UKRAINIAN AUTOCEPHALY: THE ACTIVITY OF OUR DIPLOMACY
by Dmitry Gorevoi
It is no secret to anybody that over the course of all the years of independence, the Ukrainian authorities have tried to solve the church question in Ukraine. President Kravchuk sympathized in every way with the Ukrainian church's independence from Moscow. Leonid Kuchma, in his second term, also bought into this issue.
As religion scholars noted, the turning point for the second president of Ukraine occurred at the celebration of the 2,000th anniversary of the birth of Christ. It was at that time, at the summit in Jerusalem, that Kuchma found himself isolated. The presidents of Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, and Russia were accompanied by their patriarchs, but Kuchma was not. Moreover, the head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate was at that time a member of the delegation from the Russian Orthodox Church, that is, he walked along with President Putin.
The question of autocephaly also engaged Viktor Yushchenko. He even invited Patriarch Bartholomew to Kiev in 2008. As informed persons say, at the time Ukraine was literally a step away from church independence. However Russia activated diplomatic channels and was able to disrupt the granting of a tomos to Ukraine.
The only Ukrainian president who did not work for church independence was Viktor Yanukovich. However that does not mean that he did not have his own policy regarding religion. He also wanted to resolve the question of the division of Orthodoxy, but in accordance with a Russian scenario—to bring everybody into the bosom of the Moscow patriarchate. Everybody recalls how that policy turned out.
The fifth president of Ukraine was no exception among the others. According to Poroshenko himself, over several years, conversations conducted at the highest level were hidden from the eyes of outsiders. This is quite like the truth because if a wide circle of persons had known about this it is unlikely that we would have been able to reach the home stretch. It is purely for psychological reasons, as they say, "Where there are two Ukrainians, there are three hetmans." Every subject participating in negotiations would begin to pose his own uncompromising conditions.
From the public statements of the president and his subordinates it has become clear that a high-profile backroom game has been played. The fact that it was possible to persuade the ecumenical patriarch and the synod to officially take the appeal into consideration is already a colossal achievement of diplomacy. Moreover, the frantic pace of the trips by representatives of the RPTs to other local churches testifies to the fact that Moscow did not know about the conversations between Kiev and Constantinople. And this is while they had a network of "their own people" in the local churches. However it is incorrect to think that our diplomats accepted the result, folded their hands, and awaited the tomos while the Russians were "working" with the hierarchs. It seems that the Ukrainian authorities had finally decided to resolve the problem of division and to put an end, in Kuraev's phrase, "to the ecclesiastical homelessness of Ukraine."
Thus, the famous Ukrainian diplomat Andrei Deshchitsa, who now represents Ukraine in Poland, met on 26 April with Metropolitan of Warsaw Savva. Our ambassador to Cyprus visited on 14 May the head of the local church, Archbishop Chrysostom II. Supreme Rada Speaker Andrei Parubii visited the Georgian Orthodox Church on 26 May and the Jerusalem patriarch on 29 May. The Ukrainian minister of foreign affairs, Pavel Klimkin, also met with this same hierarch.
The head of the Czech and Slovak Church, Rastislav, was visited on 30 May by former presidents Kravchuk and Kuchma. The deputy chief of the administration of the president, Rostislav Pavlenko, visited Bulgarian Patriarch Neofit on 15 June. It is interesting that some news media distorted the words of the patriarch and stated that he supposedly did not support Ukrainian autocephaly, which was not in accord with reality.
In parallel with Pavlenko, the Ukrainian ambassador in Serbia, Alexander Alexandrovich, visited Serbian Patriarch Iriny. Several days later, on 18 June, the charge d'affaires of Ukraine in Greece met with Metropolitan of Piraeus Serafim.
Among other things, they discussed matters of the mutual relations of the peoples of Ukraine and Greece along with issues of the Azov Greeks. About the "Azov card" in relations of Kiev and Athens you can read in an article by Tatiana Derkach on the RISU website. In the context of the Greeks, one should recall the recent visit of the American ambassador Geoferry Pyatt to the head of the Greek church.
As we can see, the Ukrainian authorities are not in a state of permanent "waiting," but are actively coordinating with the local churches. And there is nothing surprising or illegal about this. Opponents of church independence constantly harp on the supposed interference of the state in church affairs. However this is conscious manipulation, since the state is not dictating and not dealing with issues of internal church life, doctrine, canons, or theological or liturgical practice. The state, in the person of the president and diplomatic corps, is only facilitating the establishment of contacts between individual religious organizations in Ukraine and foreign centers. And the state has such a right. It is sufficient to read carefully article 30 of the Ukrainian law "On freedom of conscience and religious organizations" in order to be convinced that the state has the right to implement a policy in such a direction: "Promotion of the participation of religious organizations in international religious movements, forums, business contacts with international religious centers, and foreign religious organizations."
Moreover, very often those who speak against supposed interference of Ukrainian authorities in church affairs view calmly and tolerate the real interference of Russian authorities in the Ukrainian religious situation. As the result of this the sovereign right of authorities of Ukraine to act independently on their own territory is violated. And since, according to the constitution, it is the president who is the guarantor of sovereignty, he has therefore initiated the resolution of this issue.
The press secretary of the Russian president, Dmitry Peskov, when commenting on the situation regarding the UPTsMP, constantly uses the words "our church," and it is obvious that Putin considers it his instrument of influence in Ukraine. Thus, back in 2014, after the first victories of the Ukrainian army, Patriarch Kirill wrote an angry letter to Orthodox patriarchs about "Uniates and schismatics who are warring against the canonical Orthodox believers." He tried to present Russia's aggression against Ukraine as a civil conflict, whose source was the religious factor. The idea consisted of creating a picture of the "genocide of Orthodox believers," against whom other religious groups were rising up. But these ideas suffered collapse because within the ranks of defenders of Ukraine there also were representatives of the UPTsMP, who clearly opposed the subordination of their church to Moscow. However the leadership of the metropolitanate, unfortunately, lies in a parallel world and does not sense the moods of the flock.
In the final analysis, the resolution of the church question will only permit each person to act as he wishes. Whoever does not want to be in the Moscow patriarchate will join the new church. For those to whom subordination to Russia is important, they will have the right to remain in their church. Misunderstanding arises because the current status quo pleases the episcopate of the UPTsMP, but it is unacceptable for the majority of the flock. Here is how the situation has evolved, about which Volodia Ulianov wrote: "the higher-ups cannot and the lower-downs don't want." As the "leader of the world proletariat" thought, such a situation shows that in a community (in our case, the church) the prerequisites for a revolution are maturing. Whether this leads to a real explosion will depend exclusively on the actions of the "metropolit-buro." (tr. by PDS, posted 22 June 2018)
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