VICE-CHAIRMAN OF OVTsSUPTs: UNIFICATION OF ORTHODOX CHURCHES IN UKRAINE POSSIBLE; JUST NOT NOW
Religiia v Ukraine, 26 October 2015
The vice-chairman of the Department for External Church Relations of the UPTs (Moscow patriarchate) [OVTsS UPTsMP], Archpriest Nikolai Danilevich, described in an interview with Argumenty i Fakty on 21 October how it is possible to resolve church conflicts in Ukraine, Religiia v Ukraine reports.
Archpriest Nikolai Danilevich said that in late September at a conference of the OSCE in Warsaw, a representative of UPTs of the Kiev patriarchate, Archbishop Evstraty, in reply to a speech by the vice-chairman of the OVTsS UPTsMP, suggested creating a working group of these two confessions, which would resolve all conflict situations.
"This would be a way out of the situation, but such a working groups has already been created about a year ago," Fr Nikolai Danilevich commented on the initiative. "During its work, representatives of our church proposed considering each case of a seizure of a church building or change of jurisdiction separately, on the basis of canons, and not to use political expediency or emotions. But we did not see understanding on the part of the Kiev patriarchate, and Archbishop Evstraty himself then quit the session. In the end, the working group ceased its existence."
The vice-chairman of OVTsS UPTs thinks that for the work of such a group, a sincere desire to solve the problem is necessary, and not to extract from it one's own advantage.
Archpriest Nikolai Danilevich also, upon a correspondent's request, touched on a recent topic which "almost caused a dispute of UPTs with the UGKTs." Responding to the question, the priest said: "If you have in mind the statement of the head of UGKTs, Archbishop Sviatoslav, that this is not a conflict but more of a misunderstanding. . . . Vladyka Antony merely noted that the rhetoric of some confessions had changed recently. Let's recall. Previously their representative talked about war, which is confirmed by a host of news media and the Internet. And only after some time have they begun talking about peace. But our church has always talked only about peace."
In the opinion of Archpriest Nikolai, it is necessary to proceed from the fact that the Roman pope unites Catholics of the whole world, including Europe. "When Catholic peoples fight among themselves, for example, French with Germans or with English, the pope, like the whole Catholic church, remained united for them. And our church now finds itself in the same situation. Our believers are in both Crimea and in the Donbass, but we are a united church for all of them. And the church dioceses of Crimea and the Donbass are now administered from Kiev and not from Moscow. In essence, the Crimean diocese is a foreign diocese of our church. The position of the UGKTs is somewhat different, and not merely because its believers are concentrated in the main in the west of Ukraine, far from the hot spots," the priest said, noting that in the Donbass and in Crimea "the UPTs is, possibly, the only thread that up to now is closely linking this region with Ukraine."
The vice-chairman of OVTs UPTs denied claims about the complete dependence of the UPTs on Moscow: "On one hand, we really do have through the Moscow patriarchate a tie with the entire Orthodox world, while preserving our own autonomy, to a greater degree than the UGKTs has from Rome. At the same time we have, while fulfilling certain conditions, the possibility of complete church independence, that is, autocephaly. While representatives of the UGKTs do not have such a possibility. They cannot be completely separated from Rome; otherwise they would cease to be Catholics."
At the same time, Fr Nikolai Danilevich did not want to clarify what specific conditions for achieving autocephaly of the UPTs he was talking about. It is evident that he has in mind a complete consensus on this question both within the UPTs and within the RPTs, about which representatives of these churches of the Moscow patriarchate have previously spoken.
Continuing the talk about the possibility of unification of the Orthodox churches in Ukraine, the priest noted: "Theoretically, unification of the Orthodox churches in Ukraine is possible. Just not now, when our society is too politicized and polarized. Time will pass. Passions will ease. And then it will be possible to talk about unification. Only without politics and without emotions, but exclusively on the basis of the canons of the church. Under Metropolitan Vladimir, it was peaceful in the country and it was possible to talk on this topic. Now the degree of tension is too high to be able to solve such sensitive issues. But this does not mean that we cannot do anything for unification now. The first step to this could be to stop seizures and to return seized churches, and as a result to lessen hostility and tension within the church community."
He added to this: "Our church views negatively the alternation of performance of worship services; that is the position of His Beatitude Metropolitan Onufrey. Experience shows that alternating services does not resolve the conflict. It is better when each parish builds its own church, and the other may help it in this, as possible." (tr. by PDS, posted 26 October 2015)
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