MEMBER OF THE SYNOD OF THE ECUMENICAL PATRIARCHATE: UKRAINE HE THE RIGHT FOR OWN INDEPENDENT CHURCH


In recent year, when Ukrainian Orthodox Church finally got a chance for independence from the Kremlin political influence, Russia has been resorting to all possible measures of influence on the Orthodox world and the Constantinople Patriarchate to prevent it.

A few days ago, the Russian christian newspaper "Orthodoxy and World" published an interview with an influential Greek hierarch, a persistent advocate of Ukrainian autocephaly, a member of the Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, Elpidophor. However, since the original interview text was in Greek, the Russian journalists in a manner that suits them published its translation in own interpretation.

Attention of Ukrainian journalists was drawn to the fact that the interview was not submitted in the standard form of question-answer, but in the form of quotes, and the journalists' questions were looks rather like comments. In general, commentary of the publication editors took more place than the speaker's answers..

Since the article with Russian translation of the conversation consisted a link to the original interview on Greek, which is quite lengthy, journalists of the Ukrinform media portal decided to examine it closely and decide what citations did not fall into the text in the Russian edition. The agency ordered the translation of the Greek original into the Ukrainian language. And we did not regret it. The original source was more eloquent than the Moscow edition!

So here we quote some parts of the interview, that for some reason hadn't been included to the Russian version. In addition, after compartment of the Russian and original texts, quite fair question is rising to the journalists of the Orthodoxy and World - did they accidentally changed word "blackmail" from original text to "disinformation" (Elpidophor noticed that Moscow Church resorted to blackmail of the Ecumenical), so as where exactly in the original text they found an expression that "Poroshenko's hands are stained with blood?" But let's move on to the most interesting part of the conversation.

There is no reason for the Ecumenical Patriarchate to make the Ukrainian issue permanent, while Moscow constantly delay it. 

The answer to a journalist's question about the situation with "the notorious Ukrainian autocephaly" ...

"See, the provision of autocephaly to a local church belongs exclusively to the jurisdiction and responsibility of the Ecumenical Patriarchate and the Synod of Constantinople. But for a local church to receive the status of autocephalous there are certain conditions, objective, documented during the history of the church and very specific. In order to gain an autocephalous status, according to the church tradition, a local church should be in a country that has gained independence, became an independent, it is necessary that an autocephaly was requested by both the state and the local church. That is, there should be an official appeal from the state authorities and church authority to the Ecumenical Patriarch who will evaluate these two appeals and decide whether to grant autocephaly or reject an appeal, because it is not obvious that the Patriarchate approves every request for autocephaly ...

In addition to these two criteria, the Patriarchate will determine whether this local church is mature organizationally, spiritually, theologically, administratively, in order to be with all the Orthodox Churches, to have support as an autocephalous church, and to be represented in a universal Orthodox body. This is the canonical procedure of providing an autocephalous status for a church. And now regarding the Ukrainian Church: as you know, Ukraine as a state became an independent for several decades ago, but the local church there has been suffering from a split, which also lasts for decades and this fact worries the believers. And today there are millions of Orthodox Christians in Ukraine, who are considered as schismatic and outside the community of the Orthodox churches. As a Patriarchate, we doesn't think that today we have the luxury of perpetuating this situation for an indefinite time. While in the Patriarchate since 1994, I can say that I know that the it is constantly striving for open communication, channel searching and dialogue to solve Ukraine's problem, the Ukrainian Church. There is one thing we have already seen for almost three decades - the Moscow church rejects, postpones, avoids dialogue, and as a result perpetuates this unacceptable situation, which is a shame for Orthodoxy, especially at this critical time when we survive as Orthodox all over the world. We do not have the luxury of losing and keeping millions outside the Orthodox community ... 

As the Ecumenical Patriarchate, we have a responsibility, because our role is not only to preside over, govern or solemnly speak, so to say, on a liturgy or worship meeting. Time after time there is a need for us to roll up our sleeves and work by hands, to restore order when difficult situations arise, dangerous situations, such as today we have in Ukraine. This is the task and duty of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in the church system of Orthodoxy - the management and resolution of such problems."

Patriarchates of Russia, Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Georgia - all of these churches took own autocephaly and a patriarchal status from the Ecumenical Patriarchate.

And here is a direct answer to the question of who has more rights to provide an autocephaly ... and the role of local churches in the decision?

