Head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate Filaret notes that other Orthodox churches have the right to exist in Ukraine, but only those who will be part of a single local church will be called the “Ukrainian Church.”
“Establishment of a single local Orthodox church in Ukraine does not mean that there can be no other churches on our Ukrainian territory, meaning the Russian Church,” he said at a briefing in Kyiv on Oct. 11.
Patriarch Filaret explained that those Ukrainian dioceses that do not join the united Ukrainian Orthodox Church “will not have the right to be called the “Ukrainian Church.” “And they will have the right to exist, along with equal rights with the Ukrainian church. But they will be called the “Russian church,” not the “Ukrainian,” he stressed.
