www.byzcath.org Forums News & Events Church News UAOC seeks to come under Constantinople

Regarding the first point, I am not aware of any basis for such a strong statement. While this has been the position pushed by surrogates of the Russian Foreign Ministry since at least 2004, all evidence I have seen is to the contrary. The Ukrainians in the Donbass wish closer ties to Russia, but all surveys, including the most recent, show that the overwhelming majority of Ukrainians in eastern Ukraine have no desire to leave Ukraine or return to Russia. Please remember that Donetsk was the second city, after only Lviv, to pass a resolution calling for Ukrainian independence, and that 76.85 of Donetsk voters voted in favor of an independent "indivisible and inviolable" Ukraine in the 1991 Independence Referendum.

Regarding the second point, the UOC-KP has consistently stated that it is not opposed to the existence of a Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine serving those faithful who wish to remain under the Moscow Patriarchate. Therefore, again, I cannot understand the basis for this assertion. I am also not even certain one can properly simply refer to "both" sides, as there are a number of different viewpoints at play, including a large portion of the UOC-MP who wish to see their church granted autocephaly.


Yours in Christ,

Priest Paul Koroluk, UOC-KP

In the hope it will not be deemed a digression, the numbers supplied by the two churches are illuminating. As I have previously posted, the most recent independent scientific survey of the Ukrainian population, one conducted in June and July of 2007 by the Ukrainian Sociological Service, shows that Ukrainians identify their own church affiliation as follows:

UOC-KP 32.4%
Non-religious 23.0%
UOC-MP 20.9%
Greek Catholic 10.3%
Believer, but no affiliation 9.7%
"Other" 1.8%
UAOC 0.8%
Roman Catholic 0.6%
Protestants 0.2%
Jewish 0.1%
Muslim 0.0% (less than 0.1%)

That is, in this survey, which compares favorably with previous surveys, 32.4% of the Ukrainian population, or roughly 14.6 million people, identify themselves as members of the UOC-KP, while 20.9%, or about 9.4 million, claim to be members of the UOC(MP).

The Kyiv Patriarchate rounds 14.6 million down, and conservatively claims to have 14 million followers.

The Moscow Patriarchate claims to have 28 million followers.

This really should suggest something about the credibility of the statements made by the two entities.


Yours in Christ,

Priest Paul Koroluk, UOC-KP

I am referring to the tangible polarization between the more self-consciously Ukrainian and more Russophile / Russian-speaking parts of Ukraine, not necessarily to a drive for formal independence from Kyiv in the "Novorossiya" regions.



The rhetoric of President Yushchenko doesn't have such nuances. It's all about one church for all Ukrainians.

Furthermore, as a Catholic, I am surprised at the silence of the UGCC regarding Yushchenko's open involvement in attempts to forge (or force) the establishment of one Ukrainian Church, and the way that RISU openly sides with this project in its reporting. The arguments used against Moscow's authority over the UOC-MP can equally be used against the authority that Rome continues to exercise over the UGCC. It does make me wonder if elements of the UGCC will join an autocephalous Ukrainian Patriarchate once it is recognized.

For the record, I don't see why a Ukrainian Patriarchate couldn't be established, but it isn't pleasant to see the way that this issue has become instrumentalized by internal politics and national rivalries.

A simple question. If UOC-KP has far more faithful than the UOC-MP, then why are most of the monks and priests in Ukraine with the UOC-MP?

And please, answers like "they are all imports from Russia" (which was once provided to me on another forum discussion) won't make the cut because as is well known it is Ukraine that tends to provide priests for the Russian Orthodox Church and not vice versa.

It may just be me, but I must in honesty write that I tend to be suspicious of questions put in this format. I will, however, assume that this is an honest query, and attempt to provide my own speculation, although I do not believe it is, as you state, "a simple question".

I believe the biggest factor is that the UOC-MP remains in control of more parishes, even if they would rather be part of another church. Many priests, especially those coming from the ROC days, are reluctant to give up their homes, jobs, and pensions. Please remember that the UOC-MP in most places inherited the property of the ROC. Therefore, unless a parish takes actice steps to re-register from the UOC-MP to another church, it will remain listed as a UOC-MP church. All the priests serving those parishes are counted as priests of the Moscow Patriarchate.

