FILARET AND EPIFANY BEGIN TO SPLIT BELIEVERS
Campaign of proponents of Kiev patriarchate against PTsU
began in
Odessa
by Artur Priimak
In the course of the last week before the election of
the president of
Ukraine, which occurred on 31 March, a special prayer was
performed in the
churches of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (PTsU). In the text,
authorized by
the head of the PTsU, Metropolitan of Kiev Epifany, were the
words:
"Inspire us, Lord, to make the correct choice, for the future of
all of us
depends on it." By his order, Epifany also commanded: include in
the daily
ektenias (petitions to God read by a deacon) the following
ritual: "We
pray that the Lord God may give us a spirit of reason to make
the correct
choice of head of the Ukrainian state and have mercy on us."
While Epifany was calling believers to prayerful unity,
in Odessa an
uprising of the former flock of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of
the Kiev
Patriarchate (UPTsKP) against the leadership of the PTsU was
taking shape. The
discontent of Odessans is being stirred up by the priest Vitaly
Senik, the
former rector of the church of the Nativity of Christ. This is
the cathedral
church of the Kiev patriarchate in Odessa, created about 20
years ago on the
ruins of a hospital church of the early 19th century. The
dispute arising in
the 1990s between the UPTsKP and the UPTs of the Moscow
Patriarchate (UPTsMP)
was resolved by the mayor of Odessa in favor of the Kiev
pariarchate.
In late March of this year, Ukrainian news media
reported: Senik, who
has served more than 17 years in the UPTsKP, does not want to be
a cleric of
the PTsU. "I see in the eyes of my priest friends only slavery,
fear, and groveling,
and in those of higher ranks, imperialism. I did not want such a
church,"
Senik told Ukrainian journalists.
A spiritual daughter of Senik, the movie actress Galina
Sulima,
described in a report to Ukrainian news media why Senik broke
off relations
with the PTsU. She said that it began in 2018, when Bishop Pavel
was appointed
to the Odessa-Balta see of the UPTsKP. "The Vladyka did not join
a
dialogue with the parish," Sulima explained. "He did not accept
that,
according to the charter, the parish makes decisions on many
important matters.
He was very irritated by the enormous level of trust and respect
that the
parish has for our Father Vitaly. And the first thing that the
Vladyka did was
to illegally appoint himself the rector of the church."
The actress, like other parishioners also, was upset
that in the
current year Pavel, as rector of the church and ruling bishop,
forbade the
commemoration in the divine liturgy of the honorary patriarch of
Kiev, Filaret:
"This evoked a protest from Father Vitaly, who had traveled a
difficult
path of persecution of our church along with Patriarch Filaret,
and it was he
who in that time long ago was the first priest in the Odessa
oblast whose
parish transferred into the Kiev patriarchate, more than 18
years ago."
Sulima said that around Pavel "there began to circle dubious
characters
who stirred up his passionate wish for individual power." "One
of
them in his time was inhibited from ministry by Patriarch
Filaret for a very
ugly act. Another
is well known in
Odessa as a man who seized our church in the name of the Moscow
patriarchate.
It is not at all clear how a third person wound up near the
Valdyka. All of
them had a very dubious reputation and an enormous thirst to
gain a foothold in
the church at all costs," Sulima declared.
In the spring, Pavel changed the charter of the parish
of the church as
a result of which he made a claim to the sole disposition of
church property.
When the parish acted against this, Sulema says, Pavel summoned
the Titushki
militants. The Titushki threatened Senik and "recalcitrant"
parishioners right during the liturgy and forced open the doors
and broke
windows. By Pavel's order, Vitaly Senik was transferred to the
church of the
Pochaev Icon of the Mother of God in the village of Radostnoe in
Odessa oblast.
As Senik explained in his press conference in the offices of
Interfax-Ukraine,
he has to serve in the literal sense in an open field, near a
lone standing
tree. "The field is a private plot of one of our clergymen.
There never
was either a church building or a parish there. I serve there
every week,
completely alone, and I will show a video in order to confirm
how I
serve." But Pavel believed that Senik did not perform the divine
liturgy,
and by his order he deprived the priest of the right to wear a
cassock and
pectoral cross. Senik filed a report with the head of the PTsU
about his
withdrawing his submission to the bishop of Odessa-Balta.
Senik's former
parishioners complained about the actions of the bishop of
Odessa to the
administration of the president of Ukraine. Galina Sulima says:
"Epifany
is silent; the administration of the president is silent."
Meanwhile,
Senik claims, he has already been accused by Bishop Pavel of
"spying for
Moscow."
