of the city of Kyiv and voluntary donations." The synod also emphasized that the opinion that the OCU "wants to throw Patriarch Filaret out" was not true and unjustifiably provoked misunderstandings among believers and the public. On the same day, in an interview to BBC Ukraine, Epiphanius said: "Bishop Filaret remains the Bishop of the OCU until now. If you have noticed, during the Holy Synod, his place awaits until now. He is self-isolated, has a small number of supporters who surround him, but we believe he will change his mind and will continue to be with us." Epiphanius added: "[Filaret] overestimated his capabilities because he had high support from the people according to sociological polls. Bishop Filaret, even during the meetings of the Holy Synod, told us that "if you do not listen to me and obey my instructions, I will go out, call on the people, and the people and the clergy will definitely support me"". On 28 December, the OCU officially stated that Filaret was a "retired bishop" with "no canonical or statutory rights to convene and hold church meetings, to elect and ordain bishops." The OCU added that "on the basis of Canon 4 of the Second Ecumenical Council [...] all acts committed by the Honorary Patriarch Filaret contrary to the canons and the Statute of the Church are void. [...] [E]very person declared 'bishop' in an illicit way by the Honorary Patriarch Filaret and 'appointed', in particular, to a see where there is already a licit bishop, is not a bishop". Suspension of Filaret from the OCU's Holy Synod On 4 February 2020, the synod of the OCU decided that Filaret remained part of the episcopate of the OCU, but that he had lost the canonical responsibility and rights associated with the governance of his diocese. The synod also decided to strip Filaret of his place at the Holy Synod of the OCU. The Holy Synod of the OCU also stated that the bishops consecrated by Filaret had no valid holy order. The press service of the UOC-KP said the decision to remove Filaret from the Holy Synod of the OCU was non-canonical since he was already the primate of the UOC-KP. The press release added that a similar decision to declare Filaret's ordination null and void had also been taken by the Moscow Patriarchate and that after the Moscow Patriarchate's "ban", the overwhelming majority