Kiev, November 16, 2018
Metropolitan Emmanuel of Gaul, a hierarch of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, has arrived in Kiev to guide the preparation process for the upcoming unification council by which Constantinople intends to create a new church in Ukraine.
“Metropolitan Emmanuel of Gaul has arrived in Kiev. Now they’re discussing the details of holding the council, which it’s expected he will lead,” an informed source told Ukrainian National News (UNN).
Numerous Ukrainian sources, including golos.ua had already reported on Wednesday that Met. Emmanuel’s arrival was expected.
Constantinople already sent two Exarch bishops to Kiev back in September to prepare for the council. There has as yet been no clarification why a third bishop is now needed.
The source also indicated that the unification council is expected to take place on November 22—a date Ukrainian media has been speculating about for well over a week already, including Ukrainskaya Pravda, as OrthoChristian previously reported. On Wednesday, former Press Secretary to His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry of Kiev and All Ukraine, Archpriest George Kovalenko also told Radio Liberty that the council is to take place on the 22nd.
For his part, Evstraty Zorya, the speaker for the schismatic “Kiev Patriarchate” (KP) emphasized on his Facebook page yesterday that the date of the council has not been officially announced, and until it is, there is essentially no date.
He goes on to accuse “the means of Moscow misinformation” of spreading rumors about the date of the council so that it will look like a failure if it is not held on that date.
Meanwhile, hierarchs of the schismatic “Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church” (UAOC) including its primate Makary Maletich, have repeatedly stated that there has been no progress in preparing for the unification council.
UAOC hierarch Athanasy Shkurupy recently said that the most that could happen by the end of November is a Synod session of the KP, not the unification council.
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