Istanbul, Turkey, Jan 7, 2019 / 08:01 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople on Saturday signed a tomos of autocephaly for the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, formally recognizing the Church’s independence.
The tomos was signed Jan. 5 at St. George’s Cathedral in Istanbul, after Bartholomew I concelebrated a Divine Liturgy with Epiphanius I, Metropolitan of Kyiv and primate of the newly-created Orthodox Church of Ukraine.
Among those present at the signing were Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko and several other Ukrainian government officials.
The tomos, or decree, has been delivered to Kyiv, where Epiphanius put it on public display following a Divine Liturgy celebrated Jan. 7 at St. Sophia’s Cathedral.
Bartholomew’s formal conferral of autocephaly is the culmination of a process that began amid the collapse of the Soviet Union, and gained momentum after Russia’s annexation of the Crimean Peninsula in 2014 and Russian backing of separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine.
The Ecumenical Patriarch’s intention to create a single, autocephalous Church in Ukraine is motivated by a desire to unify the country’s 30 million Eastern Orthodox Christians, who were until recently split among three Churches: the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate), which is linked to the Russian Orthodox Church, and two Churches which had claimed autocephaly, but were not recognized by other Orthodox Churches: the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Kyiv Patriarchate) and the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church.
Autocephaly for the Orthodox Church in Ukraine has been a fiercely contested subject between the Patriarchs of Moscow and Constantinople, with the Russian Orthodox Church seeing the move as an infringement of its jurisdiction and authority.
Bartholomew had announced Sept. 7 he was sending two envoys to meets with civil and ecclesial leaders in Kyiv to prepare for Ukrainian autocephaly. In response, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow said later that month he would remove Bartholomew’s names from the diptychs, and would not concelebrate with him.
The Ecumenical Patriarch declared Oct. 11 he would grant autocephaly to the Orthodox Church in Ukraine. At the same time, he restored to communion Metropolitan Filaret, head of the UOC-KP, and also revoked the right, granted in 1686, of the Russian Patriarch to consecrate the Metropolitan of Kyiv.
In response, the Russian Orthodox Church broke communion with Bartholomew Oct. 15, calling his recognition of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine “lawless and canonically void.” Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, chair of external Church relations for the Russian Orthodox Church, said that “the church that acknowledged the schismatics has excluded itself from the canonical field of Orthodoxy.”
The Orthodox Church of Ukraine was established Dec. 15 at a “unification council” held by representatives of the UOC-KP and the UAOC. In addition, two bishops of the UOC-MP, Alexander Drabinko and Simeon Shostatsky, participated in the unification council. Soon afterward, they were declared schismatic by the UOC-MP, and their sees vacant. Both have joined the OCU.
Several UOC-MP parishes have also reportedly joined the OCU.
It was at the unification council that Epiphanius, 39, was elected primate of the OCU. He had previously been Metropolitan of Pereyaslavsky and Bila Tserkva in the UOC-KP.
Along with ecclesial leaders, Poroshenko has been a strong backer of Ukrainian autocephaly. At the conclusion of the unification council he said, “We are now creating an independent Ukraine. And this event is as important as the referendum on our independence adopted more than 27 years ago.”
He linked an independent Church to Ukrainian patriotism, and said: “Autocephaly is part of our state pro-European and pro-Ukrainian strategy, which we have been consistently implementing for almost five years. All this is the basis of our own way of development, development of the state of Ukraine and development of our Ukrainian nation.”
Fr. Alexander Laschuk, a Ukrainian Greek-Catholic priest, canon lawyer, and professor at St. Michael’s College at the University of Toronto, discussed with CNA both the inter-Orthodox and the ecumenical implications of Ukrainian Orthodox autocephaly.
For the Orthodox Church in Ukraine “it’s a sign of maturity that the Ecumenical Patriarch, who is first among equals, sees they can be a self-governing Church … that’s a sort of vote-of-confidence for the Church in Ukraine.”
Within Eastern Orthodoxy, Laschuk said, the decision also will play into debates about how autocephaly is granted, given that “the power of the Ecumenical Patriarch is not the power of the Holy Father, so how decision are made is much more complicated at times.”
While Constantinople is the traditional and historical center of Eastern Orthodoxy, Moscow has long exercised considerable influence and power, both because of its size and because of its closeness to Russian civil authorities.
The debate over the granting of autocephaly plays into the relations of Constantinople and Moscow, and their relative importance and power. Both the Russian and Ecumenical Patriarchs have written to the heads of the other Eastern Orthodox Churches, asking them not to recognize, and to recognize, respectively, the OCU’s autocephaly.
The decision for autocephaly, Laschuk said, will also have a tremendous impact on ecumenism.
For example, because of the presence of Eastern Orthodox bishops with whom it is not in communion, the Moscow Patriarchate chose not to participate in the 2007 meeting at Ravenna of the commission for dialogue between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches.
“It will also affect ecumenical dialogue in the sense of ‘who is our bargaining partner’, for Catholics,” Laschuk said. Previously, the Holy See dialogued only with the UOC-MP as “canonical Orthodoxy” in the country, but “clearly that’s changed” with the recognition of the OCU by Constantinople.
The priest added that he thinks the head of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church, Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, “is excited to have a partner with which he can actually dialogue; we won’t have the union of the Churches tomorrow, but if you can’t even talk to each other, it’s hard to get much done … I think His Beatitude is very happy he has someone with whom he can talk, and be in the same room with, which was not the case previously.”