Even when a parish does try to re-register, there are obstacles because allocation of church buildings in Ukraine is decided in the first instance by local authorities, and is therefore subject to influence outside of the local congregations. Most famously, for example, in a case decided on June 14, 2007 and cited in the U.S. State Department's International Religious Freedom Report (2007), the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the Kyiv city administration was violating the rights of the faithful of the Svyato-Mykhaylivska parish in Kyiv by not allowing them to reregister from the UOC-MP to the UOC-KP. That is, the faithful of that parish overwhelmingly wish to be a part of the UOC-KP, but the civil authorities force their church (and its priest) to remain in the UOC-MP.

That is just one documented case. In fact, even though a survey in December of 2006 showed that 52% of the adults in Kyiv suported the Kyivan Patriarchate, compared to only 8% for the Moscow Patriarchate, the Kyiv City Council that same year granted the Moscow Patriarchate title to 10 churches and only 1 to the Kyivan Patriarchate (and one to the UAOC, whose followers represent less than 1% of the population of Kyiv).

Additionally, the UOC-MP is able to draw on graduates from not just the seminaries in Ukraine, but also to send students to study in Russia, and has more money to send more students to school. Until recently, there was a realistic hope that the UOC-MP would receive autocephaly within a realistic future, so it would not be hard to imagine that there were future priests who were willing to take that route.

It would also not be incorrect to note that there has in the past 12-15 years indeed been a visible influx of burly Russian-speaking monastics taking up residence in the UOC-MP's monasteries in Ukraine, most famously and visibly in Rivne. All of these count as clergy, as well.

While I do make an honest effort to answer your question, I am more comfortable simply reporting on what is, as I do in the post above which you question, rather than to try to answer why things are, as you ask me to do.


Yours in Christ,

Priest Paul Koroluk, UOC-KP

It would be helpful if you could provide some examples of such rhetoric, as I honestly did not interpret anything the President in the same way.

In any event, the President cannot speak on behalf of the UOC-KP, or any church.

About eighteen years ago I did a private study of priests who had returned to the Greek-Catholic Church from the Moscow Patriarchate (there were over 500 such priests at the time). Some of my findings were particularly interesting - or at least I was interested.

While most of the priests in question had attended seminaries of the Moscow Patriarchate, very few had been admitted to one or another of the Academies (of which there were only two). Almost none of the priests had been admitted to any of the functioning monasteries of the Patriarchate, even to the monasteries in Ukraine. So I asked some more questions. It seems that the Patriarchate was willing to have young men from Western Ukraine becoming parish priests, but was much less favorable to the prospect of such men gaining a higher theological education, let alone becoming monks - or even bishops.

I then made a private visit to the Pochaiv Monastery, which is in Western Ukraine. While most of the pilgrims were speaking Ukrainian, to a man the monks were speaking Russian.

So I asked some more questions, and discovered that young men who wanted to be parish priests often enough applied to one or another of the Moscow Patriarchate seminaries. Young men who wanted to be monks joined the Studites, the Redemptorists, or the Basilians.

As a result, there were practically no authentic ethnic Ukrainian monks.

Fr. Serge

Here are some up to date stats, January 2009.
http://www.risu.org.ua/eng/resources/statistics/ukr2009/


Parishes (as of January 2009):

Moscow Patriarchate........11,444
Kyivan Patriarchate.............4093
UAOC................................1183


Clergy:
Moscow Pat...................9275
Kyivan Pat.....................2993
UAOC............................683



Monks and Nuns:
Moscow Pat..................4562
Kyivan Pat.....................130
UAOC............................10

Source ::
http://www.risu.org.ua/eng/resources/statistics/ukr2009/


Comparing the Moscow Patriarchate in the Ukraine and the UOC-Kyivan Patriarchate - Moscow has 300% more parishes, 300% more clergy, and 1000s more monks and nuns.

I have frequently wondered at what lies behind Asian Pilgrim's frequent forays into apologia for the Russian government, including expressions of sympathy for the manner in which Russia is "demonized" by the "West". One would think that Russia's behavior over the last decade would more than speak for itself, and that Asian Pilgrim is engaged in a defense of the indefensible.

Stuart:

I believe in fairness. Where the Ukrainians are on the right, I say so (such as my repeated expressions of sympathy for an autocephalous Patriarchate.) Where I think the Russians are wrong, I say so too, and I can provide examples of my statements on this. However, where the Russians are being unfairly demonized, I say so too.

