Patriarch of Kyiv who strove for an independent Ukrainian church – obituary

Saturday, 6 June 2026

Patriarch Filaret, b January 23, 1929; d March 20, 2026

Thirty years before the war in Ukraine, Filaret Denysenko was standing up to Russia by creating an independent Orthodox Christian church in Kyiv.

In 1992 Filaret, who has died aged 97, was the central protagonist in the creation of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Kyiv Patriarchate) that broke free of the jurisdiction of the Russian Orthodox Church, but his motivation for doing so has been the subject of much conjecture.

Having maintained close and loyal ties with Moscow as the leader of the Orthodox church in Ukraine since 1966, Filaret emerged as a leading candidate to become patriarch of Moscow in 1990. With the Soviet Union on the verge of collapse, the vote was “freer” than expected and Filaret came third. Filaret later claimed that the “Lord had prepared me for Ukraine”. An autocratic and uncompromising figure in ecclesiastical circles, Filaret, who had a habit of making enemies, would devote the rest of his life to creating and attempting to lead an independent Ukrainian church.

Mykhailo Antonovych Denysenko was born in 1929 to Anton and Melania Denysenko in the village of Blahodatne in what is now the Donestsk Oblast province of eastern Ukraine. Resolving to serve in the church after the death of his father fighting the Nazis on the front line in 1943, he entered the seminary of the Moscow Patriarchate in Odessa in 1946, and was ordained in 1951 with the name Filaret. He became a professor at the Moscow Theological Academy and served as archpriest of Trinity Lavra of St Sergius.

Over the coming years he was promoted consistently, rising to become bishop of the Leningrad Eparchy in 1962 and bishop of Dmitrov and rector of the Moscow Theological Academy and Seminary from 1964.

Filaret was appointed archbishop of Kyiv and Halych in 1966 and Metropolitan of Kyiv and Galicia in 1968. As the head of the church in Ukraine, he was determined to revive spiritual life in a territory impacted by the Soviet leader Khrushchev’s anti-religious campaigns.

At this stage, Filaret was still closely linked to Moscow. He was called out by the Russian Orthodox priest and Soviet dissident Father Gleb Yakunin for having been an informer for the KGB, supporting its attempt to prevent a resurgence of the Ukrainian Catholic Church and discouraging his flock from asserting their human rights during the years of glasnost and perestroika in the 1980s. Filaret admitted in an interview with Radio Liberty in 2018 that he had contact with the KGB, but only because that was standard practice for all Russian Orthodox bishops.

Having spent several weeks as acting Patriarch of Moscow after the death of Patriarch Pimen in May 1990, Filaret was said to be confident of being appointed leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, especially as his temporary position had been “sanctioned” by the Soviet authorities. Indeed, he made preparations to leave Kyiv permanently before the vote took place the following month. However, the Metropolitan of Novgorod, Alexey Ridiger, was elected with 139 votes; Filaret looked visibly surprised at coming third with 66 votes. According to reports, when he raised the matter with an official in the Politburo, he was told, “We are no longer able to help you. We can't even help ourselves.” The Soviet Union would be dissolved formally in December 1991.

Filaret interpreted his defeat as a divine intervention, declaring many years later: “It was not by chance that I was not elected.” He was instead elected to lead the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate in July 1990 and was granted “independence in self government” as Metropolitan of Kyiv and All Ukraine. He wanted more. Thereafter, he devoted himself to the principle of a Ukrainian Church entirely independent from Russia.

On August 24, 1991, Ukraine declared independence from the Soviet Union. A synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in November unanimously passed a resolution that the UOC would be thenceforth be an autocephalous church, independent of Moscow. A separate resolution declared that Filaret would be its leader as the Kyiv Patriarch.

The Russian Orthodox Church responded by convening a synod of its own in Kharkiv in May 1992 at which Bishop Volodymyr (Sabodan) was appointed Metropolitan of Kyiv of the Ukrainian Church (Moscow Patriarchate) – a church that was recognised by the other orthodox churches in the global communion.

In June 1992, the rival Ukrainian Orthodox Church – Kyiv Patriarchate (UOC-KP) – was founded under Patriarch Mstyslav. Moscow declared the Kyiv Patriarchate invalid and defrocked Filaret in July 1992. In July 1995, after the death of two patriarchs in two years, Filaret was elected head of the UOC-KP by a vote of 160-5.

Filaret’s formal excommunication by the Russian Orthodox Church in 1997 was recognised by the Ecumenical Patriarch in Constantinople. The Russian Orthodox Church would later claim that Filaret had a civil law wife and three children.

In 2018, after the OUC-KP and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) merged to form the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU), the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, Bartholomew, reinstated Filaret into church communion.

Filaret was appointed “Honorary Patriarch” of the merged Orthodox Church of Ukraine, but soon clashed with primate Epiphanius over governance, structure and leadership.

The OCU synod suspended Filaret's involvement in 2020, at which point he was making controversial public statements about the Covid pandemic, claiming that the Holy Eucharist could be administrated from one spoon because it is impossible to get viruses from the “resurrected Body of Jesus Christ God”. He then claimed that the pandemic was God’s punishment for “same-sex marriage”. He promptly caught the virus.

After the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Filaret said: “God is with Ukraine, not with Russia. God is with the truth, not with lies.” He compared President Putin to Cain, the son of Adam and Eve who in the Book of Genesis kills his younger brother Abel in a fit of jealousy. “I called Putin the new Cain because he is killing his brothers, Ukrainian and Orthodox people,” said Filaret, who was given the country’s highest honour, Hero of Ukraine, in 2019.

Filaret had reconciled with Epiphanius in November 2025 and they prayed together for Ukraine’s victory over Russia.