OFFICIAL DATE OF UNIFICATION COUNCIL STILL NOT ANNOUNCED—UPTsKP PRESS SECRETARY
The spokesman for the Kiev patriarchate, Archbishop Evstraty, declared that at the present time there still is no official date for conducting a unification council. Therefore, one should not trust various sources, which are persistently circulating rumors that it should happen shortly. The archbishop wrote this on his page on Facebook.
"The date of the council will be announced officially. It still has not been officially announced—in essence there is no date. Just like the draft of the tomos was prepared long ago, it will become a document only after the official adoption and distribution," he wrote.
The UPTsKP hierarch explained why fake news about the date is being circulated.
"Various sources, especially the media of Muscovite disinformation in Ukraine, persistently circulate rumors about the date of the council with only one goal: if for some reasons the council does not occur on the specific date that they are circulating, because the process of preparation is still prolonged, it will create a tsunami of 'treachery.'
"This technique has already been used a dozen times before. Do you recall? 'The synod is postponed,' 'representatives of Constantinople refused to travel to Ukraine,' 'there will be no tomos,' 'the Ukrainian question is postponed,'" Vladyka Evstraty noted.
"Therefore one should not sow groundless expectations so that then 'treachery' will not be circulated without a basis," he added.
He said that the process of preparing a unification council is going on and it will proceed "with a positive dynamic with a sober vision on the part of key persons and with their objective desire to achieve as quickly as possible a successful conclusion: a tomos concerning autocephaly." (tr. by PDS, posted 15 November 2018)
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