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The Order of Saint Andrew the Apostle will soon be publishing a collection of essays titled The Ecumenical Patriarchate and Ukraine Autocephaly: Historical, Canonical, and Pastoral Perspectives.
The collection will include twelve papers by eminent clergy and laity
related to the autocephaly of the Orthodox Church in Ukraine. We are
pleased to offer our readers an exclusive preview by Mother Abbess
Theoxeni: “The Voice of Silence: A Monastic Voice on the Ukrainian
Question.”
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“Evil is erroneous judgment concerning the conceptual images of things.” – Saint Maximus the Confessor (Chapters on Love, 2.17)
The decades-long schism in Ukrainian church life has created
polarization not only between ecclesiastical jurisdictions, but also in
the hearts of the people.
Saint Maximus described erroneous judgment concerning the conceptual images of things
as evil. Similarly, a mistaken assessment of the complicated situation
that has prevailed for many years in Ukraine has led to an accumulation
of many evils, producing deep social division and a rift in the
ecclesiastical body with countless tragic consequences.
In the Orthodox Church we pray “for the welfare of the holy churches of God and the union of all [people],” and we invoke the unity of faith and the communion of the Holy Spirit.
This means that the Holy Spirit is to be found in unity and that the
gifts of the Holy Spirit activate unity. How indeed can there be unity
when we do not live in accordance with those gifts which Saint Paul
names as “love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control” (Galatians 5.22)?
The Gospel and the Church Fathers teach that a Christian loves and
prays for all people, and much more so for brothers and sisters in faith
who are distanced on account of erroneous judgment concerning the conceptual image of things
and other passions of egotism and vanity born of ethnic tribalism
together with a desire to further political interests under the pretext
of a strict interpretation of ecclesiastical canons.
Porphyrios of Kavsokalyvia, the well-known saint of our own times,
identified unity with reconciliation, with a deep understanding for our
brother or sister, with sensitivity to our language, a refusal to make
any accusation or slander, and above all with a desire to walk together
in the Church—in the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church: “When
we set ourselves apart from others, we are not Christians. We are true
Christians when we have a profound sense that we are members of the
mystical body of Christ, of the Church, in an unbroken relationship of
love—when we live united in Christ, that is, when we experience unity in
His Church with a sense of oneness.” (Wounded by Love: The Life and Wisdom of Saint Porphyrios, p. 89).
It is not fortuitous that Saint Gregory Palamas, when he was a
captive at the Ottoman court in Bursa, engaged with Ishmael—the grandson
of the Emir—in a dialogue on matters of faith with the utmost sobriety
and composure and without the slightest trace of fanaticism or
animosity.
At the present time we are experiencing on a global scale an
ever-intensifying upsurge in mindless fundamentalism: attacks on
Christian churches and Muslim mosques which turn the most sacred hours
of worship into tragedy. Fanatical and callous individuals wish, in the
name of “God,” to impose their views and ideas with hatred, destruction
and death. At such a critical time in the world, it defies reason to
break off ecclesiastical communion without seeking a mode of spiritual
reconciliation. Who can offer an explanation of this to the young people
who come to our monasteries in search of God with their existential
anxieties and questions?
In recent times many voices have been heard about the matter of the
autocephaly of the Church of Ukraine: articles, pronouncements,
interpretations, interviews and programs on radio and television. Some
of these have a sound foundation in history and canon law, while others
have been attempts to disorient public opinion.
There is, however, also the voice, or rather the urgent cry, of
silence. Insistent, devout silence. Prayer in silence, which
accomplishes the miracle of unity in the Church. This voice of silence,
which is prayer, pain, and weeping at the lack of love, at the erroneous judgment of the conceptual images of
the matter, is expressed in a reticence about speaking. We have sensed
this quietness in the words of the Ecumenical Patriarch, Bartholomew,
which have not been disrespectful or scathing about anyone, but rather
have been words of encouragement for everyone and a call for unity,
mutual forgiveness and reconciliation.
This voice is also heard in the silence of the monastics who have not
spoken, who have not written and who have not judged, but who rather
have prayed “for the welfare of the holy churches of God and the union of all,” the unity of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.
This intervention on their part is at once of no consequence and of
every consequence. It is of every consequence because Christ looks down
upon the secret voice and silent pain of those who have left everything
and followed Him on the path which is a “profession of the Cross and
death” (Service of the Great Schema).
At the same time, however, it is of no consequence, because the
silence of prayer is not publicized and does not have followers and
likes on social media postings. This thing of no consequence, however,
has the power to overcome worldly turmoils and ambitions. It has the
power to bring peace and unity to the Church, because it is founded on
all-night vigil and selfless intercession, which performs its work with
asceticism, prostrations and God-pleasing tears before the icons.
In the ever-remembered homelands of Asia Minor, the Orthodox Romioi,
the faithful Greek flock of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, when they gave
alms would make no distinction between Greeks and Turks. They would
offer help indiscriminately. This is the spirit of Romiosyni, a
spirit of selfless generosity, embodied in the stance of the Ecumenical
Patriarchate and of its venerable Primate: it is a disposition that
seeks to bestow gifts of loving kindness on all, and to care for every
soul that finds itself, for reasons for which it bears no
responsibility, outside the bounds of the canonical Church, just as it
happened with our brothers and sisters in Christ of Ukraine.
There are some unapproachable horizons which are touched by prayer,
by the tears and sorrows of the humble, of those who feel pain for the
Church, for the people of God, who reach out to children and young
people and know their anxieties and questions. These humble and nameless
monks and nuns raise up their hands to God every day and night in
prayer for the unity of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church,
resting on the sure foundations of the Orthodox faith and on the axiom
that truth sets free, whereas extremism and separation isolate and
distance people from salvation, since they cut them off from the Church.
The unity of the Church is a path of communion with God, true life,
union with the saints, and a path to eternal blessedness. A monastic
community can move from this life to eternity if it acquires full
identification with the consciousness of the Church and senses and
experiences the fact that in the Church we are all one, as Saint
Porphyrios used to say. In this way the sanctification of the monastic
community can contribute to the common transfiguring path in Christ of
the entire body of the Church.
Mother Theoxeni is the Abbess of the Holy Patriarchal and Stavropegic Monastery of Chrysopigi in Chania, Crete.
Public Orthodoxy seeks to promote conversation by providing a
forum for diverse perspectives on contemporary issues related to
Orthodox Christianity. The positions expressed in this essay are solely
the author’s and do not necessarily represent the views of the editors
or the Orthodox Christian Studies Center.