If you have a problem with anyone saying anything good about the Russians, then that is your problem. It certainly seems to me to be your attitude.

I don't believe in myth-making, and certainly not in the desire of a part of the American political and economic establishment to keep alive the myths of the cold war. Being in Asia, in a country where American obsession with projecting its power only succeeded in propping up a brutal dictatorship for twenty years, helps me have some perspective.

You have it entirely wrong. I have dedicated most of my adult life to studying Russia, its history, its politics. So has my wife. Our daughter is following in our footsteps. There is no doubt in my mind that all of us deeply love Russia, the Russian people, Russian culture, and the Russian Church. If it was not for our love of Russia, we would never have been attracted to the Orthodox Tradition in the first place. I'm on this forum because of that love, and if I criticize Russia, it is because one hates to see something one loves act in a manner unworthy of itself.

You have, on several occasions, indicated that the West has unfairly "demonized" Russia. I am wondering for what acts Russia has been "demonized"? The systematic suppression of human rights inside its own borders? The repression and murder of journalists and other domestic critics? The use of its oil and natural gas resources as weapons to intimidate its neighbors and interfere in their politics? Its attempts to reintegrate countries of the "near abroad", including its partial assimilation, by armed force, of the Republic of Georgia? Its murderous activities in Chechnya? Its support for repressive regimes around the world, including Iran, Syria, North Korea and Venezuela?

Let's face it, Russia has been, since the ascension of Vladimir Putin, an extraordinarily bad neighbor, one who runs with scissors and does not play well with others. Quite a feat for a country whose GDP barely exceeds that of New Jersey and is in the grips of a demographic death spiral. Must be the six thousand nuclear weapons.

On the ecclesiastical side, nobody prays more that the Church of Moscow will become the instrument of the renewal and spiritual revitalization of Russia, for nothing else will suffice. But I fear that cannot happen so long as the Moscow Church cannot come to grips with its own recent past and recast its relationship with the Russian state.

Specifically, there has not been, has there has in several other formerly Communist states, the kind of metanoia in which the Church confesses the depths of its cooperation with the Communist regime, reveals who was compromised and how, and begins to make amends (the resignation of all senior clerics found to have been more than merely passive collaborators with the regime--I am quite aware that everybody was compromised to some extent because the KGB pretty much decided who would be admitted to the seminaries and who would be ordained to the episcopate), and their replacement by men untainted by the stain of that era.

This will never happen now, since the Russian government has closed its archives and is busily rewriting (once again) the history of post-War Russia. In the meanwhile, those senior clerics who owed their position to compliance with Party wishes are slowly dying off, and their secrets go to the grave with them. But, before they die, they will once more cement the overly intimate association of the Church and the State, in which the former becomes an apologist and instrument of the latter, which makes it impossible for the Church to be the kind of witness to truth it must be to overcome the engrained cynicism of the Russian people.

I also find it entirely unacceptable that the Church of Moscow refuses to take responsibility for its collaboration in the suppression of the Greek Catholic Churches in the late 1940s, but rather continues to see itself as "victimized" by nefarious "Uniates"--though the number of "Uniates" inside Russia is miniscule.

If the Ukrainians find it impossible to associate themselves with a Russian Church, it may have something to do with the past Russian behavior towards Ukraine, including what Russia denies as (but which undoubtedly was) genocide; mass deportations; cultural and linguistic suppression; and political domination. It may also have something to do with current Russian policies aimed at undermining Ukrainian independence, interference in Ukrainian internal politics, the attempted assassination of the Ukrainian president, military and economic bullying, and (on the ecclesiastical front) attempting to maintain the domination of the Kyivan Church by Moscow.

No objective observer can say the Church of Moscow has behaved with charity towards the Church in Ukraine, but until it does, until it stops trying to dominate its neighbors and puts its own house in order, it will never have the moral authority to assume real spiritual authority in Russia, or to assume the mantle of leadership in the Orthodox world it so desires.


On myth-making, while the Soviet archives were open for a brief period, light was able to shine on the truth. If myths were being made, they were not on my side. If they are being made today, it is by those who must somehow justify their support for a regime and system of government whose evil nature totally defies all description. Your characterization of American behavior in Asia likewise defies all description. Perhaps a decade or two under the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere or the tender mercies of Mao Tse Tung (I hate Pinyin), Hi Chi Minh, Pol Pot or Kim Il Sung, his son or his grandson would give you a more balanced perspective. But I do understand how it can be comforting to blame all ones problems on someone else.

