His Eminence Archbishop Elpidophoros
2019 Athenagoras Human Rights Award Banquet Remarks
Honoring His Beatitude Epiphaniy
Metropolitan of Kyiv and All Ukraine
2019 Athenagoras Human Rights Award Banquet Remarks
Honoring His Beatitude Epiphaniy
Metropolitan of Kyiv and All Ukraine
October 19, 2019
New York Midtown Hilton
New York, New York
Your Beatitude Metropolitan Epiphaniy of Kyiv and All Ukraine,
Most Reverend Metropolitans and Hierarchs,
Beloved Clergy and Presbyteres of our Church,
Honorable Members of the Diplomatic Corps,
Esteemed Archons and Archons-elect,
Sisters and Brothers in Christ:
Your Beatitude, we all wish you every success and advancement in your mission of peace, unity, and hope for the future.
ΠΟΛΛΑ ΤΑ ΕΤΗ ΣΟΥ!
New York Midtown Hilton
New York, New York
Your Beatitude Metropolitan Epiphaniy of Kyiv and All Ukraine,
Most Reverend Metropolitans and Hierarchs,
Beloved Clergy and Presbyteres of our Church,
Honorable Members of the Diplomatic Corps,
Esteemed Archons and Archons-elect,
Sisters and Brothers in Christ:
Tonight we celebrate not only your person, Your Beatitude, but we
celebrate as well the Pious and Faithful People of Ukraine, whose
aspirations for religious independence and control over their own future
and spiritual destiny were realized by the loving, pastoral, and indeed
maternal care of His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew and
the Holy and Sacred Synod of Constantinople.
Your Beatitude, the canonical restoration of a major portion of the Orthodox Christians in Ukraine, and the subsequent establishment of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine – both by its own internal deliberations that elected you as its Primate, and the ultimate Tomos of Autocephaly granted by the Ecumenical Patriarchate, is an accomplishment of the highest order. For this you deserve our heartfelt congratulations and we proclaim you ΑΞΙΟΣ!
Your Beatitude, the canonical restoration of a major portion of the Orthodox Christians in Ukraine, and the subsequent establishment of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine – both by its own internal deliberations that elected you as its Primate, and the ultimate Tomos of Autocephaly granted by the Ecumenical Patriarchate, is an accomplishment of the highest order. For this you deserve our heartfelt congratulations and we proclaim you ΑΞΙΟΣ!
From my own personal experience over ten years ago in
Ukraine as the Chief Secretary of the Patriarchal Synod, I witnessed
firsthand the complexities and exigencies that created the causes and
conditions which prompted the canonical acts and processes, resulting in
the formation and canonization of the Autocephalous Orthodox Church of
Ukraine. It was a process fraught with difficulties at every turn, but
the eventual solution that you helped to bring about, Your Beatitude,
reflected the historical reality of the relationship between Kyiv and
Constantinople.
As I wrote in my recent book “The Ecumenical Patriarch in Ukraine”:
The spiritual bonds that yoke the Metropolis of Kiev with Constantinople and the Ecumenical Patriarchate stem from the indisputable fact that Constantinople is the mother who gave birth to an entire nation in Christ – Rus of Kiev, the Ukrainians of today.
Despite the pens that would re-write history, we know very well from which πηγή the Ukrainian Church sprang – the Life-Giving Fountain of the Queens of Cities, Constantinople – and how it is that Kyiv is the mother of Moscow, and not the reverse! Moreover, we know that the Autocephaly was always received from Constantinople, for those Local Churches that came into existence in the Second Millennium of our Faith. These are historical facts that cannot be denied, except by those who choose to willfully live in denial. The Autocephaly has yet to be accepted by the majority of Local Churches, but these delays have ever been. There are enough examples of individualized circumstances where a Local Church has forestalled the Ecumenical Throne. As the Mothers in this room know very well, birthgiving is not an easy matter, and comes with pain and great discomfort, but as our Lord Jesus Christ said of His own Passion:
When a woman is in labor, she has pain because her hour has come. But when she has brought forth the child, she no longer remembers her distress because of her joy that a human being is born into the world. (John 16:21)
The spiritual bonds that yoke the Metropolis of Kiev with Constantinople and the Ecumenical Patriarchate stem from the indisputable fact that Constantinople is the mother who gave birth to an entire nation in Christ – Rus of Kiev, the Ukrainians of today.
Despite the pens that would re-write history, we know very well from which πηγή the Ukrainian Church sprang – the Life-Giving Fountain of the Queens of Cities, Constantinople – and how it is that Kyiv is the mother of Moscow, and not the reverse! Moreover, we know that the Autocephaly was always received from Constantinople, for those Local Churches that came into existence in the Second Millennium of our Faith. These are historical facts that cannot be denied, except by those who choose to willfully live in denial. The Autocephaly has yet to be accepted by the majority of Local Churches, but these delays have ever been. There are enough examples of individualized circumstances where a Local Church has forestalled the Ecumenical Throne. As the Mothers in this room know very well, birthgiving is not an easy matter, and comes with pain and great discomfort, but as our Lord Jesus Christ said of His own Passion:
When a woman is in labor, she has pain because her hour has come. But when she has brought forth the child, she no longer remembers her distress because of her joy that a human being is born into the world. (John 16:21)
As the first Primate of the Orthodox
Church in Ukraine, Your Beatitude knows both the pain of the birth and
the joy of the arrival of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine into the world.
You bear the weighty and grave responsibilities of building its future
and the future of your pious nation, a nation that is still fighting for
its freedom from external pressures, pressures that affect the many
other Ukrainian Faithful who are still under the Moscow Patriarchate.
This is going to be a long journey, as there are millions of lives in
the balance and it will require the wisdom, patience, and dedication
that you have shown thus far. Please know, Your Beatitude, that you will
have our continued support here in the United States, and wherever the
Ecumenical Patriarchate ministers throughout the world, you will know
the support of the Mother Church.
Take courage from the love and
esteem in which we hold you, and from the support of the Mother Church
of Constantinople that honors you this evening with the Patriarch
Athenagoras Human Rights Award. You bear the responsibility for the
Local Church of Ukraine as its Primate. Emulate the late Patriarch
Athenagoras in your outreach and embrace of everyone. We know that you
will uphold the human rights of all Ukrainians, whether they are of your
flock or not, because the human rights of any given person are the
human rights of every person.Your Beatitude, we all wish you every success and advancement in your mission of peace, unity, and hope for the future.
ΠΟΛΛΑ ΤΑ ΕΤΗ ΣΟΥ!
