Will Ukraine get a local Orthodox church?

In connection with the intensification of religious confrontations in Ukraine between different Orthodox churches. In Volyn, the UOC-KP recently convened a church-public forum "For a Single Local Orthodox Church." This event is quite significant in that local branches of national-democratic parties also expressed support in this matter: NSNU, the "Batkivshchyna" party, KUN, NRU, UNP, VO "Svoboda," URP "Sobor." The essence of the problem lies in the conflict that arose in the late 1980s and early 1990s of the last century, and it began with the restoration of the Greek Catholic Church and its property claims in the cities of Western Ukraine, which often ended in clashes between believers; with the return of UAPC supporters from emigration led by the then Patriarch Mstyslav (Skrypnyk) and the intensification of contradictions between the hierarchy of the Ukrainian Exarchate of the ROC, whose legal successor is the current Ukrainian Orthodox Church (the official name registered by the state committee for religious affairs).

One of the main causes of the conflict between the UOC and the UOC-KP, formed in 1992, is the person of the current head of the UOC-KP, Filaret (Denysenko), who for a long time headed the Ukrainian Exarchate of the ROC and was one of three candidates in the 1990 election of the ROC patriarch, which he lost to the current Moscow Patriarch Alexy II (Ridiger) and the head of the UOC, Metropolitan Volodymyr (Sabodan), by a significant margin. According to the testimony of the UOC episcopate, it was precisely after the elections that the then head of the UOC, Filaret, convened a bishops' council of the UOC, where the main issue considered was obtaining full autocephaly status for the UOC. The council's decision was supported by all hierarchs except three. After the bishops' council of the ROC in Moscow in 1991, at which Metropolitan Filaret was accused of abusing his position and violating the rules of monastic life, according to the testimony of council participants, Filaret agreed with all the accusations and swore that upon arrival in Kyiv he would convene a bishops' council of the UOC at which he would resign as head of the UOC. These promises were not fulfilled; on the contrary, Filaret called on the bishops to declare autocephaly of the UOC, which became the reason for convening a bishops' council in the city of Kharkiv under the chairmanship of the most senior bishop by consecration — Metropolitan Nykodym of Kharkiv (Rusnak), at which Filaret was defrocked and a new head, Metropolitan Volodymyr (Sabodan), was elected. It is precisely from this time that the history of the conflict between the UOC and the UOC-KP begins.

The authorities, in the person of then-President Leonid Kravchuk and supporters of the People's Movement of Ukraine, adopted a course toward creating a single local Orthodox church, which is why the UOC-KP and its leader Filaret, who had close friendly relations with Kravchuk, gained preference and support in the religious conflict. The only problem was that the newly created UOC-KP and UAPC were not willing to be recognized by the heads of the other 15 local Orthodox churches. Despite numerous visits to Istanbul (the residence of the Ecumenical Patriarch) by representatives of the authorities and the UOC-KP, this denomination did not receive canonical status, and therefore remains outside the community of Orthodox churches.

The main arguments in the UOC-KP's demands for autocephaly status are: that it is the legal successor of the Kyiv metropolitanate, which was transferred from Kyiv to Moscow due to pressure from the Muscovite principality (according to the UOC's version, due to the Mongol-Tatar invasion); the UOC-KP conducts services in the Ukrainian language and is a national church — a statement that, in my opinion, is quite contradictory, since in the UOC the language of services is chosen by the community, and the fact that in most churches services are conducted in Church Slavonic (according to the UOC-KP version, in Russian) is a reflection of language priorities in the state as a whole.

The main issue in resolving the interconfessional conflict is the role of the authorities in it. Because each party and political figure expresses support for denominations not from the position of supporting Orthodoxy, but from the position of loyalty of certain denominations to them. That is why we have such a picture, where the UOC is supported by supporters of the anti-crisis coalition, in which the Party of Regions plays first fiddle, whose electorate is mostly Russian-speaking and supports pro-Russian positions, and therefore supports the church that is in prayerful subordination to the Moscow Patriarchate (according to official information). The UOC-KP and UAPC have their support among parties of a nationalist orientation. Parties that are mostly liberal advocate the creation of a single local Ukrainian Orthodox Church; such parties include "Nasha Ukraina," which expressed its support not for any one denomination but for the future local Ukrainian church.

In my view, modern society has already outlived the "doctrine of two swords" or the "double-headed eagle," where the church influences the state or vice versa, so politicians and political parties need to be quite careful in defending the interests of any denomination, since political preferences often differ from religious affiliation. There is no need to transfer the political principles and rules of the Ukrainian state, whose age is 15 years, onto the Orthodox Church, whose rules and canons are already more than a thousand years old. Moreover, the movement to create a single local Ukrainian Orthodox Church has become bilateral, because despite the pro-Russian sentiments of some hierarchs of the UOC, the majority of bishops and adherents of the UOC express support for autocephaly; evidence of this is the appeal of the UOC synod to representatives of the authorities in which they express their support for the creation of a local Orthodox church. Therefore, there is no need to interfere in interconfessional relations and violate the internal aspirations of the two churches for autocephaly, since this threatens the cessation of the search for compromise or the emergence of new schisms. And before declaring any appeals to the Ecumenical Patriarch, one must clearly understand on what principles we want to obtain an Orthodox church. After all, the title of Ecumenical Patriarch in Orthodoxy is by no means an analogue of the Pope of Rome in Catholicism. He is merely the first among equals of the heads of churches and can only take Ukrainian parishes under his omophorion, as was the case in Estonia; in such a case, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church will not become local but will become subordinate to Istanbul. To obtain autocephaly, not to mention the status of a Patriarchate, the support of the majority of local churches is needed, and such support can be obtained when all significant schisms in Ukraine are overcome. If we look at the example of other local churches obtaining autocephaly, most of the newer local Orthodox churches received autocephaly after overcoming not only religious but also political and economic contradictions. Therefore, in obtaining autocephaly status for the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, politicians should help by overcoming all problems among themselves, while the resolution of religious conflicts should be left to the hierarchs.

Yevhen Komarov, analyst of the Center for Political Analysis and Electoral Consulting