A nun from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) has revived Soviet myths about Patriarch Filaret
Serafima Shevchik, the abbess of the Holy Archangel Michael Convent of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate), launched a media attack against Patriarch Filaret during the very days of commemorating his memory.
The nun published texts and videos containing so-called “memoirs” that the Russian Orthodox Church had circulated as early as the early 1990s to discredit the Ukrainian church movement.
Shevchyk published a story titled “Filaret and His Wife,” in which she describes Mykhailo Denysenko’s youth while studying at the Odesa Seminary.
According to her, the future Patriarch was a “modest young man from Donetsk Oblast in patched shoes” who allegedly fell head over heels in love with the daughter of the apartment’s owners, Yevgeniya Rodionova.
The nun claims that at first the girl rejected the seminarian’s feelings, but changed her mind when he began a rapid rise in the church hierarchy.
“The beauty treated Mykhailo’s feelings with contempt and chose another suitor. But when he became a bishop and rose rapidly through the ranks, Yevheniia remembered him,” writes Serafima Shevchyk in her post.
The author of the “memoirs” is accused of attempting to tarnish the hierarch’s reputation by revealing mundane details from his time working in the exarchate.
Shevchik asserts that she personally saw Yevgenia Rodionova at the residence and claims that people feared the woman even more than the metropolitan himself, due to her influence over the management of affairs.
The publications describe in detail allegedly private aspects of the Patriarch’s life: cooking for the “children,” walking the dogs, and cleaning the luxurious dacha in Plyuty.
According to Shevchik, this property was officially listed as a vacation home for the clergy, but in reality was used only by Filaret’s family.
The representative of the Moscow Church also attributes to the late Patriarch the words that “for everyone, he is a monk, but ‘for the authorities—married.’”
Such statements completely mirror the narratives of the Russian Orthodox Church from thirty years ago, created with the aim of halting the process of restoring an independent Ukrainian church.
As a reminder, Patriarch Filaret of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine has passed away.
Also, Patriarch Filaret of Kyiv: how Ukraine’s spiritual leader distinguished himself in Orthodoxy.
