Patriarch Filaret (Denysenko) - Hierarch of The Russian Orthodox Church

Hierarch of The Russian Orthodox Church

From 1960 he was effectively in charge of the Ukrainian Exarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church and served at St Volodymyr's Cathedral in Kyiv, the exharchate's mother cathedral.

In 1961 Filaret served in the mission of the Russian Orthodox Church to the Patriarch of Alexandria. In January 1962 Filaret was elected vicar Bishop of the Leningrad Eparchy and, in February, was ordained bishop in Leningrad by Metropolitan Pimen (later Moscow Patriarch) and other bishops. Filaret was appointed to several diplomatic missions of the Russian Orthodox Church and from 1962 to 1964 served as ROC Bishop of Vienna and Austria. In 1964 he returned to Moscow as the Bishop of Dmitrov and rector of Moscow Theological Academy and Seminary.

In 1966 he became an archbishop and soon after the Metropolitan of Kyiv and Halych thus becoming one of the most influential hierarchs in the Russian Orthodox Church, where the office of the Kyiv Metropolitan is highly regarded. At that time he also became a permanent member of the Holy Synod, the highest collegiate body of the Russian Orthodox Church, and responsible for electing the Moscow Patriarch. It is notable that he became the first ethnic Ukrainian in the post of Kyiv Metropolitan for 150 years.

As a leader of the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine, Filaret actively and publicly supported the suppression of Ukrainian churches that refused to associate with the ROC: the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church and the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church.

With the ailing physical condition of Pimen I, the Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus', Filaret personally oversaw the preparation and celebration of the Baptism of Rus' millennium anniversary in 1988. That celebration redefined the relationship between the Soviet state and the church, and was marked by the return of numerous church buildings to the ROC.

Upon the death of Patriarch Pimen I on May 3, 1990, Filaret was widely viewed as a front runner in the Russian Orthodox Church patriarchal election, especially when he became a patriarchal locum tenens. However, on June 6, 1990 the Sobor of the Russian Orthodox Church elected Metropolitan Alexius (Alexey Ridiger) of Leningrad Novgorod, who was enthroned as Patriarch Alexius II.

On October 27, 1990, in a ceremony at St. Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv, Patriarch Alexei handed to Metropolitan Filaret a Tomos granting “independence in self government” (the Tomos did not use either the word autonomy or autocephaly) to Metropolitan Filaret, and enthrone Filaret, heretofore “Metropolitan of Kyiv”, as “Metropolitan of Kyiv and All Rus-Ukraine”.