Kiev, May 29, 2019
Photo: life.ru
As it has several times since the Ukrainian Church crisis began in April 2018, Ukrainian media has again spread fake news about a Local Church supposedly recognizing the so-called “Orthodox Church of Ukraine” (OCU), which was created by the Ukrainian government and the Patriarchate of Constantinople in December and given a tomos of autocephaly by Constantinople in January.
In an article entitled, “Bulgarian Orthodox Church recognizes OCU—breaking the pro-Russian lobby,” the Ukrainian site Information Resistance, headed by the People’s Deputy Dmitry Tymchuk, claims that the Bulgarian Synod had met in a dramatic meeting, and voted 8-7 to recognize the OCU, with His Holiness Patriarch Neofit of Bulgaria supposedly supporting the OCU on the basis that an independent state should have an independent Church.
The Ukrainian site refers to an article on the Bulgarian site faktor.bg from January, which had already been used as the basis for a round of fake news at the time it was published. The Bulgarian site, however, makes no claim that the Bulgarian Church has recognized the OCU, though its own report is problematic, referring to those bishops who support the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church as being “loyal to the Kremlin,” just as the Ukrainian site writes of a “pro-Russian lobby,” thus attempting to frame the issue as one of ethnicity and politics rather than faith.
Further, OrthoChristian previously published an article that demonstrated that faktor.bg’s claims about the Bulgarian Synod’s session in January are erroneous, and that the Ukrainian issue was not even raised at the point. His Eminence Metropolitan Cyprian of Stara Zagora, the Chairman of the Bulgarian Synodal Committee for the Matters Related to the Ukrainian Church, had to deny the false information circulated in January that the Bulgarian Church had supposedly recognized the OCU, though that did stop Ukrainian media from trying again this month.
On May 23, Archpriest Nikolai Danilevich, the Deputy Chairman of the canonical Ukrainian Church’s Department for External Church Relations, wrote that Information Resistance’s report “is a lie. The word ‘untrue’ would be too noble in this case.”
Fr. Nikolai notes that the Bulgarian Synod last met April 2-3, taking no position about Ukraine, and that the next session is not until mid-June. “Therefore, there could be no decision during the time when this news was published, because there was no meeting of the Synod.”
“Secondly,” Fr. Nikolai writes, “the Bulgarian Church does not intend to recognize the OCU. I know that more and more hierarchs of the Bulgarian Church openly speaking against the possibility of recognizing the OCU. They recognize the UOC [the canonical Church—O.C.] headed by His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry of Kiev and All Ukraine.”
On Monday, Pat. Neofit met with His Eminence Archbishop Longin of Bancheny in Sofia. Abp. Longin conveyed the greetings of His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry of Kiev and All Ukraine and shared his joy about the traditionally good relations between the Orthodox Churches of Bulgaria and Ukraine. The miraculous Boyana Icon of the Mother of God from Abp. Longin’s Ascension Monastery is also currently visiting the Lovech Diocese of the Bulgarian Church.
“And thirdly,” he continues, “as I was told from Bulgaria, the site www.faktor.bg , where this false information was first published and then reprinted here in Ukraine, is connected with some American NGOs. The site has a pro-Western orientation in its information.”
Deputy Tymchuk and Information Resistance are also well known for false information and fake accusations against the canonical Ukrainian Church, including fake statistics about the conflict in Donbass. The site published fake information about the attempted poisoning of Patriarch Bartholomew during his August meeting with His Holiness Patriarch Kirill, and Tymchuk was one of the co-authors of anti-Church bill No. 4511, openly admitting that the law is directly exclusively against the canonical Church.
The Bulgarian Holy Synod created a commission in October to examine the Ukrainian issue, though it has yet to make an official statement and the Synod has yet to make any kind of decision on the matter, though individual hierarchs have spoken out strongly against Constantinople’s actions. Pat. Neofit recently met with His Beatitude Archbishop Chrysostomos of Cyprus who has been meeting with a number of primates of Local Churches, urging them not to make any unilateral decisions but to work together to build a consensus.
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