Archbishop Ihor (Isichenko).Along the Road to Creating a Community
Looking at the numerical statistics of the composition of our Kharkiv-Poltava Eparchy in the confessional spectrum of current Ukraine, we have to search for ourselves somewhere towards the bottom of the chart. The viewer who watches the productions of Kyiv or Donetsk television channels will not hear anything at all about the existence of such a community. A politician, used to searching for electoral support, will condescendingly dismiss us with a glance in the list of registered religious groupings. And a superficial cynical journalist will perhaps mention that Google contains scoffing passages in a yellow press pamphlet of our opponents, playing upon my last name, entitled Izsichena tserkva [The trashed church].
Our eparchy is indeed small in numbers and is listed outside of the context of the swamp that in Ukraine for some reason passes as “Church policy.” The eparchy avoids participation in loud polemical campaigns, does not seek support from high-ranking persons, and remains deprived of powerful sponsors.
Then, wherein is the rationale for its existence?
Let us calculate the real weight of salt in any food. It is unlikely that it is larger than the proportionate size of our community among religious organizations, let us say, in the Kharkiv region. However, it is exactly with salt that Christ compares the mission of His Church and He warns us – when the salt becomes stale, it is thrown away: Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? (Matthew 5:13; Mark 9:50; Luke 14:34).
Today, the analogy to stale salt gains an ominous meaning. The world press expresses continually heightened criticism of such facts as expensive watches and cars used by the clergy, the Church’s position towards disproportionally severe punishment of “extravagant” (mock) Vespers in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow, the presence of hierarchs in business and politics. New church constructions meet increasingly stronger opposition from local area residents whose park or children’s playground is transformed into church territory. And the Orthodox public relations staffs struggle to find persuasive explanations of why our clergymen are prone to obesity. Why are there so few among the clergy who are real missionaries and practitioners of good works?
The Church needs protection. It does not need protection from justified criticism, but from compromises with conscience, from the world’s actions, from double morality, from falsehood and treachery.
In our recent history, the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (UAOC) remains a chide to our national conscience, an unused spiritual potential. It came into the post-communist world as a spiritual alternative to the psychology of stagnation, surrounded by the aura of the unconquerable Church-martyr. And what of this image has persevered to this day? Bearded racketeers with sullen looks, who destroy the Patriarchate, break into the Ascension Cathedral in Kaniv and storm the Chapel of the Lord’s Theophany in Kamianets –Podilskyi?
Already, around the years 2000 and 2003, one journalist commented about UAOC: “It was a beautiful Church – may it rest in peace.” Since then such a sad motif dominates discussions about UAOC. Really, one cannot seriously talk about a religious community that is almost completely composed of rootless individuals with pretensions of being bishops as is the UAOC. And this is exactly what the semi-criminal group -- registered as “UAOC” -- is becoming. It is no longer even invited to support most significant social initiatives, in which the UAOC – the real UAOC without the quotation marks! -- should occupy a prominent place.
In writing history according to George Orwell, contemporary publicists have managed to create a totally fantastic picture of our recent past, well-remembered by middle-age Ukrainians. The UAOC is crossed off from that past. And I am not even referring to the purposely tendentious publications of alternative confessions. Let us take a look at the fourth edition of the Holy Scripture, published last year by the Ukrainian Bible Association, in which a UAOC priest serves as a vice-president and one can read in the preface that the creators of Ukrainian Bible Society in 1991 were … the UOC-KP, headed by Patriarch Mstyslav (p.8). And there is no one to ask, when was UOC-KP formed? Was it not a year later? And did Patriarch Mstyslav even for a minute declare himself its Patriarch? However, what is the use of talking, when even in American sources, Mstyslav is referred to as the first Patriarch… of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. And which of our confessions -- like it or not -- is the only one that has a legally registered name, “Ukrainian Orthodox Church”? The former Kyiv exarchate of the Moscow Patriarch (!) to this day refers to Mstyslav as the “so-called Patriarch.” That is how it is…
During 2002-06 we strove to protect ourselves from being involved in the subsequent divisions by not breaking ties with other UAOC eparchies. And although we were pressed to declare ourselves as a new religious entity and register the eparchy under an acceptably chosen name, we did not succumb. We succeeded in protecting the legal status of the Kharkiv-Poltava Eparchy, by registering it as a separate eparchy, an exception to Ukrainian norms, although with an added term “renewed.”
