitan Pimen (later Moscow Patriarch) and other bishops. Filaret was appointed to several diplomatic missions of the Russian Orthodox Church and from 1962 to 1964 served as ROC Bishop of Vienna and Austria. In 1964 he returned to Moscow as the Bishop of Dmitrov and rector of the Moscow Theological Academy and Seminary.

In 1966, he became archbishop of Kyiv and Halych, thus becoming one of the most influential hierarchs in the Russian Orthodox Church, where the office of the Kyiv Metropolitan is highly regarded. At that time he also became a permanent member of the Holy Synod, the highest collegiate body of the Russian Orthodox Church, which has the responsibility of electing the Moscow Patriarch. In 1968 Filaret became Metropolitan of Kyiv and Galicia.

As late as October 1989, Filaret was still saying, "The Uniates will never be legalized in our country."

On May 3, 1990, Patriarch Pimen of Moscow died and, the same day, Filaret became the locum tenens of the Russian Orthodox Church. Filaret was not elected Patriarch of Moscow. Retrospectively, in 2019, Filaret declared "it was not by chance that I was not elected. The Lord prepared me for Ukraine"

On 27 October 1990, in a ceremony at St. Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv, the newly elected Patriarch Alexei II handed to Metropolitan Filaret a ''tomos'' granting "independence in self government" (the tomos did not use either of the words "autonomy" or " autocephaly") to Metropolitan Filaret, and enthroned Filaret, heretofore "Metropolitan of Kyiv", as "Metropolitan of Kyiv and All-Ukraine".

In 1992, the Russian Orthodox priest and Soviet dissident Fr. Gleb Yakunin accused Exarch Filaret of having been an informer for the KGB. Father Gleb stated that he had seen KGB files which listed Exarch Filaret's codename as ''Antonov''. The fact of cooperation with KGB was mentioned by people's deputies of Ukraine on 20 January 1992 when they came out with an official statement. According to internal KGB documents, tasks the KGB assigned Filaret as an agent included promoting Soviet positions and candidates in the World Council of Churches (WCC), the Christian Peace Conference (CPC) and other international bodies, and, by the 1980s, backing the Soviet authorities’ attempts to prevent the long-suppressed Ukrainian Catholic Church (disparagingly called ‘Uniates’) from regaining an open existence, and backing state attempts to prevent religious believers demanding their rights as glasnost and perestroika opened up the sphere of public debate. In 2018, Filaret declared in an interview with Radio Liberty that he, like all bishops under communism, had to have contacts with the KGB. In 2019, he declared every bishop of the Moscow Patriarchate had to have contact with the KGB, even when it came to appoint a bishop. He added that he had been trained by the Politburo and Patriarch Alexy by the KGB.

Creation of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church - Kyiv Patriarchate

Following Ukraine's declaration of independence from the Soviet Union on 24 August 1991, a national sobor of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church was held from November 1–3. At the sobor, the voting delegates, (who included all UOC bishops, clergy and lay delegates from each diocese; a delegate from each monastery and seminary, and recognized lay brotherhood) unanimously passed a resolution stating that henceforth the UOC would operate as an autocephalous church. A separate resolution, also unanimous, affirmed the church's desire for Metropolitan Filaret to become its Primate.

Filaret convened an assembly at the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra in January 1992 that adopted a request of autocephaly for Ukrainians to the Moscow Patriarch.

In March–April 1992, the Hierarchical Council of the Russian Orthodox Church met with a single agenda item: to consider the resolution passed by the UOC Sobor four months earlier. Although the issue itself was not discussed, Filaret was asked to resign. On the second day of the meeting, Metropolitan Filaret agreed to submit his resignation to the UOC Synod, and the ROC Synod passed a resolution which stated:

''"The Council of Bishops took into account the statement of the Most Reverend Filaret, Metropolitan of Kyiv and of All-Ukraine, that for the sake of church peace, at the next Council of Bishops of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, he will submit a request to be relieved from the position of the Primate of the UOC. Understanding of the position of Metropolitan Filaret, the Council of Bishops expressed to him its gratitude for the long period of labour as Archbishop of the See of Kyiv and blessed him to carry out his episcopal service in another diocese of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church."''

However, after returning to Kyiv, Filaret recanted his resignation. On 14 April, Metropolitan Filaret held a press conference in which he alleged that undue pressure was exerted at the ROC Synod in Moscow, both directly and through threats made by FSK personnel who, he said, were present at the gathering. Filaret stated that he was retracting his resignation on the grounds that his resignation "would not bring peace to the Church, would contradict the will of the believers, and would be uncanonical."

Suspension and anathemization

Shortly thereafter, the Russian Orthodox Church, unable to prevent the creation of what it viewed as a " schismatic church" in independent Ukraine, helped to organize a rival synod which was held in Kharkiv

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