.png "English"){kind=small}
By Alia Shandra
On
15 December, a Unification Council took place in Kyiv which molded a
single Orthodox Church from the hitherto disparate Ukrainian Orthodox
Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate (UOC KP), Ukrainian Autocephalous
Orthodox Church (UAOC), and a small part of the Ukrainian Orthodox
Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (UOC MP) and elected its Primate. The
newly-created Orthodox Church in Ukraine is on track to receive a Tomos
of autocephaly from Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew on 6 January 2019.
On the one hand, the multi-generational dream of an independent Orthodox
Church of many Ukrainians has come true; on the other hand, the schism
between the Churches has not gone anywhere, because the UOC MP
overwhelmingly ignored the Council and is hostile to the new Church. Can
the historical event on 15 December be considered a victory, what goals
does the new Church have before itself to gain the trust of world
Orthodoxy, and what reform plan it should have are some of the questions
we discussed with Fr. Nicholas Denysenko, an American theologian who has just released a book on the history of the Ukrainian Church in the 20th century.
Father Nicholas, you have been studying Ukrainian Church history for quite some time. What do you make of the Council?
I would say two things.
First, it's an important achievement
that the Council actually took place. There have been so many attempts
to unite separated Orthodox Christians in Ukraine that have failed.
Today’s history really brings us back to 1918, to the first
all-Ukrainian Council, which really was upsetting because the bishops
who presided over that Council manipulated the proceedings to shift the
pendulum from autocephaly to autonomy.
So the fact that today’s bishops were
able to have this Council, under the conditions of such a formidable
opposition by Moscow is an achievement of its own. I think it's easy to
undermine it.
Critics will say "well, only two bishops
from Moscow Patriarchate participated." But they reunited the Ukrainian
Autocephalous Orthodox Church (UAOC) and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church
of the Kyiv Patriarchate (UOC KP) and this is important, as these
churches have been separated since 1992. And actually this is the
achievement of something that the Ecumenical Patriarchate desired in
2015, when they sent the exarchs to Ukraine to attempt to unite the
Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church and the Kyiv Patriarchate. So
from that perspective, I think this is a real achievement, it is the
beginning of a potential real union that has the possibility to grow if
things go very well.
Another important dimension of the
Council is the advocacy and support of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. This
is really the first time in the history of the modern history of the
Ukrainian Church that Orthodox Ukrainians who want autocephaly have been
able to get the support of the highest authority in the Church. So the
fact that the Ecumenical Patriarchate not only participated but presided
at the Council is an important step, meaning that there is no reversal
to what happened on 15 December, as much as the Moscow Patriarchate will
demand it. There is no reversal. This is only going to go forward. It
will be either slow or fast, but it will go forward.
Secondly, conclusions can be drawn from
the difficulties of the proceeding of the Council that we have learned
of the intrigue concerning Metropolitan Mykhail from Lutsk and his
rescinding of candidacy for the position of Primate of the Church. It
will be impossible for anyone to expect that the process is going to
suddenly become easy. All of the parties who are involved are parties
who have operated independently up to this point. This is always
challenging. If they made compromises for the Council, they're going to
have to continue to make compromises. And so I think they're going to
have to learn to face the fact that many bishops supported Metropolitan
Mykhail and Symeon as a positive, that the balance among the bishops of
the Church will only be enriched. I think this will be a challenge for
Metropolitan Epifaniy; but now he has an opportunity to really depend on
the other bishops in his Synod for advice, for council, and to work
with them in moving forward.
And this could be an important new
development for the Ukrainian Orthodox Churches, because many of them
have depended on one authoritative figure in the past. So with the
struggle comes the opportunity to do good, because, as the news doesn't
hesitate to tell us, the opposition from Moscow will be formidable and
they will do anything they can to persuade the other Orthodox Churches
in the world that what happened on Saturday was illegitimate. So the
burden on the leaders of the new Church, especially on Metropolitan
Epifaniy, is very heavy. They will need to be clear and decisive and as
open as possible to show that they have arrived.