Unfortunately, we are not the first and the last in Ukraine who must accept the existence of a clone organization with our authentic name but without a single priest ordained in the UAOC and headed by a “popular healer” as if he surfaced from folklore legends. And yet we preserved an unpretentious, but dignified, status as an eparchy, subject to the canonically appointed Primate of UAOC in the diaspora! However, within the media centers directly or indirectly connected with the Kremlin circles, there circulates a myth about the existence of some “UAPTs (o).” This myth is easily corrected by government documents as well as by the practices of church life.
Under these conditions to preserve UAOC traditions, to preserve that which Yevhen Sverstiuk likes to call “a pure banner” it is very difficult. It is almost impossible to consistently convince the general public that the authentic UAOC still exists, even if only within the borders of one eparchy, recently expanded by the Khmelnytsky and Vinnytsia eparchies. But the matter lies not only in convincing others: the mission of the Kyiv-Poltava Eparchy lies in protecting from profanity the Ukrainian Mohylan Orthodoxy, embedded in the traditions of Church of Metropolitans Polikarp Sikorsky and Feofil Buldovsky, Patriarchs Mstyslav and Dymytriy, the UOC in USA and the UOC in Canada. And this means to carefully cultivate in one’s daily life the experience of the Ukrainian Church, responsibly meeting today’s challenges.
In this we remain alone in Ukraine. Both UOC-MP and UOC-KP programmatically underline their inherited legacy from the Synod Church and stubbornly spread elements of the Moscow rite and church administration – openly or hidden. The Council of the UAOC in 2000 passed a resolution on “Canonical life of UAOC in Ukraine during 1989-99 and the manner of its enactment” in which there is a clear admission of the non-canonical nature of the act of 1686 of the annexation of the Kyiv Metropolitanate to the Moscow Patriarchate and the subsequent acts of the foreign church administration. However, unfortunately, this, together with other council mandates, has been ignored by the participants of the schism.
Traditions and church canons are very significant elements of Orthodox life. However, they in themselves are not sufficient. Salt by itself is not edible. It only adds taste to food. When the Church lives in the past, closes itself off, cultivates an illusion of completeness, and separates itself from society -- it is abandoning its own mission. The Greek word «απόστολος» means “a messenger.” Christ creates the Church, sending it into the world. He commands: “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations…” (Matthew 28:19); “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature…” (Mark. 16:15). And He advises: “Abide in me, and I in you” (John 15:4). And what does it mean “to be in Christ’? “If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love…” answers the Heavenly Head of the Church.
To obey the commandments and to remain in the love – that is the adequate answer to the call directed at us – to us as a community, to each one of us individually. In addition, to illuminate the world with our love, the world that is deeply inured in disappointment and mistrust.
Without love there is no church community. The eparchy jubilee offers us the opportunity to validly assess the unbelievably significant gift of brotherly love, an experience which God sent us. We rejoice in the eparchial meetings, convocations, hope to continue them, make them more frequent, we willingly attend feast days at one another’s churches; our parish communities are increasingly organizing more bus trips to neighbors or for pilgrimages. This is not our virtue – it is God’s gift. This gift is an unmistaken sign of God’s love and the Church’s identity.
Simultaneously, the bearing of love to one another, to the Church, towards our neighbor, towards our native land is the main mission of the Church. It is through our experience of brotherly love that we discover the Church’s main treasure – God’s love. Therefore, it is in our small, but assembled by Christ’s Love, courageous community that there radiates the true nature of the Church, the Heavenly Kingdom on earth.
Every parish learns in its own way how to implement its calling. Unfortunately, nowhere in our eparchy is there yet a possibility for the daily celebration of the Liturgy; not everywhere are there on-going parochial educational activities – Sunday schools, Bible groups, discussion clubs, gatherings of youth and elderly people. There is no single pattern that can be uniformly applied to all parishes, due to the differences in each parish of its specific composition as well as realistic possibilities. But the basic principle, that of an unending growth in faith, in the knowledge about God, in recognizing in the Church a unique tool of salvation, is alive and should be alive everywhere.
