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Ukrainian Orthodox (UOC-MP) Respond to UOC-KP

18.07.2008, [12:13] // UOC-MP //

Kyiv— Members of the Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP), which met on 16 July 2008 in the residence of the UOC-MP head in the Kyivan Monastery of the Caves, listened to the “Address of the Synod and Episcopate of the UOC-KP [Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Kyivan Patriarchate] to the hierarchs, clergy, and faithful of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (part of the Moscow Patriarchate)” of 14 December 2007 and passed a decision to send a response to explain the position of the UOC-MP.

The address of the Synod of the UOC-MP regarding the schism of Ukrainian Orthodoxy states: “this is one of the greatest and most painful tragedies of the Orthodox church on Ukrainian lands, so, being aware of the need as soon as possible to overcome church divisions in Ukraine, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church [UOC-MP] is ready for constructive dialogue and cooperation with all interested parties, including representatives of those religious groups which today are not in union with universal Orthodoxy.”

The hierarchy of the UOC-MP is convinced that such dialogue “should occur in accordance with the canonical norms that exist in the universal Orthodox church.”

“Our insistence on maintaining canonical norms in overcoming the schism is conditioned not by a rigorist approach to our brothers and sisters who remain beyond the borders of the canonical church, but by an awareness that ignoring these norms will create pre-conditions for an even greater fragmentation of Ukrainian Orthodoxy, inasmuch as in the consciousness of many it will wipe out the line between those that we allow and those that we do not allow in Christ’s church. In other words, on the way to overcoming the schism we are ready to retreat from strict dogmatism and to go with ‘ecclesiastical economy,’ with the single condition that such ‘economy’ will not lead to the degradation of ecclesiastical-canonical awareness, which will have still more catastrophic consequences for the church,” reads the address to the hierarchs of the UOC-KP.

The UOC-MP also emphasizes that it cannot “accept the thesis that the declaration of the state independence of Ukraine in itself absolutely foresees the independence of the Ukrainian church. The UOC-MP does not argue with the values of the state independence of Ukraine, however it does not see the canonical autonomy of the church as one of the necessary attributes of such independence.”

“The canonical status of the church should be viewed in the context of ecclesiological and not political expedience. This status has to be acknowledged not by government-political leaders but by the church itself, its episcopate, clergy, and faithful,” reads the address of the UOC-MP hierarchy.

The UOC-MP underlines that for a church to receive autocephalous status the following conditions are necessary: 1) the unanimous thought of the episcopate, clergy, and faithful of the local church regarding the need to declare autocephaly; 2) agreement about the new status of the local church on the part of the fullness of the Orthodox church, including from the kyriarchal [overseeing] church.

The UOC-MP emphasizes that “such a unanimous position regarding the question of autocephaly in the Orthodox church in Ukraine does not exist, inasmuch as a significant part of the church considers the canonical status of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church [UOC-MP] today such that, on the one hand, it gives it wide canonical rights, which in fact are identical to the rights of an autocephalous church, and on the other hand preserves the spiritual and prayerful connection with the Rus[sian] Orthodox Church.”

Regarding the position of universal Orthodoxy, it, in the words of the members of the Synod of the UOC-MP, “not only does not have a unanimous thought about the expedience of granting autocephalous status to the Ukrainian church, but, up to the present, it has not worked out agreed-upon procedures for granting autocephaly. In this way, an artificial and accelerated process of making the Ukrainian Orthodox Church [UOC-MP] autocephalous today seems to us unjustified and such that can lead to new church divisions.”

The UOC-MP also does not agree with the proposition of uniting into one church with those who would then together wait for the canonical recognition of such a church.

”The so-called Kyivan Patriarchate [UOC-KP] was announced by activists of the Ukrainian autocephalous movement already in June 1990, that is, 18 years ago. Since this time, self-announced, without the agreement of the sobor [assembly] of the Ukrainian church itself and universal Orthodoxy, the ‘patriarchate’ has not been acknowledged by any canonical national Orthodox church. So we stand opposed to any new non-canonical attempts to make the Ukrainian church autocephalous which will not be based on agreements of the sobor of the episcopate, clergy, and faithful of our church and will not have the agreement of the fullness of universal Orthodoxy (including the Moscow Patriarchate). The existing schism cannot be overcome by creating a new, and even more widespread, separation. Such a road leads only to deepening the church crisis,” reads the address of the UOC-MP hierarchs to the UOC-KP.

The bishops of the UOC-MP consider inappropriate the proposition of the Synod of the UOC-KP to take as a model for overcoming the schism in Ukraine the recently-restored canonical communion between the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad [ROCA] and the Moscow Patriarchate.

”This analogy is inappropriate in the Ukrainian situation, inasmuch as the status of the UOC-KP is not identical to the previous status of the Russian Church Abroad. First of all, the existence of apostolic succession in the ROCA is not disputed either by the Moscow Patriarchate or any other national church. Second of all, to none of the hierarchs of the ROCA were those canonical sanctions applied which were, for the creation of a schism, justly imposed on former Metropolitan Filaret and other former hierarchs of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church [UOC-MP] who support his schismatic acts (anathematizing or depriving of priestly status). With this in view, the ROCA had partial communion with the universal church, in particular through the Serbian and Jerusalem churches. At the same time it is known that the absence of apostolic succession in the UOC-KP is acknowledged by all other national Orthodox churches, in particular by the Patriarchate of Constantinople, whose representatives more than once have declared this during discussions with the Rus[sian] Orthodox Church on the Ukrainian question. The thought about this that, separating themselves from ecclesiastical fullness, the former bishops of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church [UOC-MP] who have gone into schism could maintain the blessing and pass it on to others in the ordinations that they perform is for us entirely unacceptable. So we cannot acknowledge that the Ukrainian Orthodox Church [UOC-MP] and the schismatic UOC-KP are ‘parts of one church,’” reads the address of the UOC-MP Synod.

The UOC-MP Synod ended their address to the episcopate, clergy and faithful of the UOC-KP with a call to repentance:

”At the start we should reach a single understanding of the nature of the obstacles that are in the way of overcoming the schism. A change of understanding is the essence of repentance in the Greek sense of this word. Our church has spoken for many years about the need for such repentance on the part of those who created the schism. Only after this will we be able to remove that barrier which separates us and, as a result, we will have the possibility to reach a single vision of the future of the Orthodox church in Ukraine.”

Source:

• http://orthodox.org.ua/ru/aktualnoe/2008/07/16/3233.html