Let's put it this way: the persepective that you give is the dominant one in the Western media, but not the only one. Certainly when it comes to the war last year in Georgia, there is proof that Georgia wasn't exactly innocent or squeaky clean. Russia has acted very badly? Yes, it has. I think everyone will admit that. Whether the interpretation accorded Moscow's activities by the New York Times and the American networks is infallible is another matter.



How about the continued canonization of New Martyrs? The continuing campaign in the Russian Church against Lenin and Stalin's memory? Do these count for nothing at all? And, quite frankly, only the most biased will think that Kirill is the puppet of the Kremlin. I find it amusing that in the run-up to the patriarchal elections the Western media said a lot about how Kirill is "feared" by the Kremlin for his independent mind and that the Kremlin preferred Kliment (Kapalin); once Kirill won, voila, all of a sudden he is the Kremlin's puppet!


Has any Church done this at all? Even the Catholic Churches in Eastern Europe were deeply penetrated by the Communist secret services, as the Wielgus scandal revealed -- do we hear much by way of outcry within the Church? And right now we have the continuing scandal of the semi-acceptance by much of the Catholic Church of the Patriotic Church in China, despite the fact that the blood of many underground Chinese Catholics is on its hands. Now THAT is a continuing scandal, but almost no one cares save for the heroic Cardinal of Hong Kong.

At any rate most of the bishops who were active in the MP in the 1970's and 1980's are dead or retired, and those who are still alive (like Kirill and Volodomyr of Kyiv) are by no means what they were at the time.


This passage oozes with so much judgementalism that I won't even respond to it. What we know of Kirill and Hilarion (Alfeyev) certainly militiates against such a view.



In this I completely agree with you.


The UOC-MP has taken clear steps to recognize the Holodomor. You also speak as if the UOC-MP does not exist. Aren't they Ukrainians too?


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Oh, stop it! This jingoism really drives me crazy. Yes, you Americans saved much of Asia from the Japs in World War II. You've been thanked to death for that. We Filipinos have been so grateful for what the US did for us that, until very recently, few Filipinos were even willing to talk about the needless destruction (by AMERICAN, not Japanese forces) of Old Manila and its priceless cultural heritage, and the horrific atrocities committed by US troops to our people at the turn of the 20th century and even during World War II.

What the US did for us in the 1940's certainly did not justify the support given to the Marcos dictatorship, and stop peddling the myth that it was needed to stop Communism -- the fact is that without Marcos, Communism would never even have grown in this country.

I had a much longer, point by point response, but then considered it was rather fruitless and off track.

I will just say it is indicative of your exposure to and understanding of American media and culture that you would think either the New York Times or the three major networks are critical of Russia. In fact, few other elements of American society have been more accommodating of Russian sensibilities or prone to appeasement of Russian provocations. Does the name "Walter Duranty" ring a bell.

On the rest of it, I will just say I am confident in my ability as both an historian and foreign policy analyst, and stick by my previous assessments. If you want more detailed explanations, buy my books.

Thank you for this enlightening post, Father. Just some additional questions.

First, your finding is that men who wanted to become parish priests turned to the Moscow Patriarchate while the ones who wanted to become monks turned to the UGCC orders. Does this mean that the young men of Ukraine who were inclined to the "consecrated life" (as we would say in Roman Catholic circles) considered ecclesiastical affiliation to be secondary to the fulfillment of their particular vocation?

(I remember reading somewhere that one of the Kyivan Patriarchs was actually a former UGCC layman. Then came the liquidation of the UGCC and, rather than abandon the path to the priesthood he chose to enter an MP seminary. Come the early 1990's he joined the UAOC. Was it Patriarch Dymytry?)

If so, is this something similar to the situation in Syria where ecclesiastical boundaries are fluid and there is constant traffic between Catholic and Orthodox?

Does the situation you describe still obtain in Ukraine today?

Same sentiments here.

Anyway, I don't claim to be an expert on American media, but I do read as much as time allows. If the NYT is the model of appeasement, I shudder to think what "biased" looks like.