This is the vocation of the pastors who through their own example determine the nature of each of their communities. The dynamic life of a parish begins with constant work on oneself of its spiritual father. Annual meetings of the clergy, which take place during Great Lent, are stimuli towards this work, not a substitute for it. The pastor’s teachings happen every day. The existence of the electronic web, posting rich theological literature, has opened an incredibly vast space for education, for keeping active contact with the whole community. Thankfully, almost all the clerics already have their own e-mails and periodically check the Internet. Some use Facebook. But this does not include all, and there is still room for expansion.
The apostolic mission of the Church is embodied in the service of the words of the bishop, the consistory, educational institutions and lay groups, but mainly – each community. Preaching God’s Word outside of churches happens today through electronic means, newspapers welcoming submissions, such as Nasha Vira [Our Faith] and Uspenska vezha [Tower of the Church of the Dormition], and only from time to time - through other newspapers, radio and television stations. This places a special significance on personal meetings, private conversations, sermons during the celebration of religious services.
Some of our priests work in schools and museums; all of us are in contact with community organizations and political parties. And it is vital that we always remember that every single of our private conversations, each answer to a posed question, may become a kernel from the Biblical parable, which will root within the soul of the person and will produce a rich harvest. And even though it is sometimes difficult, I remind you again and again: it is necessary to have in each parish church or chapel a clear weekly schedule of the availability of the pastor in the church outside of the services, so that a person walking by, can stop in and easily communicate with a priest.
An invaluable treasure of our eparchy is the laity – courageous, perceptive and dignified people, who have testified their perseverance in the struggle to be able to practice their faith according to their own Ukrainian tradition and staunchly withstand great strong psychological, and sometimes also administrative pressure. God sends us trials in order to teach us how to be together, defend one another and forgive each other’s weaknesses. The hierarchical distance between the laity and the clergy in practically all of our communities is overcome by the close family relationships, the solidarity of experiencing joys and sorrows. We rejoice when our faithful from North America or Western Europe, upon arriving in Ukraine, admit that nowhere do they feel as comfortable as in the parishes of the Kharkiv-Poltava Eparchy, given that the lifestyle and liturgical rites are closely similar to that of the Ukrainian Orthodox communities in the diaspora.
Unfortunately, however, our contacts with the Ecumenical Patriarch and Ukrainian Churches in the diaspora remain canonically undetermined -- not through our fault. Already on July 27, 1942 the Kharkiv-Poltava Eparchy made its position clear. We are part of the UAOC, subject to its Primate and the Archiepiscopal Council. Our eparchy was reborn in 1990-92 exactly on the grounds of its uncompromising support of this principle. We did not participate in any schisms caused by the exit of parts of Ukrainian communities from the jurisdiction of the Head of the Church – be it Patriarch Mstyslav or Patriarch Dymytriy, or Metropolitan Konstantyn of eternal memory. With humility and understanding we accept the decision to return under the omophor of the Ecumenical Patriarch of the Churches in Canada, USA and other countries of residency of the faithful; we acknowledge the Council of the Conference of Ukrainian Orthodox Bishops outside of Ukraine as the canonical authority of our eparchy, and our only legal Primate -- the UAOC Metropolitan in diaspora.
However, it would be deceitful to perceive us as passive pilgrims who tie all of their hopes for the future only with the politics of Constantinople or the Ukrainian eparchies subordinated to it. The experience of our churches in diaspora bears witness that mere canonical recognition does not solve the internal problems of the Church, does not stimulate vocations. In caring for canonical recognition, we cannot lose sight of the various everyday problems of the congregation, the pastoral responsibilities of the Church towards God and God’s people. Although we understand: the existence of a self-proclaimed autocephaly of the type of UOC-KP makes sense only in a limited historical period, but cannot define the strategic development of the Church. For the Ukrainian Church this period ended with the entrance of the UAOC in the diaspora under the omophor of the Ecumenical Patriarch in 1995. The road back would be self-destruction or – at best -- a dead end.
