UPTsKP METROPOLITAN CALLS FOR "REUNIFICATION OF JURISDICTIONS" AND GROUP OF POLITICIANS FOR PAN-ORTHODOX CONFERENCE
Religiia v Ukraine, 21 September 2018
On 20 September, Metropolitan Antony, ruling bishop of the Khmelnitsky and Kamenets-Podolsk diocese of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UPTs) of the Kiev Patriarchate, circulated an open letter appeal to the leadership, clergy, and believers of three dioceses of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in unity with the Moscow patriarchate in Khmelnitsky oblast with a suggestion to unite into one ecclesiastical jurisdiction. The day before, on 19 September, five current and former Ukrainian people's deputies, supporters of the UPTsMP, signed a letter to Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew calling him "not to make a hasty decision," but to refer the question to a pan-Orthodox conference, a portal Religiia v Ukraine correspondent reports.
In his letter, Metropolitan Antony explains to believers of the UPTsMP the position of the UPTsKP regarding the latest events in Ukraine connected with the discussion of the possible granting of autocephaly from the Constantinople church.
"The discussion pertains only to the procedure of receiving autocephaly. According to church law, this question lies within the competence of the supreme organ of church administration, an ecumenical council. We can see this in the example of the receipt of autocephaly by the Cypriot church (rule 8 of the 3rd ecumenical council)."
Considering the contemporary realities of the life of world Orthodoxy and "the difficulty of calling another ecumenical council (not without the destructive role of the Russian Orthodox Church as we saw in the example of the Pan-Orthodox Council, held on Crete in the summer of 2016), such questions are resolved in accordance with precedents. On the basis of this, the president, Verkhovna Rada, and episcopate have appealed to His Holiness Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew to grant a tomos concerning autocephaly to the Ukrainian church. It is this path that is canonical, inasmuch as we received the light of Christian faith from Constantinople and before the 17th century were under the archpastoral care of the ecumenical patriarch. And only the imperialistic action of the Muscovite tsardom in 1686 laid the foundation for the current church conflict in Ukraine," Vladyka Antony notes.
He says that among clergy of the dioceses of the UPTsMP there exist various judgments about autocephaly. At the same time "our common enemies are spreading rumors that in the Kiev patriarchate lately a spirit of 'victors' has reigned, a spirit of pride with respect to all other Orthodox priests." The metropolitan assured that this is "entirely not so," and "we have only a presentiment of our common victory, when we will serve God and neighbor in a reunited church, not in parallel but together."
Metropolitan Antony maintains that "all organizational and other questions at the same time should be resolved jointly so as not to weaken but to strengthen the church, providing the possibility for each person to serve to hee best of one's ability. After all, we are talking not about a unification but about a reunification of both of our jurisdictions."
* * *
The day before, 19 September, five current and former Ukrainian people's deputies, patrons, and adherents of the UPTsMP—Andrei Derkach, Yakov Bezbakh, Andrei Shipko, Grigory Smitiukh, and Vasily Gorbal—signed a letter to Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew with a report that in Ukraine some want to hide under his name "in the struggle for the short-term interests of politicians."
They point to the chairman of the Verkhovna Rada, noting that he is a Greek Catholic, and he is facilitating the autocephaly of the Orthodox church in Ukraine, and that means that "today it is shaping up such that the main ideologues and proponents of the question of autocephaly are politicians who are not Orthodox people."
"We would not wish that you as the esteemed ecumenical patriarch ride into Ukraine on the shoulders of Greek Catholics and those politicians who are governed by their own interests within the context of the presidential elections," the appeal says. "Such logic, unfortunately, leads to the fact that the story is not about a tomos but the names of the initiators and beneficiaries of the 'Orthodox troubles' and bloody redistribution. This also disturbs the majority of Orthodox in Ukraine. They do not understand the haste of the process and are disturbed by a lack of your dialogue with the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. At the same time they clearly see the Greek Catholic locomotive in the central organs of power in Ukraine and take the tomos to Ukraine of Your Holiness as an 'agitational sheet' in advance of the presidential elections."
It should be noted that Greek Catholics themselves, in the persons of their leaders, have frequently emphasized that the question of autocephaly is an internal affair of the Orthodox Church in Ukraine. The UGKTs sees its communication primarily with Rome, to which they summon other churches.
The deputies argue further in the appeal that "the greater part of Ukrainian Orthodox will be able to accept autocephaly only with the consent of the Russian patriarch," and they ask the ecumenical patriarch "not to make a hasty decision" and "to conduct a pan-Orthodox conference after the completion of the main political event of 2019 in Ukraine, the presidential elections, under your aegis with the participation of all sides, including also the Ukrainian bishops, ministers of your church, whom you appointed as exarchs."
They propose "to assemble a pan-Orthodox conference in order to work out, in agreement with the Moscow patriarchate, the only correct approach: either the presentation of autocephaly to the UPTs or locating the courts of the ecumenical patriarchate on Ukrainian territory (as already in fact are here), or another general solution that will help overcome the schism, set everything in order, and reconcile everybody for the sake of salvation and the good of Orthodoxy."
The deputies and ex-deputies actually are repeating the opinion of the synod, which recently suggested to Constantinople to discuss the question of overcoming the schism of the Ukrainian church in a pan-Orthodox conference. (tr. by PDS, posted 21 September 2018)
Editorial disclaimer: RRN does
not intend to certify the accuracy of information
presented in articles. RRN simply intends to certify the
accuracy of the English translation of the contents of the
articles as they appeared in news media of countries of
the former USSR.
If material is quoted, please give credit to the
publication from which it came. It is not necessary to credit
this Web page. If material is transmitted electronically, please
include reference to the URL,
http://www.stetson.edu/~psteeves/relnews/.