So, on the one hand, it's an
achievement; on the other hand, there's still a long way for the Church
to go to arrive where it needs to go — that is to receive the
recognition of the other Orthodox Churches in the world as a legitimate
autocephalous Church. And also to begin a new chapter that doesn't
simply recirculate or revive the legacy of the Soviet-era Church or even
the pre-revolutionary Church.
Do you have any predictions about the reception of this new Church by other Churches?
I think that the Orthodox Church in
Ukraine is going to have to be patient. The Tomos is finished, there's
no reversal, they will receive the Tomos on January 6, and the Churches
that are loyal to Constantinople are going to recognize them.
What Churches are those?
It's hard to say which ones exactly. We
can probably count on the Church of Greece, possibly the Church of
Cyprus. Alexandria is hard to say, because of the relationship that they
have with the Moscow Patriarchate as well. But even if you have Greece
and Cyprus and especially Romania, that would be a good beginning for
the new Church in Ukraine. I do think that other Churches will
eventually recognize, but I think the process will be more slow because
of Moscow's opposition. But I think that within a year or two, it's
likely that at least half of the Churches in the world will recognize
it. However, that's a prediction, not a promise.
What do the leaders of the Church need to do to earn this recognition?
I think that they have to do two things.
One: that they have to request meetings with the leaders of the other
Churches to introduce themselves. I think the biggest obstacle is — and I
don't know Metropolitan Epifaniy myself, I would love to meet him —
nobody knows him. Maybe there are some people that he has encountered
during his time in Greece where he received his theological education
and that will help, but because of the separation of the former Kyiv
Patriarchate and Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church from the rest
of the world, their leaders are largely unknown to the other Orthodox
Churches. So their first task is to travel, to visit, meet people, maybe
to do this with the assistance of the Ecumenical Patriarchate.
The second thing, and this is very
important: the other Orthodox Churches, however flawed they are, are
unnerved about Ukrainian nationalism. They don't understand how
Ukrainians are discovering their identity, especially in this
post-Maidan war period, and embracing patriotism, because they are not
living in Ukraine and don't understand the conditions of war. They don't
have the colonial and imperial past that Ukrainians have. So they are
nervous especially because of Moscow's campaign that this is going to be
an attempt to create a state Church, or a national Church. And I think
that if the leaders of this Church demonstrate that they are open to
everyone, that no matter who you are in Ukraine, if you are Orthodox,
are invited to be part of this Church — this will go a long way for
demonstrating arrival and legitimacy. I think this is particularly
important to demonstrate to people who self-identify as Russian or
perhaps Romanian, who will come and might want liturgy in Slavonic
instead of Ukrainian, that they are just as welcome as everyone else.
What nobody wants in Orthodoxy is
ethnophyletism, where only Ukrainians are allowed in the Ukrainian
Church. What I think other Orthodox will be looking for is openness to
everyone. And even public statements can go a long way along with
policies. So in that sense, the leaders of the new Church also have to
be careful about relations with the State. Everything that has happened
up until this point is understandable, but I think the opposition is
going to depict the Church as a tool, an organ of the state. And so we
simply have to navigate this time very carefully, because the difference
now is that the whole world is watching. Even the State Department in
the USA is watching. So it's not going to be easy, but these are the big
steps that I think you need to do.
What do you think about the
Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate boycotting the
event? Why do you think this happened?
I'm not surprised. They have hardened
their position. This is their comfort zone, and I think that this is a
symptom of the last 100 years. The Moscow Patriarchate has effectively
redefined autocephaly as separatism and isolationism. But autocephaly is
not separatism, autocephaly is independence in communion with all of
the other Churches. So that logic of the Moscow Patriarchate is actually
flawed: if autocephaly is just isolationism and separatism, then no one
should be autocephalous; neither Greece, nor Bulgaria, Serbia, Albania —
none of them should have autocephaly.
