1 Dec 2017 18:50

Anathema doesn't cause Filaret concern

KYIV. Dec 1 (Interfax) - Patriarch Filaret (Denisenko) of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate said his anathema creates more inconveniences to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate than him.

"Anathema doesn't bother me personally. Regardless of whether it will be lifted or not, I don't recognize it because it was declared illegally. For this reason, the anathema does not exist for me," he told a press conference in Kyiv on Friday.

"Anathema bothers those who declared it [...] because this anathema prevents them from praying together with us," Denisenko said.

As an example, the head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate mentioned an event commemorating the Holodomor. "Representatives of different churches served a funeral service [...] everyone was praying, but the Moscow bishops just stood there, they couldn't pray with us, anathema prevented them from doing so," he said.

The spokesman for the head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate earlier said Denisenko does not believe he is guilty of violations of canons with respect to which the Russian Orthodox Church anathematized him in 1997. "That is, he does not recognize that anathema, in the same way as his suspension from service and defrocking in 1992," he said.