The 23-page internal chronicle of the days leading up to the Kyiv Council, if accepted as authentic, does not document an Ecumenical Patriarchate obeying political power. On the contrary, it records a patriarchal delegation that resisted pressure, threatened to withdraw, checked Philaret’s personal demands, and insisted to the end on canonical and ecclesiological conditions.
There are leaks that derive their meaning from a single striking phrase, and others that must be read from the first page to the last. The “Chronicle of the Week of the Clergy-Laity Council in Kyiv,” a 23-page text made public in late September 2026, unquestionably belongs to the second category. UOJ-America, which brought the text to public attention, attributes it to the current Metropolitan Gregory of Ankara, then a deacon of the Patriarchal Court, citing research and metadata from the original file; it also notes that it had received no response from the hierarch at the time of publication. The PDF now in circulation, however, bears no visible signature by the author, and its authorship must therefore be stated with the necessary reservation. [1]
This does not diminish the significance of its contents for the present discussion. The text presents itself as an internal report to the Ecumenical Patriarch and begins by explaining that the author travelled to Kyiv on 10 December 2018 to provide secretarial assistance to the then Metropolitan Emmanuel of France. Already on its first page it states the criterion governing the mission: the purpose was not “the election, by whatever means, of a Primate,” but the establishment of the new Church on firm ecclesiological and canonical foundations. This is not a secondary point. It is the thread running through the entire Chronicle (Chronicle, p. 1).
If the document is authentic, its central message is not that the Phanar was carrying out political orders. It is that, in an environment of intense political pressure, it refused to surrender control of the ecclesiastical process either to political power or to Philaret.
Political pressure existed. That does not mean political control
The Chronicle does not sanitize the atmosphere of December 2018. It records meetings with the then President of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko, the presence of state officials in consultations, contacts with security services, and a particularly severe crisis shortly before the Council. It would be wrong to conceal these elements. It is equally wrong, however, to turn them automatically into proof that Constantinople was an instrument of the Ukrainian Presidency. The document itself repeatedly points in the opposite direction.
Cooperation between the state and the Ecumenical Patriarchate was, in any case, no secret. On 3 November 2018 Patriarch Bartholomew and President Poroshenko publicly signed an agreement on cooperation and coordination in the process leading toward autocephaly. The Ecumenical Patriarchate itself publicized the event and the related statements. [4] Institutional cooperation with a sovereign state, however, is not the same as surrendering ecclesiastical authority to that state. The precise question is who set the limits when political expediency and ecclesiological conditions came into conflict. On that point, the Chronicle is especially revealing.
The Statute was not written in the Presidential Administration
One detail that can easily create impressions is the report that Metropolitan Emmanuel handed Poroshenko a draft of the Statute so that it could be circulated to the parties concerned before joint consideration (Chronicle, p. 2). Read in isolation, the passage can be presented as “state interference in drafting the Statute.” The official timeline, however, clarifies the text’s origin: on 29 November 2018 the Holy and Sacred Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate announced that, within the framework of its already adopted decision on autocephaly, it had itself drafted the Statute of the Ukrainian Church. [5]
The leak, therefore, does not show that the Ukrainian authorities wrote the Statute. It shows that a patriarchal draft was transmitted through the Presidency to the parties and was then subjected to hours of discussion with representatives of all the ecclesiastical groups. The Chronicle explicitly states that on 12 December representatives of “all the factions” worked on the text and that the final draft was brought “in love and unanimity” to a form later accepted by the Council (Chronicle, p. 5). This was negotiation over an ecclesiastical text, not state authorship of it.
Philaret sought a second center of authority inside the new Church
Perhaps the most critical section of the Chronicle concerns Philaret’s demands during the preparations for the Unification Council. According to the report, in the meetings of those days he was not content simply not to stand as a candidate for Primate. He wanted to be made President of the Holy Synod and, in a later proposal, to function as Exarch throughout Ukraine with powers that in practice corresponded to those of a Primate: convening the Synod, influence over episcopal elections, depositions, and other decisive competencies (Chronicle, pp. 3 and 7).
Here the patriarchal delegation is not portrayed as yielding in order to “get the job done.” According to the text, Metropolitan Emmanuel explained that such an arrangement was ecclesiologically impossible and without precedent. Even more revealingly, the Chronicle notes that at precisely this stage state actors supported the position of Philaret’s side, while the Exarch of the Ecumenical Patriarchate stood alone in refusing it (Chronicle, p. 7). If one seeks concrete evidence as to whether the Phanar was merely following instructions from the Presidency, this may be the clearest: when the Presidency and Philaret’s side converged, the patriarchal delegation said no.
Metropolitan Amphilochios of Adrianople, who arrived during the discussion, reinforced this position, describing acceptance of those demands as an abandonment of the principles of the Great Church. The final response of the patriarchal side, as recorded, was categorical: “we can do nothing without the opinion and permission of His All-Holiness” (Chronicle, p. 8).