I think that a raising of a new
generation of Orthodox people who are open to dialogue would go a long
way towards reconciliation in Ukraine. Obviously, I think that
dependence upon political leaders in parliament who are in the
Opposition Bloc, who only feed and infuse the anti-autocephalous
polemic, is a real problem, and I don't know how Church leaders plan to
address this dilemma.
But I think that what will help the new
Church is to have two bishops from the Moscow Patriarchate on the Synod
who know that Church, who have allies in that Church and can serve as
ambassadors to show that coming into this new Church, you're going to be
welcome, you're going to be a brother and a sister in Christ, and that
we have the support of Constantinople. Once a few bishops will start to
migrate over, we will see those who are sympathetic to autocephaly
gradually move over; however, it's going to take time.
Another thing I think is necessary is
that there has to be some kind of a break to start a new dialogue. And I
mean not a dialogue with an official commemoration together with the
president at a memorial in Kyiv, but an actual dialogue where they try
to work out their differences. This dialogue has died since the end of
the earlier tenure of Metropolitan Volodymyr. The real chance for
dialogue was lost during the Maidan and afterwards.
You know, it will depend also on what
Moscow is going to do. If other Churches begin to recognize autocephaly
and enter into communion with the new Church in Ukraine, you might see
more openness of the Moscow Patriarchate towards reconciliation. I think
for the first couple of months, the Moscow Patriarchate is going to
attempt to continue what I call a refrain, and it's familiar to
everyone: the schismatics remain schismatics, and the Church remains the
Church; they are uncanonical and we are canonical.
No matter how many times they refuse to
enter dialogue, the leaders of the new Church have to request dialogue
and publicize requests for dialogue, for reconciliation, for
unification.
Also, I think that the rest of the world
has to find allies in Ukraine who can help them understand accusations
that parish property is being seized illegally. This is the greatest
unknown to those of us who don't live in Ukraine. If a parish wants to
be part of the Orthodox Church in Ukraine, how do we know that this was a
voluntary move on their part, that the government didn't force them to
become part of the new Church? Many people say that they are forcing
them to do this. I think it's important for the new Church to have a
healthy media presence and people who are assisting them in their
publicity to show that the rights of people in Ukraine who want to be
under the Moscow Patriarchate are being respected. And I think that it's
realistic to expect that the Moscow Patriarchate will have some kind of
presence in Ukraine for many decades to come. This process of
reconciliation will be long and before the Churches unite, there would
have to be some kind of eucharistic concelebration first. It will take
more than one generation to overcome a legacy of separation and
difference.
This is not quite the Unification Council we expected. Why do you think it all went this way?
Because of the last 100 years. You know,
the truth is that I don't have anything personally against Patriarch
Filaret. I think he is a complicated historical figure; in the last many
years he has been the strongest advocate for autocephaly in Ukraine.
For people in the Kyiv Patriarchate, the picture of Filaret and the way
that he runs the Church was a positive one. But those in the Moscow
Patriarchate were left with a very negative depiction of Filaret. And as
the Council approached, they simply weren't able to reconcile
themselves with the idea that someone that not only had been deposed,
but had been anathematized by the Church would be legitimate.
This perception is the outcome of the
narrative they have constructed about his life and legacy. From my
perspective, there was a Filaret who was the exarch of Ukraine and then
there was a Filaret who was a leader of the Kyiv Patriarchate. There was
some kind of transformation that happened between those two. In terms
of the Unification Council, I think that the fact that Filaret was still
alive was an obstacle that made even those who were sympathetic to
autocephaly hesitant because of all the things they have heard about
this figure.
This is why in my own writing I have
compared the Ukrainian schism to the impact of a divorce on a large
family. You don't know the other people very well; you only know things
about them that you've heard. And the lack of dialogue was an obstacle.
Maybe it would have been easier in the post-Filaret period after he
dies, given his age, but it's hard to say.
