PRESIDENT GUARANTEES BELIEVERS OF UPTs/RPTs RESPECT AND PROTECTION REGARDLESS OF THEIR ATTITUDE ON AUTOCEPHALY
Religiia v Ukraine, 20 September 2018
On 20 September 2018 President Petro Poroshenko addressed the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine with a message to deputies "On the internal and external situation of Ukraine in 2018." Among many topics, the head of state touched on the church topic also, Religiia v Ukraine reports.
The president noted the arrival in Kiev of exarchs of the ecumenical patriarch as "very important." They "arrived to prepare the decision about granting autocephaly to the Ukrainian local Orthodox church," and to continue "the work that Metropolitan Ilarion Ogienko called a work of the 'complete de-muscovizing' of our church."
"We are returning the Ukrainian church to its worthy place within world Orthodoxy," Petro Poroshenko said to the deputies. "The army, language, and faith. This is not a slogan. It is the formula of modern Ukrainian identity. The army defends our land. The language protects our heart. The church protects our soul."
The head of state called Ukrainians to unity and explained his opinion more fully: "The creation of a united local Orthodox Ukrainian church will strengthen such unity. The exarchs of the ecumenical patriarch told me without diplomatic wording that the process of granting autocephaly to Ukraine has reached the home stretch. They said this publicly. I do not know just when the tomos will be adopted and when it will arrive in Kiev. But I am quite certain that we have turned the wheel of this history that nobody will be able to turn back. One hundred years ago the question of autocephaly was put onto the agenda by the state leadership of the Ukrainian People's Republic. Twenty-seven years ago Ukraine renewed its struggle for autocephaly. But in the last four years there began a quiet and painstaking and now public diplomacy, including with your help, esteemed people's deputies."
Now, the president said, "the state will not interfere in the internal affairs of the church, especially a foreign state."
"Why are they fighting for this so? Because the empire is losing one of its last levers of influence. The tomos is actually one more act of the proclamation of the independence of Ukraine. For us, our own church is the guarantee of spiritual liberty. It is the assurance of social harmony. I guarantee that the state will respect the choice of those who decide to remain within the church structure and maintain unity with the Russian Orthodox Church and we will call it as such in order to facilitate understanding. But at the same time I guarantee that the state will protect, and it must not fear them, the rights of those priests and laity of the UPTs of the Moscow patriarchate who voluntarily make the decision to come out from under Moscow in order to create along with other Orthodox a united local Orthodox Ukrainian church. The significance of the tomos extends beyond the borders of Ukraine. It is the fall of the Third Rome as the most ancient conceptual claim of Moscow to world hegemony. Here, in our country, the future of world Orthodoxy is being decided. We understand it completely differently than the Russians and this is yet another reason why we are not on the road with the Russians. For them the church is the so-called bond of the authoritarian regime. But we, as the largest Orthodox country of Europe, are demonstrating how Christianity of the eastern rite and democracy organically coexist in one national organism." (tr. by PDS, posted 20 September 2018)
WE WILL NOT BOW DOWN TO STRANGE GODS—UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT
The tomos is yet another act of the proclamation of the independence of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko thinks.
Ukrainians will not bow down to strange gods. This was stated on 20 September by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in his address to the Verkhovna Rada, the press service of the president reports.
"As Sacred Scripture commands, we definitely will not bow down to strange gods," the president noted. "And the state will not interfere in the internal affairs of the church. Especially, a foreign one. Why are they fighting for this? Because the empire is losing one of its last levers of influence. The tomos is actually another act of the proclamation of the independence of Ukraine."
In the words of the head of state, the significance of the tomos extends far beyond the borders of Ukraine.
"For us, our own church is the guarantee of spiritual liberty. . . . This is the fall of the Third Rome as the ancient conceptual claim of Moscow to world hegemony," Poroshenko said.
Earlier Petro Poroshenko declared that after receiving the tomos the state will not permit any provocations.
The Ukrainian president conducted on 17 September a meeting will the exarchs of the Constantinople patriarchate, Archbishop of Pamphilon Daniel and Bishop of Edmonton Ilarion. (tr. by PDS, posted 20 September 2018)
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