The most difficult moment points more against political pressure than against the Phanar
Pages 10-14 are the most dramatic part of the text. They describe the failure of consultations with Philaret, close surveillance of the patriarchal mission, and the Exarchs’ decision to consider leaving Ukraine. According to the report, Metropolitan Emmanuel even went so far as to purchase a ticket at his own expense, in order to make clear that Constantinople would not proceed at any price (Chronicle, p. 11).
The Chronicle then describes the now-known episode in which the delegation was taken to the Presidential Administration under heavy police escort. It records the removal of mobile phones, a body search, and Metropolitan Emmanuel’s statement that the delegates were being treated as “detainees” and were not being allowed to leave the country (Chronicle, p. 12). If the account is accurate, this was clearly a grave episode of political pressure. But for precisely that reason it cannot logically be used as evidence of the Phanar’s willing submission. It describes a delegation that had reached the brink of rupture with the Ukrainian authorities.
The Patriarch’s phone call: the opposite of submission
At the height of the crisis, a telephone conversation took place with the Ecumenical Patriarch. Against that background, the words attributed to him are perhaps the strongest passage in the entire text. The Patriarch is reported to have told Poroshenko that he bore responsibility before the history of the Patriarchate, before God, and before his predecessors, and that he would not sacrifice the dignity and canonical positions of the Throne for Philaret’s sake. If the Ukrainian side could not resolve the problem, his representatives would have to leave (Chronicle, p. 13).
Even when Poroshenko proposed obtaining Philaret’s written renunciation of his additional demands, the Patriarch’s recorded answer was not a blank “yes.” The process, he said, would move forward only if the Exarchs assured him that none of the ecclesiastical conditions laid down by the Mother Church was being jeopardized. And the instruction recorded as being given to the Metropolitan of France is clear: he was not to play with the interests of the Patriarchate (Chronicle, p. 14).
The text does not describe a Church afraid to displease political power. It describes a Church that, precisely when political pressure reaches its peak, prepares to leave.
Epiphanius’s election: a secret ballot, not an appointment
The second point that requires a clear reading concerns the election of the Primate. The Chronicle itself records that the roughly 200 participants accepted the Statute with only one negative vote and that, when the question of secret or open voting was put, 121 voted for a secret ballot and 41 for an open one (Chronicle, pp. 18-19). The demand for an open ballot was directly connected with Philaret’s effort to control the cohesion of his own side.
A genuine electoral procedure then followed. According to the report, in the first round Epiphanius received 81 votes, Symeon 56, and Michael 38. In the final episcopal ballot, Epiphanius defeated Symeon by 36 votes to 28 (Chronicle, pp. 19-20). Ukrainian sources from the same day confirmed that the election was held by secret ballot and in two rounds. Ukrinform reported from Kyiv that Epiphanius had been elected by secret ballot, while Radio Svoboda recorded both the two-round procedure and the 36-28 result. [8] [9]
This does not mean that the political environment was neutral; the Chronicle demonstrates the opposite. It does mean, however, that the available evidence does not support the claim that today’s Metropolitan of Kyiv, Epiphanius, was “appointed” by the Presidency. What emerges is an election conducted through a complex, pressured, and at times confrontational ecclesiastical process. On 15 December 2018 the Ecumenical Patriarchate officially announced the successful completion of the Unification Council and Epiphanius’s election as Primate. [6]
Today’s Orthodox Church of Ukraine should not be conflated with Philaret’s demands
This is a crucial distinction for any fair reading of the leak. The extreme demands described in the Chronicle were Philaret’s demands and those of the close circle negotiating his personal role in the new ecclesiastical reality. They do not characterize today’s autocephalous Orthodox Church of Ukraine, nor can they retrospectively be transferred to its present Primate.
The development of events a few months later is particularly illuminating. In June 2019 Philaret attempted to restore the abolished “Kyiv Patriarchate” and convened his own assembly. The Orthodox Church of Ukraine itself replied that such a move had no canonical or statutory authority. On 24 June its Holy Synod ruled that Philaret’s assembly had no authority to overturn the decisions of 15 December 2018 and that he had lost the administrative rights connected with diocesan governance, while the Church stressed that the former structures of the “Kyiv Patriarchate” under Metropolitan Philaret Denysenko and of the “Autocephalous Church” under Metropolitan Makarios Maletych had united in the Orthodox Church of Ukraine. [10] [11]
Ukrainian media of the period also recorded the rupture and Philaret’s attempt to revive the former structure. [12] This later conflict does not “justify” every detail of the hard bargaining in 2018, but it confirms that Constantinople’s concern about the creation of a parallel center of authority inside the new Church was not imaginary. The Phanar was trying precisely to prevent personal authority from eclipsing the canonically elected Primate and the Synod.