I also think that a lot of people were
caught off by the timing of the Council. One question that remains
unclear is why Ecumenical Patriarchate took this action at all. Many
people were very surprised. When I read the news in April, I said "I
don't believe this, this has to be fake news." Because the Ecumenical
Patriarchate’s modus operandi was to simply wait and to tell all of the
Orthodox Churches in Ukraine to unite first, and then receive
autocephaly.
Now they have said that they waited long
enough. And I think that those that didn't attend the Unification
Council, saying that the Ecumenical Patriarchate interfered in their
internal affairs, that they really believed that.
Metropolitan Symeon and Oleksandr from
the Moscow Patriarchate went over to the new Church. But most people
were afraid of risk. If the new Church proves to be stable, to be able
to overcome this initial period of transition, I think that we'll see
unification occur gradually and increasingly over a period of time.
The only way that the Unification
Council could have worked otherwise is if the process would have been
stretched out over a longer period of time. But it seems that that was
probably not acceptable to President Poroshenko. So another issue is
that the process was very fast; it all happened over 2018, except for
the upcoming issuing of the Tomos. That's very fast; the Church moves
slowly.
What's most important to people who
don't live in Ukraine, and this is something I've discovered as a
teacher, is that we simply don't know who the leaders of this Church
are. In part this is determined by the narrative. Who controls the
literature, who writes it, who is the author of the story? It will be
very helpful for people to simply come to know — who the leaders are,
where they came from, where they lived, what are their hopes and dreams
for this new Church.
What interests me as a scholar is what
is going to change for the faithful and priests now that they have a
Tomos. Will they feel free, will they feel like they can live in the
Gospel in a new way? And another thing: everyone wants to know what kind
of a church this will be. Will this be a copy of Moscow? Or are we
going to be witnesses to an era of conciliarity (соборноправність),
openness, of truly engaging society.
There's one thing that Metropolitan
Epifaniy said in his interview a few days ago that resonated with me
very much and I would like to learn more. He said: the priests shouldn't
just live in the temples, they need to be out among the people. In
other words, ministry is not just about church service (богослужіння),
it's also about being with the people and their everyday lives. I don't
know if you noticed, but he sounded very much like Pope Francis. And to
me, it was refreshing to hear this. I think this is what people will be
watching. But the big thing is that those of us that don't know the
Orthodox Church in Ukraine, we need to get to know you. What can you in
the Ukrainian Church tell us about who you are?
If you were to draft a reform plan for the new Church, what would it be?
To be biblical, to promote the reading
of the Bible in the churches, the study of the Bible, and to train
clergies to be good preachers, that they give good sermons. To be open. I
think that a lot of the Orthodox in the world don't want dialogue with
Christians of other denominations and other faiths. I think that the
Church in Ukraine would contribute very much if they would be leaders of
ecumenical dialogue. And Ukraine is a wonderful place to do this, it's a
multi-religious society, it's very unique in just the number of people
who are there.
And I also think that the new Church can
draw from the Ukrainian legacy of involvement of the laity in the life
of the Church. You know, all the pictures and videos that you see, they
only show the priests; and one of my favorite sayings of Metropolitan
Onufriy is about about people. This might sound funny, but a few years
ago somebody asked him what is his Church's belief in autocephaly. And
he said: "Am I the Church? I'm not the Church; all these people, they
are the Church." ("Хіба я Церква? Я не Церква; то всі ці люди — то
Церква".) And I appreciate that, and I think that we need more of that
in the Ukrainian churches — to invite the laity to truly participate in
the life of the Church. I don't think anything bad would come of that.
This is a good opportunity to put that post-Soviet legacy aside once and
for all and to become a leading Church of the 21st century. I believe
this can happen.
Nicholas Denysenko is Professor of Theology at
Valparaiso University in Valparaiso, Indiana (USA). In his recent book
"The Orthodox Church in Ukraine," he analyzes this history from the
early twentieth century to the present.
