www.byzcath.org Forums News & Events Church News Moscow Patriarchate denies Ukrainian Catholics any Churchin Odesa

Dear Diak,
You make a good point.Sectarians are grabbing people right and left,both in Russia and Ukraine.Then there is the problem of militant Islam.
I'm no partisan of the Ukrainian Catholic Church,but I don't have a problem with that Church coexisting in the homeland alongside the Orthodox Church.The attempt of the MP to meddle in this situation is likely to strengthen anti-Orthodox feeling and could result is some hot-heads coming down hard against the Orthodox,in places like Poland,for example.

Sectarians? in Ukraine?

check out -
http://www.ldschurchtemples.com/temples/

learn all about the brand-new, SPANKIN'-new Mormon temple in Kyiv. Read it and weep.

To think it was dedicated on August 29, 2010, of all days. The liturgical commemoration of the beheading of St. John the Baptist is grim enough reason to observe the day with fasting - now we all have yet another reason to mourn.

This edifice might not have been built if the Orthodox and the Catholics got along better. Maybe nobody would have felt a need for it. These temples are expensive and the Mormon conventicle constructs them only in places where the money-savvy leadership in Salt Lake believes there will be enough patrons to justify the expense.

I agree absolutely in bemoaning the Mormons building in Ukraine, but sielos, you must understand in today's Ukraine, the Ukrainian Catholics have virtually no say in what properties are allotted for churches in the bulk of Ukraine (Central, Southern, and Eastern Ukraine). In Kyiv, the capital city, the Ukrainian Catholics have been begging for sometime for another church (just one) - the government will not allow it. The original foundation I believe for the Ukrainian Catholic Sobor in Kyiv was burnt down.

You see, what churches are built in Southern, Eastern and Central Ukraine are now very much in the hands of the Moscow Patriarchate's branch in Ukraine, and the government in the hands of the Donetsk clan Party of Regions. With the latter, money and bribes talk. Ukrainian Catholics are not awash in money or state-corruption. The UOC (MP) may sooner have mormons than Ukrainian Catholics build, especially if the hand that supports the Moscow Patriarchate now in Ukraine, the Party of Regions, allows for these sects to build.


So Ukrainian Catholics have absolutely no say, unfortunately, in the issue you raised. It is almost a non-entity when it comes to these questions in the bulk of the provinces of Ukraine.

Catholic/Orthodox polemics have nothing to do with these guys, the Mormons, Pentecostals, etc., gaining a foothold in Ukraine. You are overstating the power Ukrainian Catholicism has with the powers (ex-communists, oligarchs) that be in Ukraine. The Secret Service in Ukraine now (the organization that had the rector of the Ukrainian Catholic University, Father Gudziak, questioned) is now run by an oligarch who also runs a media empire which many believe is responsible for closing down all independent T.V. stations in Ukraine, as happened in Putin's Russia. The Secret Police (Sluzhba Bezpeky) were even awarded medals from the Russian Orthodox hierarchy. The Sluzhba Bezpeky, which is the Internal Police now in Ukraine, followed Putin's lead and closed off all archives dealing with the Soviet orchestrated famine in Ukraine (1932-33) with Yanukovych, Ukraine's MP President, saying there is nothing left to learn.

I wish the Ukrainian Catholics were allowed to compete with the new sects in Ukraine. Personally, I think we would do a better job than the current UOC (Moscow Patriarchate) which, unlike the Catholics, is colored by its past and now present collaboration with what is now becoming an authoritarian pro-Kremlin state.

So if anyone wants to give the Ukie Catholics a chance to fight for souls in the bulk of Ukraine, tell such people as the MP Metropolitan in Odesa to butt out, and let us freely build parishes where there is the demand. Otherwise, with no choice but the MP, these souls become open prey for the Mormons etc.

I think part of the problem is the UGCC is not seen as Ukrainian at all outside of the old Polish territories. A lady I know went home to see her family on the sea of Azov and when the subject of the UGCC came up they never once used the term Ukrainian but "Galitzian" for the UGCC. What surpised her even more was that they went on to say it was run by Canadians who had taken them over. In a way the UGCC is seen as not belonging, just like the returning Moslem Tartars who are mostly descendants of captured Ukrainian and Russian slaves anyway. Vested interests clearly want certain people to go away.

Dear Pavel, I agree to a certain extent but not all. The coming out of the catacombs and out of clandestine existence of Ukrainian Catholics in Galicia and Zakarpattia in 1986 and onward was entirely spontaneous and had nothing to do with the UGCC in Canada or elsewhere. The Ukr. Catholic Church had always been there in Galicia and Zakarpattia, even if in clandestine form in the villages and towns. Yosyp Terelia, one of the underground church's leaders, was kicked out of the Soviet Union by Gorbachev in the hopes that the spontaneous Ukrainian Catholic rebirth would stop, but it didn't. I remember the mass-protests in the late 1980s when hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians in Galicia took to the streets for Ukrainian independence and the legalization of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church. It was absolutely organic and reflected popular opinion. The chains were to come off.