He commented that “entire regions of Ukraine” are becoming increasingly Seventh-Day Adventist or Pentecostal, and that “collaborative activity by the more traditional Churches is a very welcome thing, as opposed to sort of, warring factions.”
Major Archbishop Shevchuk had written to Epiphanius Dec. 20 to congratulate him on his election as primate of the OCU, commenting, “We have all witnessed how the Lord, through the power and deeds of the Holy Spirit, in cooperation with your good will, heals the wounds of church divisions and enmity, giving opportunity to reconcile with our brother in Christ.”
“At this significant moment, I extend my hand on behalf of our Church to you and all the Orthodox brethren, offering you to begin our path to unity, to the truth. Because the future of the Church, our people and the Ukrainian independent European state depends on how we today will cherish unity and overcome what separates us.”
Major Archbishop Shevchuk added that “we are grateful to the Lord who has blessed the participants of this, without exaggeration, an important event that will enter the history of independent Ukraine as a great God’s gift on the way to the complete unity of the Churches of Volodymyr’s Baptism.”
He noted that “the Churches of Volodymyr’s baptism … live in one liturgical heritage, from the depths of beauty and God-inspired wisdom we draw spiritual strength. Even today, we are not in full eucharistic communion, but are called to jointly overcome the obstacles that stand on the path to unity. This historic mission and the foundation of the future patriarchy of the united Kyivan Church were laid by even the glorious church men Peter Mohyla and Josyf Veliamyn Rutsky.”
The words of the head of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church allude to the 988 baptism of Vladimir the Great, Grand Prince of Kiev, which resulted in the Christianization of Kievan Rus’, a state whose heritage Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus all claim.
The Christianization of Kievan Rus’ forms the roots of the Russian Orthodox Church, the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church, the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate).
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A sad event for an outstanding witness to innocent life. At times an act of presumed compassion can offend justice, as it seems here. The tension between compassion and justice in its current application is dividing the Church. For the Church and world the balance is uniquely found in the words of Christ.
It’s too bad the journalist didn’t consider it important to ask or answer the question of why the pardon was issued. That makes all the difference in the world.
You raise the issue I too thought of. Taking her words in consideration, “I decided in favor of clemency in April of last year in the belief that the convict did not abuse the vulnerability of the children entrusted to him”, Katalin Novák may have had further information as frequently happens in such cases, such as hysteria, when abuse incites others to make exaggerated accusations. The ‘convict’ person who sought to change their testimony was not the director found guilty of sexual abuse.
Novak was a champion of the innocent, but not the sexual predator. I feel that Hungry’s autocratic PM Viktor Orban had a hand in her decision.
“On Feb. 8, two days before Novák’s resignation, Orbán had announced via his Facebook page that he had submitted a constitutional amendment on behalf of his government, making it impossible to pardon the perpetrator of a crime committed against minors”. Interestingly, any US President can pardon any criminal without cause. History doesn’t bode will for Orban.
During his FOURTH term in office Orbán’s march toward autocratic rule had been largely unopposed—at least publicly—by the leaders of the other national parties that with Fidesz made up the European People’s Party (EPP). Moreover, his increasing overtures to Russia’s Vladimir Putin did not sit well with some of Orbán’s EPP colleagues.
After winning Hungary’s 2010 election, prime minister Orban systematically dismantled the country’s democracy – undermining the basic fairness of elections, packing the courts with cronies, and taking control of more than 90 percent of the country’s media outlets. He has openly described his form of government as “illiberal democracy,”
Amazingly, our democratic form of government will face something similar in the 2024 presidential election!
I ask, how does the church view Viktor Orban and the future of Hungary and the domestic threat to our precious democracy in 2024?
God save our constitition.
“Amazingly, our democratic form of government will face something similar in the 2024 presidential election!”
No, it actually will face no such thing.
Oh? (autocratic)
I will be a dictator on day one.
I want absolute immunity, even though I did nothing wrong.
I will expand the power of the presidency.
I will clean house in the DOJ (FBI), DOD.
I will remove the US from NATO.
I expect Pence will do the right thing, or I won’t like him so much.
I am your retribution. Go home in peace, we love you, I know your pain
I will supress any nonviolent gatherings by using the military. (Marshall law).
I think Hitler did some good. I never read Mien kampf.
I see Putin, Xe and Un as brilliant men
I want to know where Nikki’s husband is? Michael Haley is a major in the South Carolina Army National Guard, which he joined in 2006. This upcoming tour in support of U.S. Africa Command marks his second active-duty overseas deployment. WOW!
And there is so much more exteme idiocy.
Hope this helps. God bless.
Oh! Don’t mention my name for fear of retrubition against my family!
Well Morgan, I wish we did have someone like Mr. Orban to choose from in our coming election but I guess we’ll just have to do the best we can with what’s available.
I don’t expect the current candidate choices will look the same by November but who knows?
Mscracker. Please read the following I clipped and reply.
Former U.S. President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during the National Rifle Association (NRA) Presidential Forum at the Pennsylvania Farm Show Complex & Expo Center, in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, U.S., February 9, 2024. REUTERS/Leah Millis.
BRUSSELS, Feb 12 (Reuters) – Former U.S. President Donald Trump raised a storm of criticism from the White House and top Western officials for suggesting he would “NOT DEFEND NATO allies who failed to spend enough on defense and would even ENCOURAGE RUSSIA to attack them”.
Add to that Trump’s tirade during his tenure demeaning our WWII heroes who died in combat “they are suckers and losers”. Imagine from a man who spent not an hour in the service of his country. Instead, he cowered behind a “heel spur” as reason for not serving!!!
Orban is traitor light.
Trump is a mentally deranged tyrant!