Filaret Denysenko
- The material from this article should be included in Ukrainian Orthodox Church - Kiev Patriarchate and History of Christianity in Ukraine.
Filaret | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Church | Ukrainian Orthodox Church - Kiev Patriarchate |
| See | Kiev |
| Installed | July 1995 |
| Term ended | Incumbent |
| Predecessor | Volodymyr |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Mykhailo Antonovych Denysenko 23 January 1929 |
Patriarch Filaret (secular name in Ukrainian Mykhailo Antonovych Denysenko, in Russian Mykhail Antonovich Denisenko, officially His Holiness, the Patriarch of Kyiv and All Rus’ - Ukraine Filaret; born 23 January, 1929) is the head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church - Kyiv Patriarchate (since 1995), former Metropolitan bishop of Russian Orthodox Church (until 1992; excommunicated in 1997).
Early years
Mykhailo Denysenko was born in the Blahodatne village of the Amvrosiivsky Raion (district) in the Donetsk Oblast (province) in the East of Ukraine in a workers' family. He obtained theological education at the Odessa Seminary and the Moscow Theological Academy where he became a close associate of Patriarch Alexius I of Moscow and took monastic vows in 1950 assuming the monastic name Filaret. He 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
From 1960 he was effectively in charge of the Ukrainian Exarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church and served at St Volodymyr's Cathedral in Kyiv, the exharchate's mother cathedral.
In 1961 Filaret served in the mission of the Russian Orthodox Church to the Patriarch of Alexandria. In January 1962 Filaret was elected vicar Bishop of the Leningrad Eparchy and, in February, he was ordained Bishop in Leningrad by Metropolitan Pimen (later Moscow Patriarch) and other bishops. After that, 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 Moscow Theological Academy and Seminary.
In 1966 he became an archbishop and soon after the Metropolitan of Kyiv and Halych thus becoming one of the most influential hierarchs of 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 that elects the Moscow Patriarch. It is notable that he became the first ethnic Ukrainian at the post of Kyiv Metropolitan for the past 150 years.
As a leader of the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine, Filaret actively and publicly supported the suppression of Ukrainian churches that refused to associate with the ROC, the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church and the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church.
With the ailing physical condition of Pimen I, the Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus', Filaret personally oversaw the preparation and celebration of the Baptism of Rus' millennium anniversary in 1988. That celebration redefined the relationship between the Soviet state and the church, and was marked with the return of numerous church buildings to the ROC.
Upon the death of Patriarch Pimen I on May 3, 1990, Filaret was widely viewed as a front runner in the Russian Orthodox Church patriarchal election, especially when, with the election still pending, he became a patriarchal locum tenens. However, on June 6, 1990 the Sobor of the Russian Orthodox Church elected Metropolitan Alexius (Alexey Ridiger) of Leningrad Novgorod, who was enthroned as Patriarch Alexius II.
On October 27, 1990, in a ceremony at St. Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv, Patriarch Alexei handed to Metropolitan Filaret a Tomos granting “independence in self government” (the Tomos did not use either the word [Autonomy (Eastern Christianity)|autonomy]] or autocephaly) to Metropolitan Filaret, and enthrone Filaret, heretofore “Metropolitan of Kyiv”, as “Metropolitan of Kyiv and All Rus-Ukraine”.
Creation and leadership of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church - Kyiv Patriarchate
After Ukraine was declared independent on August 24, 1991, Filaret changed his attitude towards the possible autocephalous status of Ukrainian Orthodoxy. In October 1991, the Hierarchical Council of Ukrainian Orthodox Church requested the Russian Orthodox Church to grant full canonical autocephaly to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. In March-April 1992, the Hierarchical Council of the Russian Orthodox Church refused to grant this autocephaly and demanded Filaret leave his position quietly. Filaret at the council swore to obey. However, upon his return from Moscow to Kiev, he proclaimed that the oath was given under pressure, and thus invalid, and he would stay on. At the same time, most of the high-ranking clergy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church refused to follow Filaret and in June, 1992, the Russian Orthodox Church, unable to prevent the creation of what it viewed as a "schismatic church" in independent Ukraine, helped to organize a synod in Kharkiv of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, where Filaret was ousted. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church also retained the autonomous status granted to it in 1990 under the eclectical link to the Patriarch of Moscow.
Filaret initiated the creation of a new Ukrainian Church through the separation of the Russian Orthodox Church (Ukrainian) Metropolitan's see from the Moscow Patriarchate. The creation of the new church was proclaimed on June 25, 1992 under the name of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church - Kyiv Patriarchate via unilateral changing of the ecclesiastical link from the Moscow Patriarch to the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church, another recently revived church in Ukraine, however with no clear standing within the Orthodox communion. In addition to the lack of a proper procedure in the creation of the Church, its patriarchal status was simply assumed unilaterally as well.
With the support three bishops of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church Filaret entered into a short-lived union with the latter. Initially, he did not become the formal leader of the church, but became its de-facto ruler under the ailing Patriarch Mstyslav and, from 1993 Patriarch Volodymyr. In July 1995, upon the death of Patriarch Volodymyr, Filaret was elected head of the UOC-KP.
Patriarch Filaret currently leads the drive for his church to become a single Ukrainian national church. His attempts to gain a canonical recognition for his church remain unsuccessful to this day.
Controversies
There have been various, but unsubstantiated, rumours regarding Patriarch Filaret: he is alleged to have a common-law wife and also children in contravention of his monastic vows; it is alleged that he was recruited as a KGB agent; also that he had been guilty of improper financial dealings. On June 11, 1992, the Hierarchical Council of the Russian Orthodox Church defrocked Patriarch Filaret and then excommunicated him in 1997, claiming his actions had constituted a schism. The Synod of the UOC-KP refused to recognise these acts, claiming that the Russian Orthodox Church did not have jurisdictional authority over clergy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
See also
References
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