www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Russian Orthodox Met. approves Stalin's liquidation of UGCC

Quite unbelievable, at least to me. This from George Weigel in First Things on "Rome and Moscow".

'More disturbing still were remarks made in Washington in February by Metropolitan Hilarion, the Moscow patriarchate’s “external affairs” officer—Russian Orthodoxy’s chief ecumenist. Hilarion is an impressive personality in many ways: He is entirely at home in English, he displays a nice sense of humor, and his curriculum vitae includes a large number of publications and musical compositions. Yet when I asked him whether the L’viv Sobor (Council) of 1946—which forcibly reincorporated the Greek Catholic Church of Ukraine into Russian Orthodoxy, turning the Greek Catholics into the world’s largest illegal religious body—was a “theologically legitimate ecclesial act,” Hilarion unhesitatingly responded “Yes.” I then noted that serious historians describe the L’viv Sobor as an act of the Stalinist state, carried out by the NKVD (predecessor to the KGB); Hilarion responded that the “modalities” of history are always complicated. In any event, he continued, it was always legitimate for straying members of the Russian Orthodox flock (as he regarded the Ukrainian Greek Catholics) to return to their true home (i.e., Russian Orthodoxy).'

http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2011/03/rome-and-moscow

Metropolitan Hilarion should learn that the Ukrainian territories on which the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church lived up until 1945 had never belonged to the Russian Tsarist Empire, nor to the Soviet Union, nor to "Russian Orthodoxy".

The rest speaks for itself sadly.

It doesn't surprise me a bit.
What surprises me is that anyone's surprised at it.

When the Lvov Sobor occured, Greek Catholics were given a choice of becoming full fledged Roman Catholics or returning to the ancestral Faith, and by large majorities they returned to Orthodoxy. There was no problem as much with this circumstance until the Khruschev persecutions and wave of modernism and church closings which transpired where at times the hierarchy was complicit (made so by sitting at the barrel of a gun or a party man threatening to displace them if they didn't comply).

What does it matter.

Galicia was most definitely Russian Orthodox. Simply review the library and the acta of the Lvov Russian Brotherhood. While Lvov was most definitely under Moscow until Lithuania had the Little Russian Metropolia of Kiev. It was Russian Orthodox from its founding. While St. Peter had canonically transferred the Kievan Metropolia to the North which eventually became the Moscow Patriarchate.

Admittedly it doesn't matter very much but it does matter a bit since one could legitimately conclude that if they had the chance, the ROC-MP would not hesitate to do it again.

Well, apparently he's the honcho in charge of "ecumenism" for today's Russian Orthodox Church so it does go some way into understanding the ROC's go-to Metropolitan's understanding of ecumenism, Christian ethics, and morality for that matter. Apparently, the fact that as a result of the praised 1946 psuedo-synod, Ukrainian Catholic bishops were tortured, poisoned, and hounded to death by the KGB is not worth any note in Met. Hilarion's books. On the other hand, to others, "what does it matter?" may seem like the proper reaction in speaking of the death of Christian martyrs. What does it matter, really; they just gave their lives for their faithful, their Church in the face of an inhuman totalitarian regime. I suppose the late + Yosyp Slipyj who had a group of Soviet soldiers march on his chest as he lay on the ground in a Gulag camp may take issue with Met. Hilarion or any other dismissive amoral judgment.

The fact that today's Russian Orthodox Church sees today's Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in the same terms as did their Russian Orthodox predecessors back in 1946 under Stalin speaks volumes as to what Christian brotherly love can be expected from Moscow.

Well, actually today's ROC-MP in today's Ukraine under the authoritarian ruler Victor Yanukovych (who belongs to the MP)work hand-in-glove making sure the Ukrainian State only deals and favors the Ukrainian Orthodox Church under the Moscow Patriarchate. Yanukovych is a thug; but he is the ROC's man in Ukraine. Insofar as the UGCC has to deal with a country ruled by Yanukovych's dictates, the UGCC will lose any situation which crosses the MP Orthodox in Ukraine, such as the Orthodox Metropolitan of Odesa (MP)forbidding any Ukrainian Catholic Churches in Ukraine's Odesa oblast where thousands of Ukrainian Catholics reside.

It is not just some historical triviality, this issue - it is of pertinence to this day.

Fancy that, the "ruler" of the Ukraine belonging to the Church founded by St. Vladimir in Kiev and in unbroken succession from the era and locale.

Ecumenism doesn't have much of a life left neither with the Vatican or with Moscow while the process of a "cooperative of Traditional Catholic Churches" seems to be the modern day paradigm and that is what people like Metropolitan Alfeev are engaged in.

ROC-MP? Is there another canonical Russian church but the Moscow Patriarchate? I think 100 million members (on the territory of Russia) alone says it IS the ROC.

Yanukovich was elected in a Western monitored election fully democratic and by the clear majority of the population, defeating a woman who has amassed afortune based on embezzlement of state resources and patronage from Western govts. and NGOs, thoroughly corrupt and anti democratic.

The Neomartyr St. Maxim Sandovich and St. Alexis Kabaliuk disagreed, agreeing with Met. Hilarion. (myself, I have reservations about about the L'viv Council, but none that compare to the problems with the one held in opposition to the Orthodox Council at Brest).

I guess it does.

It is not shocking to see this sentiment coming from Moscow. To many Orthodox, the UGCC is the hinderance to any sort of whims for reunification.

The UGCC has endured much more persecution the than ignorant and blasé rhetoric from Metropolitan Hilarion.

Personally, I am at peace knowing that we are a thorn in the side to Moscow and even perhaps to some in Rome. All we can do is stand our ground and pray for them.

But it is getting awfully crowded even in the Ukraine for the UGCC. Eventually someone is going to read without redaction The Treaty of Hadiach and figure why Taras Grigorovich Schevchenko wrote a poem in honor of Ivan Gonta.