Conference and Discussion on “Orthodoxy in Ukraine: A Far-Reaching Conflict?”
In early April at a conference hosted by the Protestant Academy in
Loccum, Prof. Dr. Jennifer Wasmuth of the Institute presented a short
lecture in which she sketched out the historical situation of the church
in Ukraine today. Orthodox priest Bohdan Ogulchanskyi of the Open
Orthodox University Sophia/Kiev, who originally belonged to the
Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP) and then
switched to the newly founded Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU),
presented the current ecclesiastical situation and emphasized the right
of Ukraine to its own Orthodox church independent of Moscow.
As representative of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC),
influential principally in western Ukraine, priest and professor Dr.
Thomas Nemeth of the Eastern Church Institute in Würzburg, Germany, shed
light on the possibilities for rapprochement between the various
churches in the Ukraine through the founding of a new Orthodox church,
which in fact would be a merger of the Ukrainian Orthodoxy Church of the
Kiev Patriarchate and the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church.
The difficulties, which have resulted through the bestowal of the tomos
(recognition of autocephaly) on the OCU by Ecumenical Patriarch
Bartholomew and the associated recognition of it, were emphasized by Dr.
Václav Ježek of the University of Prešov in a lecture on “Orthodox
Churches of the Czech Lands and Slovakia,” who pointed out the ways in
which the conflict in Ukraine is simply a reflection of the need for
clarification of Orthodox ecclesiology and a decision regarding an
already long-standing conflict. Dr. Dagmar Heller of the
Konfessionskundliches Institut in Bensheim, Germany, laid out the
significant consequences that a supposedly only local conflict between
the
churches in Ukraine might pose for worldwide ecumenism.
Through intensive discussion the lectures drew up the following sets of questions for further reflection:
1. Regarding the developments that affect all the churches in
Ukraine: How will the established as well as the new churches relate to
one another in the future? Will the majority of the congregations of the
UOC-MP end up crossing over to the OCU? Or will, as it now appears, two
concurrent Orthodox churches remain, of which the UOC-MP will probably
be the dominant one? Will the new foundation of the OCU end up cementing
a division in the nation, that will end up being solved in the same
way? And how do things stand with the UGCC and the OCU? Will the two
draw near to one another? Will it perhaps set a precedent that will be
meaningful for worldwide Catholic-Orthodox ecumenism? Or are these only
hopes that come out of current events but will be of no real consequence
for dealings with the Catholic church?
2. Possibilities and Boundaries of the Establishment of the OCU: Will
the OCU succeed in being the “Church of Ukraine”? A national church
that can contribute to reconciliation? What does the new church stand
for? For a modern, open, Western-oriented Orthodoxy? Or maybe, to the
contrary, a church whose values are even more traditional than those of
the UOC-MP? What dangers lie in the establishment of a
Moscow-independent church? Will the OCU, in these circumstances, perhaps
be instrumentalized by the Ukrainian government for its own political
ends? Or will the church, for its own reasons, allow itself to be thus
instrumentalized?
At the end of the forum there emerged altogether the impression of a
situation that, at the moment, could turn in any direction, and requires
ongoing observation of developments in the country.