RESOLUTION OF CHURCH QUESTION IN UKRAINE DEVISED
How great is the danger of persecution of priests?
The Russian Orthodox Church predicted persecution against priests in Ukraine. This statement was made by the vice-chairman of the Department for Eternal Relations of the RPTs, Archpriest Nikolai Balashov. Earlier the Moscow patriarchate declared that the authorities in Ukraine are oppressing believers. Yesterday the Ukrainian Orthodox Church was denied the use of the complex of the Holy Dormition Pochaev lavra. The decision was made by the country's Ministry of Justice. It was there declared that the state registration of the lavra in 2003 was illegal. At the time, the order was given by Viktor Yanukovich, who was the prime minister.
Now Ukrainian authorities are creating a new structure, a local Orthodox church. But the Pochaev lavra and other church buildings will still challenge the authorities' decision in court, Yanina Sokolovskaia told a correspondent of the newspaper Kommersant in Kiev: "Most likely there will be a court appeal of this decision. There is a reason for a judicial lawsuit. Unfortunately, there is a Ukraine-wide trend devised by the Verkhovna Rada and connected with the fact that the majority of church structures, particularly the lavras, are not owned by the church but are leased. The Pochaev lavra also was not the property of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church but is on a long-term lease with the right of extension. Because of this, the lease contracts will now be terminated and the renters will be, as they say, changed. That is, they will replace one patriarchate with anther, for the structure now being created, the Ukrainian local Orthodox church. Thus, according to Ukrainian deputies, they will drive the Russian Orthodox Church from Ukrainian territory. They are preparing to declare the Ukrainian Orthodox Church to be Russian and to forbid its existence on the territory of the country. In this way the church question will be, as they say, resolved. But the lavras do not intend to surrender and believers will defend them."
There really is a danger of persecution against priests in Ukraine. They may be expelled from the monasteries, thinks the director of the Center for the Study of Problems of Religion and Society of the Russian Academy of Science, Roman Lunkin: "There is a danger that the monks will be driven from the Pochaev lavra and all these premises will be given to some new structure, which Ukrainian authorities and the Constantinople patriarch are preparing to create in December. I think that all this is some kind of art preparation which the monks of the Pochaev lavra have already called 'communist methods and the bolshevik policy of seizure of churches' under the guise of some kind of economic activity. Actually the Ukrainian authorities are using religion for their own purposes. Actually such a pool of politicians has been created that whoever wins the presidential election will create a united local church and drive both clergy and priests into this new structure with a hot iron, exerting psychological pressure on them. Certainly the danger of discrimination exists. The monastics have not expressed any support for an autocephalous local church. If there is an attempt to drive all monks, or some monks, from the Pochaev lavra, then, first, the people will rise to their defense, and second, there will be no one to replace these monks. Because there is no such quantity of monks and clergy who will support the political project."
In early October the Synod of the patriarchate of Constantinople made an historic decision: it rescinded the document adopted 300 years ago about the transfer of the Kiev metropolia to the jurisdiction of the Moscow patriarchate. Constantinople emphasized that the Ukrainian church thereby will receive independence. Recognition of an autocephalous church in Ukraine can damage the Moscow patriarchate and lead to its complete isolation from the religious community, noted an employee of the Center of History of Religion and the Church of the Institute of World History of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Aleksei Beglov: "The situation has already affected the Moscow patriarchate, inasmuch as it severed communion with Constantinople. The main thing is not only that liturgical relations were ruptured but the membership of the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate has been suspended in all inter-Orthodox structures where representatives of Constantinople are present. There are very many such structures. In each foreign country where an Orthodox bishop is present there is its own type of inter-episcopal assembly, consultative bodies where Orthodox bishops of various jurisdictions meet and discuss their issues. It turns out that the RPTs now has suspended its membership in all of these organizations. This, of course, will lead to its isolation in the Orthodox world.
"The situation is alarming. It will be fraught with serious crises in the inter-Orthodox community." (tr. by PDS, posted 27 November 2018)
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