Ukraine: Filaret the Machiavellian Has Died

Mychailo Antonovych Denysenko, also known as “patriarch” Filaret and the former Metropolitan of Kyiv, passed away on Friday, March 20th. Born on January 23, 1929, in the Donbas region, he lived through a century of revolutions and world wars, holding prominent ecclesiastical roles. Though virtually unknown to today’s media, he was a highly debated and decisive figure in the establishment of the autocephalous Church in Ukraine.

He was a key ally of President Petro Poroshenko in his efforts to achieve independence from Moscow and promoted the request to Bartholomew I of Constantinople for the tomos granting autocephaly to the Ukrainian Orthodox church. He was later sidelined, though he retained significant influence.

A seminarian in Odessa, he became priest in 1951, bishop in 1962, archbishop of Kyiv in 1966, and metropolitan in 1968. A great organizer and skilled politician, he led numerous diplomatic missions to the West and served as a useful and effective tool for the KGB. The then-Russian head of the Council for Religious Affairs, Konstantin Khartechev, described him as one of the best.

He presented himself as a Soviet patriot, opposing Ukrainian separatists and Greek Catholics, who were suppressed by law. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church preserved the roots of Russian Christianity and represented one of the largest communities within the Soviet Union, with the richest clergy and vocations. Following the death of Patriarch Pimen of Moscow, he ran for succession but lost the election. The bishops voted for the more spiritual Alexy II. This failure turned him into a staunch supporter of Ukrainian independence and autocephaly for his church.

The collapse of the Soviet Union worked in his favor, but the Moscow Synod demanded his resignation in 1992. Although he appeared willing to comply, he actually placed himself at the head of an anti-Moscow church, excommunicated by Moscow. He began preaching in Ukrainian rather than Russian and established a “patriarchate” first headed by Stepan Mstyslav, who had recently been released from prison, and then by Vasyl Romaniouk.

The “Battle of Saint Sophia” is famous for the clash that left dozens injured when the crowd faced off against the police. The pro-Russian government of Leonid Kuchma in 1995 did not want “Patriarch” Romaniouk to be buried in the cathedral. Amid the clashes, some dug a grave in front of the entrance, and the hierarch was buried there. He remains there to this day. Filaret became “patriarch” in 1995.

A title not recognized by the other Orthodox churches. Due to the Ukrainian population’s growing critical distance from post-Soviet Russia, as well as his organizational skills, his church grew to include several hundred parishes.

The Tomos and the Displeasure

During the “color revolutions” (2004 and 2014), the political leadership (Poroshenko), parliament, and much of the public were pushing for an autonomous national Orthodox church. Filaret was part of this movement. Bartholomew I of Constantinople, who endured the Russian Church’s rejection of the 2016 Council of Crete, felt that recognizing autocephaly was necessary to reunite the divided Orthodox community (pro-Russian, Filaret, and the Orthodox Church in the diaspora).

He did so following a request from a local council on January 6, 2019. Filaret generously merged his communities into the new autocephalous church. However, according to critics, he did so in anticipation of being called to preside over it himself. Instead, Bartholomew and the hierarchs chose Epiphanius, his vicar general, who was younger. Annoyed, Filaret refused to transfer the assets to the new church. Due to the limits placed on autocephaly by Bartholomew, he started another ecclesiastical family with a few bishops and communities. Without success.

Branded a schismatic in Moscow, viewed with suspicion by Constantinople, and marginalized by his own, he solidified his public role by precisely inserting himself into the cracks that open and close in the complicated interplay of faiths and churches in a country that has been at war with Russia since 2022 (and for some, since 2014).

A tragic and complex person

To those who accused him of being a compliant figure in the KGB secret services and of supporting the Soviet government, he replied: “All members of the clergy had contacts with the KGB. I was no exception. No one became a bishop without the secret services’ consent.”

He never responded to those who accused him of having a wife and daughters—a rumor that circulated in Moscow as early as the 1970s—and simply shrugged. Even the esteemed and well-known dissident priest Gleb Yakunin did not press the second accusation, instead emphasizing the first. One of his fiercest critics, journalist Alexander Nevzlin, acknowledged that Filaret had made a sincere religious choice in his youth when being a believer and becoming a priest was dangerous. However, Nevzlin added, “Then Filaret strayed and used religion as a tool of power.”

His controversial figure remains emblematic of a certain way of living the episcopal ministry during the dark decades of Soviet persecution, and he must be recognized as the link that allowed the continuity of the apostolic tradition of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Church, particularly after Constantinople’s recognition.