The canonical process had begun long before the final days in Kyiv
Another weakness of a selective reading of the report is that it presents the Unification Council as though it had arisen within a few days of negotiations between the Ukrainian Presidency and the Phanar. The official chronology is much longer. As early as April 2018 the Holy and Sacred Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate had announced that, having received requests from ecclesiastical and civil authorities representing millions of Orthodox Christians in Ukraine, it would proceed in consultation with the local Orthodox Churches. [2]
On 11 October 2018 the same Synod renewed its decision to proceed toward granting autocephaly, restored Philaret, Makarios, and their followers to ecclesiastical communion following their appeals, re-established the Patriarchal Stavropegion in Kyiv, and revoked the binding force of the Synodal Letter of 1686 in the relevant matter. [3] On 29 November it completed the draft Statute. [5] The fundamental canonical decisions, therefore, were not taken in the Presidential Administration in Kyiv.
And the Tomos says exactly the opposite of a state-controlled Church
The final canonical act, the Patriarchal and Synodal Tomos of 6 January 2019, is particularly important in assessing what kind of Church was ultimately created. The Tomos recognizes the Church of Ukraine as autocephalous, independent, and self-governed, with its internal affairs decided by its Primate and Holy Synod on the basis of the sacred canons. The same official text states that ecclesiastical administration is to be exercised freely and unhindered by external interference. [7]
This certainly does not erase the fact that the Ukrainian state had a strong political interest in autocephaly, or that Poroshenko invested publicly and politically in it. Historical accuracy requires that this be acknowledged. Institutional and canonical assessment, however, cannot stop at the question of whether the state was interested or exerted pressure. It must ask whether the Church retained its own decisive judgment. And the leaked Chronicle itself repeatedly supplies evidence that it did.
The paradox of the leak
Here, ultimately, lies the paradox. A text that can be presented under headlines about “behind-the-scenes dealings,” “security services,” and “political pressure” is at the same time a text describing the Ecumenical Patriarchate’s resistance to those pressures. It does not conceal that conditions were exceptionally difficult. It does not conceal that preparations were incomplete. It does not conceal competing interests, personal ambitions, or state intervention. Yet it is precisely in that environment that it portrays Constantinople drawing red lines.
In the final pages, the author summarizes his own assessment by saying that the resolution of the Ukrainian question was a “titanic” undertaking and that the criterion governing the actions taken was the defense of the canonical positions of the Great Church (Chronicle, pp. 22-23). That statement is the testimony of a member of the patriarchal mission and is recorded as an important element that the historian of the future will have to weigh. And that is precisely where the document’s value lies: in an internal narrative that was not written as a public apologetic text and yet records specific moments of confrontation with political power and with Philaret.
What, then, does it really reveal?
The safest historical reading is not that “there was no political interference.” There was, and the Chronicle records it starkly. The safer reading is that political interference did not become ecclesiastical submission. The patriarchal delegation resisted Philaret’s demands, rejected a parallel system of authority, preserved the Patriarch’s final approval, reached the point of preparing to withdraw, insisted on a secret election, and led the process toward a Statute and a Tomos that establish a synodal and self-governing Church.
That is why the leak does not “expose” the Phanar in the way one might assume from a superficial reading of its most dramatic episodes. On the contrary, if accepted as authentic, it offers a rare window into how difficult the mission was and how firmly Constantinople insisted that the historic act of autocephaly should become neither a political appendage of a Presidency nor the personal regime of an elderly but powerful hierarch. Today’s autocephalous Orthodox Church of Ukraine, with the canonically elected Metropolitan Epiphanius and its synodal structure, is precisely the result of overcoming those personal and factional demands — not their continuation.
If the document is not authentic, it cannot be used as evidence against anyone. If it is authentic, it must be read in full. And read in full, it shows a Phanar that was pressured, confronted that pressure, and ultimately did not surrender its ecclesiastical judgment to political power.
Sources and documentation
Primary source: “Chronicle of the Week of the Clergy-Laity Council in Kyiv for the election of the first Primate…”, 23 pages, used for the present analysis. References in the article in the form “Chronicle, p. …” refer to the pagination of that document.
[2] Ecumenical Patriarchate, Communiqué of the Holy and Sacred Synod, 22 April 2018.
[3] Ecumenical Patriarchate, Communiqué of the Holy and Sacred Synod, 11 October 2018.
[8] Radio Svoboda, “Як проходив і що вирішив Об’єднавчий собор в Києві – хроніка,” 15 December 2018.
[9] Ukrinform, “Українську православну церкву очолив митрополит Епіфаній,” 15 December 2018.
[11] Orthodox Church of Ukraine, Minutes/decisions of the Holy Synod, 24 June 2019.
[12] Ukrainska Pravda, “Як Філарет пішов від Епіфанія і що тепер буде з ПЦУ,” 20 June 2019.
Note on the use of the text
The article deliberately distinguishes three levels: (a) what the leaked Chronicle states; (b) what is documented by official texts of the Ecumenical Patriarchate and the Orthodox Church of Ukraine; and (c) what is confirmed by independent Ukrainian journalistic coverage of the period. The authorship of the Chronicle is stated with reservation because there has so far been no official confirmation from the Ecumenical Patriarchate or from the person to whom the original publication attributes it.