But there is also the question of even being a "Ukrainian" in Ukraine. Under the Soviets and enforced Russification of Ukraine, should a family move out of "Galicia" let's say, and move to Eastern or Southern Ukraine, should they even have spoken Ukrainian they were automatically and ridiculously called "bandyerovsty" (insurgent nationalists). An old girlfriend of mine from student days recalled what a terrible childhood she endured in Bila Tservka in Ukraine of all places where she was bullied ruthlessly for speaking Ukrainian. In the 1970s and 80s students from North America would visit Ukraine in travel groups and were astounded by the fact that in the capital city of Kyiv, of all places, if they spoke Ukrainian in stores, they would be told to speak "human" (i.e. Russian) instead, po liudske. Under Moscow's rule, there developed in Ukraine the whole inferiority complex of malorosiystvo which propagated that only Russian language, literature, and history were worthy and Ukrainian was just little Russian and anyone who spoke the language was laughed at, and anyone who God forbid defended the Ukrainian language or culture (or independent church - i.e. Father Romaniuk Ukrainian Orthodox) could be imprisoned (Ivan Dziuba, Vasyl Stus, the latter political prisoner dieing in the Gulag after Gorbachev had come to power).

People who grew up during Soviet times were fed a constant diet of "bourgeois-nationalist" Ukrainian bogeymen and Catholics. From the liquidation of the UGCC in 1946 until just about the end of the Soviet Union, Soviet Ukrainians were taught the UGCC to be a foreign entity and that any true UGCC left joined the Russian Orthodox Church in Lviv in 1946. But the Soviets surely took the UGCC seriously. When UGCC Patriarch Josyp Slipyj was in the Gulag, he was approached by the K.G.B. with the offer that he would be freed and become a Metropolitan in the Russian Orthodox Church if he only would renounce Ukrainian Catholicism. He didn't.

Soviet propaganda was much more successful than many could imagine in Canada or elsewhere. Not everywhere, but it took its toll on peoples' psychology in Ukraine and Russia. Even Party of Regions deputies from the Verkhovna Rada, from places like Donetsk, when they come to Canada repeat such astounding falsifications that they are not sure if Stalin orchestrated a famine/Holodomor in the 1930s.

Yes, there is this concept in Southern and Eastern Ukraine about Ukrainian Catholics but a lot of this has to do with the utter lack of acquaintance with the UGCC which really are not allowed out there much. (Indeed, if truth be told, it was the Roman Catholics who after the collapse of the Soviet Union thought that the Roman, not Ukrainian, Catholic Church should only be allowed to build outside of Galicia).

Then there is the question of the largest Orthodox denomination in Ukraine, not the Moscow Patriarchate, but the Ukrainian Orthodox Church - Kyivan Patriarchate (14 million at last count to Moscow's 9 million), but it is uncanonical simply because Moscow refuses it autocephaly. The Russian Orthodox Church could have long ago prevented an Orthodox schism in Ukraine if they merely had let the Ukrainians have a truly autocephalous Church. They didn't and demanded that all Orthodox in Ukraine consider themselves members of the "Russian world", Russkyi Myr.

How Ukrainian is the Moscow Patriarchate vis-a-vis the Kyvian Patriarchate in Ukraine? There are really honest, devout people in the UOC-MP Church who are also nationally conscious, but they don't call the shots. The Kyivan Patriarchate, whatever one thinks of its leader, is filled with honest, devout priests, who don't worry what the Kremlin thinks but minister to the faithful.

I think I am like many Ukrainian Catholics when I see my church's ultimate destiny in being one with Ukrainian Orthodox in one Kyivan Church! This will not happen with the UOC (Moscow Patriarchate) in Ukraine which takes its orders from Moscow. It could happen, however, with the Kyivan Patriarchate should Filaret ever leave and constructive work begin.

Many Ukrainian Catholics are fed up with not being given Patriarchal Status de jure by Rome, simply because some quarters in the Vatican practice Ostpolitik and jump anytime the Russian Orthodox Church threatens to cut off relations with Rome should Ukrainians be given a Patriarchate or even endorse the building of Ukrainian Catholic Churches outside western Ukraine (and remember there are thousands of Ukrainian Catholics in eastern Ukraine whose families were forcibly moved there after WW2 but who kept quiet). If the Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarchate ever got around to proclaiming a Kyivan Patriarchate (the Ukrainian Orthodox Church being under Constantinople originally), there would be much positive feedback from Ukrainian Catholics. Similarly, if the Vatican would be the first to proclaim a Ukrainian Catholic Patriarchate in Kyiv, this would surely force Moscow stop taking blackmail for granted in dealing with the Vatican. Indeed, it is only this year! that the Russian Orthodox Church in Moscow finally put up a website in the Ukrainian language.