However, it is an unforgivable naivety to see the interpretation of the conflicts in the Ukrainian Orthodox community only in the realm of the relationship between Moscow and Constantinople. The Moscow Patriarchate as an essentially imperialist institution in Ukraine does not have a future – except as a stimulus for anti-clerical propaganda. To imagine, that with the cancellation of autocephaly, Orthodox Ukrainians will become parishioners of Moscow churches can only be done by very short-sighted individuals. In contrast to the quite colorless life of the Orthodox jurisdictions in Ukraine, both branches of the Catholic Church are developing dynamically. And the history of the emergence of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church and its incorporation of the Lviv, Peremyshl and Lutsk eparchies demonstrates what kind of danger looms for ecumenical Orthodoxy in the politics of compromises with the religious policies of Moscow. The passivity of Constantinople today again and again reminds Ukrainian Christians of the Eastern Rite of the motives of demarche of the Orthodox bishops who left the jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarch at the end of the sixteenth century to join the Roman hierarch.
However, it is not the Catholic churches or the Protestant denominations that offer a real alternative to Orthodoxy in Ukraine. There are secularization processes that are beginning in the post communist world. The romantic rapture of the religious rebirth is changing into a confessional indifference or even open atheism. And the renunciation by our foreign eparchies or the Constantinople Church Mother of Ukrainian communities which formed themselves as part of the foreign UAOC, would mean a sharp intensification of the secularization processes. And this will undoubtedly leave its mark on the situation of the Orthodox Church in the whole world. The reality of globalization frees us all from the illusions of a flowering of Orthodoxy in a separate closed region – be it Greece, or Ukraine or North America. We are necessary for each other – even if today we look so fragmented. This is worth remembering both in Kyiv, in Istanbul and in Bound Brook.
The Kharkiv-Poltava Eparchy always took a very clear social stand, supporting the closest contacts with the political right. On the other hand, the stance towards us, clearly denoted the political essence of organization or parties. Suffice it, to remember the disgraceful history of “Our Ukraine” and its leader who supported the seizure subjugation of the Patriarchate and the transfer of St. John the Theologian Church in Kharkiv to the UOC-KP. Twice during his presidential term he managed to award the leader of the schism in UAOC “for many years of fruitful toil in church activity, supporting the ideals of spirituality, mercy and harmony in society…” On our own skins we felt the price of the pseudo-patriotic demagogy of Viktor Yushchenko, long before it was discovered by millions of deceived voters of “Our Ukraine.” In contrast, it is with great emotion that we remember the unforgettable Mykola Plaviuk, Yaroslava Stetsko and Viacheslav Chornovil from whom we always felt support and understanding. Our relations with the All-Ukrainian Union “Svoboda” are very positive, namely with their Kharkiv and Luhansk branches.
However, understandable relations with the real right, capable of adhering to preserve proclaimed ideals and in a Christian way build a relationship with partners, do not mean either ingratiating one or political priorities. The mission of the Church is freeing the social consciousness from the ideal expectations of a miracle which comes with the victory of a certain party or bloc. The healing of society begins with our good-willed smile to our neighbor, adherence to traffic laws, cleaning up one’s garbage – with an honest performance of elementary rules of life in a democratic society.
And this means – also the protection of one’s dignity, the dignity of a citizen, a Ukrainian, a Christian. The Church should be an example in procuring this knowledge. This is the way that we see the social calling of the eparchy. It does not propagate a party or a bloc – the Church forms parishioners capable of making conscious and responsible choices.
The Kharkiv-Poltava Eparchy was actually born during a real time of trial – during a bloody war between two totalitarian empires, fighting on our lands. Its spiritual guidance saved from despair thousands and thousands of abandoned Orthodox inhabitants of Sloboda Ukraine, the Poltava region and Donbas. We survived the death of our Metropolitan in a Soviet prison, half a century of repressions, a severe opposition towards spiritual revival from the side of the political fractions of the Empire of Evil. And this experience of witnessing only solidifies our feeling of responsibility for our Christian mission – to be that essential for taste -- morsel of salt -- about which the Savior talks: to create a community capable of becoming the source of experience of solidarity for the nation which is undergoing dramatic aftereffects of its fragmentation. To exist in “brotherly communities” (Acts 2:42), an example of which was left for us by the Sobor of the Saint Apostles whom we revere today.