Before he joined the UPTsKP, Vitaly Senik had been a
full-time cleric
of the Odessa diocese of the UPTsMP, a former secretary of this
diocese,
Archpriest Andrei Novikov, told NG-R, who from 2014 has been the
rector of the
Moscow church of the Life-Giving Trinity on Sparrow Hills. "We
served in
the same church in Odessa. This man always dreamed of serving in
rich parishes
and of having a good income. People of exactly the same stock
direct the Odessa
diocese of the UPTsKP, now the PTsU. Conflict arose over real
estate and income
from it. These people are united by hatred for the UPTsMP and
for Russia, but
the financial issue made them enemies. Conflicts over mercenary
interest will
get ever greater in the PTsU. Especially in Odessa. The "feeding
base," as they call the parishioners, there for the PTsU is very
small.
Odessans do not attend there. Epifany's opponents will follow
anybody who gives
them the most favorable offer. It is possible they will now
flock around
Filaret," the clergyman suggests.
What Novikov said was partially confirmed in an
interview by Filaret
with the Ukrainian internet publication Glavkom on 15 March of
this year. The
honorary patriarch of Kiev said: the PTsU was supposed to
receive a tomos as a
patriarchate and not as a metropolitanate of the Constantinople
(ecumenical)
patriarchate. This is how Filaret explains why Patriarch of
Constantinople
Bartholomew did not summon him in January of this year to
Istanbul for handing
over the tomos—the order giving autocephaly to the PTsU. "I am a
patriarch, even if it is not recognized. If I had been present,
that would have
meant that the ecumenical patriarch recognizes the Ukrainian
church in the
status of a patriarchate. The procedure (making the PTsU a
metropolitanate of
Constantinople—NG-R), which was proposed by the Greeks, does not
suit us,"
Filaret said.
Filared has gathered around himself a fronde of members
of the PTsU
against his former disciple, Epifany, Liudmila Filippovich, a
professor of the
Institute of Philosophy of the National Academy of Sciences of
Ukraine, told
NG-R. "In his interview, Filaret suggested that he will oppose
whoever
heads the autocephalous Ukrainian church. In the PTsU there is
not the unity
everyone desires, for which we hoped when we received the tomos.
There are the
malcontents whom the 90-year-old honorary patriarch of Kiev has
pulled over to
his side. He feels that he is not likely to see the desired
model of an
independent Ukrainian patriarchate that he created in the early
90s,"
Filippovich says. The expert says that part of the PTsU and
Ukrainian society
supports Filaret. "At the head of this wing stand distinguished
church
hierarchs. They received from Filaret all the benefits and they
are satisfied
and any church reform distresses them. The opposing portion of
Ukrainian
society is united around Metropolitan Epifany. The people want,
by means of
reforms, to bring the Ukrainian church closer to civilized
European models of
church organization. A coordinating council is working under
Metropolitan
Epifany which includes priests, laity, and the artistic and
scientific
intelligentsia of Ukraine and believers and clergy of other
religions and
confessions. The goal of this council is fundamental reform of
Orthodoxy in
Ukraine. It seems that Filaret opposes this. He thinks like a
typical soviet
man; he cannot imagine a church without a strict hierarchy and
power
vertical."
"The Ukrainian church cannot but be autocephalous, and
an
autocephalous church of Ukraine is unthinkable without Patriarch
Filaret,"
Vladimir Yavorivsky, a Ukrainian politician who is an associate
of presidential
candidate Yulia Timoshenko, told NG-R. "Back in the early 20th
century, an
autocephalous church was recognized by Constantinople, which was
headed by
Patriarch Vasily Lipkovsky. The receipt of a tomos did not start
the history of
Ukrainian church independence, but was one of its episodes. When
in mid-2018
there began talk about asking Patriarch Filaret to retire, I
warned that this
could turn into a schism."
"Is Filaret's fronde connected with the election of a
Ukrainian
president? No. Filaret, like Epifany also, did not participate
in the election.
And I did not see among Ukrainian politicians anybody who would
benefit from
the friction between Filaret and Epifany," Vladimir Fesenko, the
director
of the Kievan Penta Center of Applied Political Studies, told
NG-R.
Meanwhile, on the Facebook pages of the PTsU commuity,
during the
election campaign there was only agitation in favor of Petro
Poroshenko. The
other candidates—except for the candidate of the Opposition
Bloc, Yury
Boiko—expressed support for Ukrainian autocephaly. It is notable
that the
honorary patriarch overshadows the head of the PTsU in the mind
of the
Ukrainian electorate. (tr. by PDS, posted 4 April 2019)
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