The decision to grant autocephaly belongs exclusively to the Ecumenical Patriarch and the Synod of Constantinople, as was the case with all the patriarchates. The patriarchy of Russia, Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Georgia, all of these churches accepted their own autocephaly and patriarchal status from the Ecumenical Patriarch, there were no co-signatures of other churches, there was no common decision-making (recall, against the background of possible provision of autocephaly to Ukrainian Church - which means independence from Moscow - the Russian Orthodox Church and the Kremlin representatives have been trying to impose anti-Ukrainian opinions among the heads of Orthodox Churches of other countries with further collection of signatures against the tomos). However, from this point of view, one can not conclude that the Patriarchate may ignore other churches because any autocephalous church proclaimed by the EP must also be recognized by other churches; it must establish communication, correspondence, and put it into diptych, in the end, it must enter the system of Orthodox churches. Despite the fact that it has the exclusive right to single-handedly award autocephaly, the Ecumenical Patriarchate does not have the right to ignore other local churches, and does not want to, as the Universal Patriarchate has decided to inform them about the upcoming plans in a press release. All because, as you should have already know from the media, the Russian Church has started a campaign to inform other churches, in fact, it is a campaign of slander against the Ecumenical Patriarchate, a campaign of blackmailing, if be more specific. They say, if the Ecumenical Patriarchate will do so, then it will lead to this and that, there will be a schism, the end will come, it will be the second coming, and other things of that sort, trying to intimidate other local Orthodox churches, striving to influence them politically or by any other way to make them not recognize the possible proclamation of autocephaly of the local Orthodox Church of Ukraine. Actually, because of such activity of the Russian Orthodox Church, the Patriarchate decided to establish a representative commission of bishops of the EP, whose delegation would visit the local Orthodox churches all over the world to inform them of real facts, of real intentions, about the real state of affairs regarding the solution of the Ukrainian Orthodox problem in order to dispel false misleading information and distorted messages circulated by the Russian Church."

The answer to the journalist's questioning about the differences in the views on who should provide an autocephaly, and which church is a maternal:

"See, you can agree or disagree with the procedure for granting autocephaly existing in the Orthodox Church, but you can't deny the historically established realities, according to which, all these 2000 years up to this day, until the Christian church exists, the provision of autocephaly is carried out by the Ecumenical Patriarchate. And that's final! The Russian Orthodox Church and other, I've mentioned here, received its autocephaly in this same way. Therefore, someone may or may not like the procedure, but this does not mean that it is not a reality. This is a reality. Now - regarding the notion of a maternal church; again, if one local church is a mother for another church, it stil has no right to provide an autocephalous status for the one. Internal autonomy - may be, but not an autocephaly, since granting autocephaly belongs exclusively to the jurisdiction of the EP, this is - the first. Secondly, in particular, in the case of the Ukrainian Church, rather paradoxical and distorted is an assertion of anyone who claim that the Church in Moscow is a maternal for the Church of Ukraine. Quite the opposite. However, the Moscow church is a daughter of the Ukrainian church, which - the Ukrainian church - is a daughter of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. As you know,  Christianization (baptism) of the Rus'  and its people (Ruthenians, people of the Kyevan Rus') - ie today's Ukrainians - happened on Volodymyr's rule, after his own conversion. So, the jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate is Ukraine, is Kyiv, and therefore there a maternal church is..."

And here is an answer on the journalist's clarification, that there was no Ukraine on that time...

"It was; the territory may be called differently, but the land is the same, we are not interested in the name, territory, we are interested in canonicality. Perhaps, it was called differently, but we are talking about the same land, at least about the same geographical area. So, the Ukrainian church has a mother church in Constantinople, and the Moscow church has a mother church in Kyiv. Incidentally, this was acknowledged and the Moscow Patriarch Cyril himself agreed, while on an official visit to Constantinople, that for us (the Moscow Patriarchate) Kyiv is a homeland, is our mother. Thus, as you can see, the things have been represented from other perspective, and nobody can argue today that the Moscow church is a maternal church for Ukrainian Orthodox. It is historically and canonically, and in all respects paradoxically assert something of that sort."

Then the journalist makes an analogy: perhaps, for contemporary Russians - and, therefore, for the church of Russia - and perhaps for others who follow the course of the proces having no teological approaches, the "withdrawal" of Ukraine (in the paws), its separation, if be more accurate talking of what is happening from political point of view - it is as if Peloponnese would departed from Greece. That is, the place where the modern state began is lost. 

"Just as in the case of the Church of Greece and the Ecumenical Patriarchate. Did not the same thing happened? As Greece became an independent state, the Greek church was separated from the Ecumenical Patriarchate. Can you imagine a Greek nation, separated from the Ecumenical Patriarchate? You can talk about this from an emotional or a national point of view, as you please, but it happened. And this is natural, because as soon as an independent state emerges, the natural consequence for it is to create its own independent church.

Nevertheless, I believe it is necessary now to return to the previous question and discuss why Moscow is struggling with the idea of establishing an independent church in Ukraine since the time when the Ukrainian nation had consolidated in an independent state? Doesn't it seem that it is the Moscow church's refusal to recognize reality what has become the key factor for the split of Orthodox in Ukraine? This is the real reason of the split. It is not about the behavior of some bishops or, perhaps, about some people's desires, it is about Moscow's refusal to see and accept reality. Ukraine is independent, it should not be subordinate, and it can not be applied to any way of subordination and dependence on another state, even despite how desirable it is for the Russian Federation from its geostrategic, energy, national, political considerations; and I do not want to delve into the analysis of these reasons, but I repeat: Ukraine is an independent state and it wants to have an independent church. And Moscow has been trying to prevent it by all the available means - spiritual, political, economic, military, etc. -  as a result of which the nation is divided and the entire church suffers. This is a reality. And here I have to change my question. Why does Moscow prevent the church from liberating itself, and especially the church to which the Moscow church owes to everything, and should treat it with greater gratitude, love and care for unity and stability, instead of divide it?"

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