METROPOLITAN ILARION ON SITUATION IN UKRAINE: CREATION OF AUTOCEPHALOUS CHURCH CANNOT BE INITIATED BY SECULAR GOVERNMENT
Interfax-Religiia, 19 April 2018
The Russian Orthodox Church thinks that another initiative by the government of Ukraine to create in the country an autocephalous Orthodox church, like previous attempts, is doomed to failure.
"We are a single church, which was born in the baptismal font of Kiev and the Dnepr, and of course neither the Constantinople patriarchate nor any other church can in a unilateral manner proclaim the autocephaly of one or another church," the head of the Department of External Church Relations of the Moscow patriarchate, Metropolitan Ilarion, told an Interfax-Religiia correspondent on Thursday.
''Therefore we suggest that this initiative, despite all the informational noise which is now raised around it, will have the same fate as initiatives taken in previous years, and we remind once again about the fact that the resolution of the Ukrainian church problem is possible only by canonical means," he said.
Earlier it was reported that the Supreme Soviet of Ukraine supported the appeal of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew about the creation of a local Orthodox church in the country.
Meanwhile Metropolitan Ilarion described how the Russian Orthodox Church heard about conversations of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko with Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew and about "expensive gifts" that were brought to the Fanar (the district of Istanbul where the patriarch's residence is located). "All this is known to us, as well as much else, which I would not want to announce now," the metropolitan said.
"But we have heard over the course of many years the very firm position of the Constantinople patriarch, who always has said that the only head of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church he recognizes is His Beatitude Metropolitan Onufrey. And the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church does not intend to sever relations with the Russian Orthodox Church," the representative of the Russian church emphasized.
In passing he noted that the "creation of an autocephalous church is a process that cannot be initiated by secular authority," because the "church in modern states is separated from the state, and the state should not manipulate the church, including in an election campaign or for any other political goals."
The whole concept of the creation of a united local church in Ukraine, separate from the Russian Orthodox Church, is based on the thesis that in an independent state there should be an independent church, Metropolitan Ilarion recalled. If one follow this principle, then, for example, the Alexandria church would have to be divided into fifty or so parts, since it "embraces within itself all of Africa," and in Africa there are more than fifty states, and it would be necessary to divide the Antioch and Jerusalem churches into several parts, and so forth, the metropolitan thinks.
"Such plans and such ideas are beneficial only to enemies of the church," he emphasized.
He also recalled that the schism in Ukraine arose because the former Metropolitan of Kiev Filaret Denisenko did not manage to become patriarch of Moscow, and he wanted to resolve his own, personal problem with the help of a church schism.
"This church schism in the more than quarter century past has gained momentum thanks to the support of the secular government, but it remains, as before, a schism," Metropolitan Ilarion says, recalling that there have not been such precedents for legitimizing schism in the history of the church.
"There have been precedents of return from schism of some or other hierarchs, priests, laity, and groups, that were united through repentance, and this is the only path that the Orthodox church can offer," the hierarch concludes. (tr. by PDS, posted 21 April 2018)
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