Opinion: Only Patriarch Filaret will Protect Ukrainian Faithful in Diaspora

"We are told that our transition into the jurisdiction of Constantinople will not change anything in the life of our parishes. But all this is a lie," - Ukrainian Orthodox Christian believer Olga Samulyak explained to the Canadian Ukrainian Religious Information Bulletin. 

There are about 20 million Ukrainians who live outside Ukraine; most of them are Orthodox Christians. However, according to the Tomos of autocephaly, these people don't belong to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church anymore.

People were promised that they would be governed by Ukrainian hierarchs and that Ukrainian priests would be appointed or kept in their positions. But all this is a lie. The UOC of Canada and the UOC of the USA are completely dependent on Constantinople. On any issue, including the approval of their own statutory documents, their hierarchs apply to Istanbul and rush to blame each other before Patriarch Bartholomew whenever conflicts erupt.

So far, the Church of Constantinople has tolerated the existence of its subordinate Ukrainian Churches and doesn't mind increasing their number. However, the distant future of these Churches is the same as of the recently abolished Paris Archdiocese or the Orthodox Church of Finland which reportedly may face reformatting and liquidation in several years. Even such a large and self-sufficient entity as the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America is completely dependent on Istanbul, as confirmed by the resignation of Archbishop Demetrios and the appointment of Metropolitan Elpidophoros in his place.

The general policy of the Ecumenical Patriarchate is that all "parallel" and "autonomous" structures in the Orthodox Diaspora will be gradually eliminated, and their communities will be transfered to a single center....