Patriarch Filaret Dies at 97: Controversial Figure of Ukrainian Church Split

Patriarch Filaret, a leading figure of the schismatic Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU), has died in Kyiv at the age of 97. Filaret, born Mikhail Denisenko on January 23, 1929, in the village of Blagodatnoye near Donetsk, received his education at the Moscow Theological Seminary and was tonsured as a monk in 1950. Break with the Russian Orthodox Church In 1990, with the support of Ukrainian authorities, he advocated independence from the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC). In 1992, he left the ROC along with part of the clergy and established the unrecognized Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate, which later became part of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine.