All the last week, within the period of celebration of 1020th anniversary of baptism of Rus, that took place in the Ukraine, the head of the Great Church Bartholomew was courted by Viktor Yushchenko and local media. Yushchenko met him in person at the airport and stood throughout two church services. Kiev abounded with billboards with the pictures of the President and the Ecumenical Patriarch on them. All the events were broadcast on the live air by four TV stations. Despite all that, the secret plan of the church coup by the Ukrainian President was doomed to fail.      

The official schedule of festivities provided for flight by Yushchenko and Bartholomew to Sevastopol, to the site where the Prince Vladimir was baptized. Ukrainian authorities hoped that the Ecumenical Patriarch would accept the repentance by patriarch Filaret, who was anathematized in 1991 for proclaiming the autocephaly of the Ukrainian Church from Moscow and for seizure of the temples.    

With such a course of developments the Patriarchate of Kiev would become metropolitanate to the Great Church, and afterwards it could become the Local Church. However, the Patriarchate of Moscow had warned the Ecumenical Patriarch against the threat of split for orthodoxy, and the latter heeded the warning.    

The Ukrainian President did not conceal his disappointment. He left demonstratively the joint service by the Moscow and Ecumenical Patriarchs. And he did not attend at the service by Alexis the Second in the Kiev lavra, as he had left for the West Ukraine that is suffering from the flood consequences. 

Other Ukrainian politicians behaved in a more flexible way. Viktor Yanukovich met with both patriarchs. Yulia Timoshenko pretended to be ill and just kept a low profile. By the end of festivities, when it became clear that no religious coups were to happen in the country, she made a speech on television with congratulations, without mentioning the topic of the Local Church. By Monday, the Ukrainian Prime Minister had finally sorted out the patriarchs and sent a bouquet of orange roses to Alexis the Second.     

Unforgiving of Filaret does not remove the problem of creation of independent Ukrainian church. The idea is supported by most part of the clergy, but they want to get autocephaly in a canonical way. The Ukrainian priests admit in private conversations to recognizing the churches of the patriarchate of Kiev to be godsent; they only repel the odious figure of aggressive Filaret. As for Ukrainian people, they have got used to living under conditions of religious split. Many Kiev inhabitants alternate visiting Lavra (Patriarchate of Moscow) and Vladimir’s cathedral (Patriarchate of Kiev).