God does come before country of course but when the MP tells all believers in Ukraine to be loyal to Moscow and its political agenda and consider themselves part of the Russian world; well, then the MP has brought politics unfortunately into the whole equation. I only pray God this whole atmosphere in Ukraine change for the better soon.

Z Bohom,

Sorry Pavel. I just realized as a new member that I can see profiles. I note with happiness you are a Byzantine Russian Catholic. (I truly hope my defense of Ukrainian churches and culture was not untoward).

Just out of interest, what would a Byzantine Russian Catholic think of today's Russian Orthodox Church? Please do not feel obligated to answer, as I only ask out of complete ignorance.

Just to clarify, this dedication did not fall on the commemoration of the Beheading- Orthodox and Catholics in Ukraine will be celebrating the Beheading of St. John the Baptist on August 29th of the Original Orthodox Calendar which falls on Sept. 11th of the secular calendar.

And just to get back to the original post, what makes this whole episode so egregious is that the political party the Odesa Orthodox Metropolitan belongs to, the ruling Regions of Ukraine party, apparently uses State Income to pay for the building of only Ukrainian Orthodox (Moscow Patriarchate) Churches in Ukraine. So much for separation of church and state. The following article from R.I.S.U. from August 26, 2010, in Russian notes that "Кабмин вытащил из карманов иудеев, мусульман и прочих верующих и неверующих карманов деньги на достройку двух храмов УПЦ МП на Юго-Востоке." which translates into "The Cabinet of Ministers [of Ukraine] has taken from the pockets of Jews, Muslims, and other believers and unbelievers monies for additional construction of two Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) churches in the South and East", to draw attention to the fact that the taxes of all people of all confessions and none, if used toward religion by Yanukovych, seem to only go to the Moscow Patriarchate.
http://risu.org.ua/ua/index/monitoring/society_digest/37652

Hmm

FWIW, the only canonical Orthodox Church in Ukraine is the MP.

(Of course, I suspect that the EP's failure to recognize the KP is directly related to the fact that it cannot afford to oppose the MP, which is the true power-broker of the EOC.)

Yes, I know that. But there is a history in the Orthodox world of churches proclaiming autocephaly on their own and not being recognized as canonically autocephalous for some time (Russian Orthodox Church) or proclaiming a patriarchate for that matter and waiting for recognition from the EP or other churches.

The other point is that even the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Canada for one, I believe, which is under the EP and canonical, does not recognize as valid the 1686 transfer of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church away from Constantinople to Moscow's jurisidiction. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Canada even uses material authored by the noncanonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Kyivan Patriarchate) in its services.

Your point on the EP and the MP is quite true.

God Bless.

Shlomo Bohom,

What is even more disreptible is that Russian Byzantine Catholics are denied even exarchal status.

Fush BaShlomo,
Yuhannon

This is one interesting point I always have in mind.
If like always said, that communion in Orthodox church is purely in faith and in sacrament, then this situation should not occur.

There should be no obstacle at all, for instance, that a priest of Ukrainian Orthodox Church Moscow Patriarchate concelebrates with a priest of Ukrainian Patriarchate.

They subscribe to the same faith, yes?
Plus, if as always insisted that a bishop is equal to any other bishop, even a patriarch and responsible only to the Lord, then there is no obstacle to separate himself from one church and enter another one or create a new independent one.
Other churches may not agree, but since this one is of the same faith and same Eucharist, practically, there should be no obstacle for concelebration.

Except, if this problem of jurisdiction is defined as part of the Orthodox faith and a church visible reality is defined by, say, communion of a bishop with a patriarch for instance.
In my understanding, separating a portion of the church from other church is discipline matter, not related to faith.

But if this separation is enough for a declaration of 'no-grace, heresy and breach of communion,' then I wonder how this actually in reality is different from how the Catholic church see that communion with the Pope is a necessity.

Is my understanding correct?

Seeing as how this issue has nothing to do with theology, I'm not sure what this has to do with anything. Should Orthodox Christians congratulate themselves similarly if they became aware of sinful actions among the clergy or hierarchy of other churches?

AMM makes a valid point and this thread is moving further and further from the news item, making its imminent closure very likely. If folks want to refocus on the news item, please do so, moving tangential discussions to a new thread in an appropriate forum (Town Hall comes to mind).

Many years,

Neil

So far as I am aware, particularly in the matter of service-books it is mainly a question of Ukrainian translations of existing Orthodox service-books, not of writing new ones.

But the basic point is quite simple: a good book is a good book, regardless of who published it. During the Soviet period, many Russian Orthodox hierarchs and clergy used service-books published by the Holy See of Rome. That did not make these clergy Roman Catholics.

Fr. Serge