September 29, 2026
Former Ukrainain President Petro Poroshenko with Metropolitan Emmanuel, then of Gaul, at the so-called “unification council” in 2018. Photo: uoj.news
A leaked internal Constantinople document describes President Petro Poroshenko and Ukraine’s security services keeping the Patriarchate of Constantinople ’s delegation under round-the-clock surveillance in the days around the December 2018 “unification council” in Kiev, which created the schismatic “Orthodox Church of Ukraine,” according to an exclusive report by the Union of Orthodox Journalists of America.
The document is a chronicle of more than 20 pages addressed to Patriarch Bartholomew, authored by Metropolitan Gregorios of Ankara, who was a deacon of the Patriarchal Court at the time.
According to the document, when the delegation, led by Metropolitan Emmanuel of France, tried to leave Ukraine over a dispute with the self-proclaimed “Patriarch” Philaret Denisenko of the “Kiev Patriarchate,” police arrived to take members of the group to the Presidential Palace. Metropolitan Emmanuel then told his companions they were forbidden to leave the country. The delegation had earlier resorted to communicating on paper because of what Metropolitan Gregorios describes as “constant surveillance of everything in the building.”
The document says a tense phone call followed between Poroshenko and Patriarch Bartholomew, after which Poroshenko returned within an hour with Philaret’s signature on a document dropping his demands for special powers in the OCU, which would be an amalgamation of his “Kiev Patriarchate” and the schismatic “Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church.”
Metropolitan Gregorios also writes that “more than ten secret agents moved around us” as the delegation ate at a restaurant.
On the day of the council, December 15, Philaret refused to sign the documents needed for it to proceed, and several political figures, including Poroshenko, went to speak with him before he gave in. The chronicle also shows Poroshenko waiting outside St. Sophia Cathedral to escort the delegation in, speaking after Metropolitan Emmanuel opened the council, and restoring order when Philaret’s candidacy was demanded. After the council, he presented the newly elected primate, “Metropolitan” Epiphany Dumenko, to the people gathered outside.
State officials were also involved in the drafting of the OCU statutes. Metropolitan Gregorios writes that on December 12, the delegation spent the day working on the with “representatives of all the factions,” including several named government officials.
In Poroshenko’s own speech introducing Epiphany, he said, “We finally get spiritual independence, which can be compared to gaining political independence.”
The full report, along with the full original document in Greek, is available from the Union of Orthodox Journalists of America.
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