Nicholas Denysenko
I am sincerely grateful to Dr. Jerry Skira and Dr. Frank Sysyn for inviting me to this marvelous event, a book launch and a lecture followed by a response. My lecture notes contain this reminder: update opening section in the event there is more breaking news on the Orthodox Church in Ukraine. It is fitting and necessary to begin with a quick review of the current affairs, and I will do so by briefly identifying the possible next steps that might be adopted by the Orthodox Church in Ukraine that I iterated in the conclusion to my book.
Given Ukraine’s history of dependence on others, I suggested that the best next step for
the Church was to resolve their own problems without seeking external mediation or intervention. In modern history, there has really only been one all-Ukrainian Orthodox Church council, in 1918, and most historians and theologians do not refer to the 1918 council as authoritative for several reasons, probably because its adoption of canonical autonomy was never truly realized since 1918, even though the Moscow Council of 1918 confirmed Ukrainian autonomy. External political interference prohibited the convocation of an authentic all-Ukrainian council in 1942 and again in the early 1990’s, which constituted the two occasions in the last one-hundred with the greatest potential for an internal resolution..
Given Ukraine’s history of dependence on others, I suggested that the best next step for
the Church was to resolve their own problems without seeking external mediation or intervention. In modern history, there has really only been one all-Ukrainian Orthodox Church council, in 1918, and most historians and theologians do not refer to the 1918 council as authoritative for several reasons, probably because its adoption of canonical autonomy was never truly realized since 1918, even though the Moscow Council of 1918 confirmed Ukrainian autonomy. External political interference prohibited the convocation of an authentic all-Ukrainian council in 1942 and again in the early 1990’s, which constituted the two occasions in the last one-hundred with the greatest potential for an internal resolution..
contiune reading The Struggle for Ukrainian Autocephaly: Subversion and Canonicity