captured by the OCU. Reaction of the OCU On 20 June 2019, the OCU declared in an official communiqué concerning Filaret's council: "The assembly that gathered today at Flilaret’s personal will has neither legal nor canonical effects for the Orthodox Church of Ukraine. This is not a split, a small part of the OCU branched out into a new structure and named it the UOC-Kyiv Patriarchate, but it is not the UOC-KP and cannot be it. This assembly cannot question the validity of the Tomos or the authority of the OCU. The only consequence of this action is that Filaret will no longer have any powers in the OCU." On 24 June, the Holy synod of the OCU met. Before the council began, when asked by the BBC if a radical decision concerning Filaret's excommunication would be made, Epiphanius said: "No. We will not be like the Moscow church and pass such decisions." The Holy synod decided that, taking into account the 20 June Local council convened by Filaret as well as "the special past merits before the Ukrainian Orthodox Church", Filaret would remain a bishop of the OCU. However, the Holy synod decided that the diocese of Kyiv would be thenceforth headed by Epiphanius and not by Filaret. The Holy Synod decided to expel and , who had attended the 20 June Local Council, from the OCU. The Synod also declared that the UOC-KP and the UAOC had completely united into the OCU. On 25 June, Filaret declared: "We remain a church independent of Moscow or from Constantinople. We have our own charter and continue to exist in Ukraine as the independent Ukrainian Church of the Kyivan Patriarchate, and separated from the OCU." In July 2019, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew said the path Filaret had taken was wrong. On 5 December 2019, the Holy Synod of the OCU decided concerning how Filaret will be treated after the UOC-KP will have been liquidated. The Holy synod decided that Filaret had "the right for a life-long stay and use for his activity a complex of buildings at the city of Kyiv, Pushkinskaya Street, 36.", "[...] a life-long right to worship [i.e. hold liturgies] at the Volodymyr Cathedral of Kyiv", and that "[t]he life-long material maintenance of the Honorary Patriarch Filaret and the financing of a religious organization in the form of a mission shall be made by deductions from the Volodymyr Cathedral