If the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) insists that it can become a truly patriotic and national Ukrainian Church that defies and denounces Moscow’s war against Ukraine, and the Moscow Patriarchate’s craven acquiescence, without leaving that Patriarchate – then it should do so.

On September 22, 2015, Metropolitan Antony (Pakanych) of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) addressed a group of mostly Austrian journalists visiting Ukraine. His accusations about the alleged actions of  the Ukrainian Greco-Catholic Church during the Russian war against Ukraine prompted a reply the following month by Major Archbishop Sviatoslav in an interview with Kathpress. In response to that interview -- where he spoke in Ukrainian, but which was reported in German -- the Department of External Church Relations (DECR) of the Russian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) issued a “strong protest” on October 23.

According to the DECR statement, Patriarch Sviatoslav’s interview was “imbued with aggression against the Russian Orthodox Church and contains attacks on the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church, as well as politicized opinions on the tragedy unfolding in Ukraine today and insults to the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia.”

Those interested in testing the truth of these allegations can read the original interview in Kathpress. But a few other aspects of the DECR statement are worth noting.

It refers to a 1990 declaration by members of the  Joint Commission for Orthodox-Catholic Dialogue to the effect that “uniatism” was rejected “as a method for the search for unity.” It also refers to the Commission’s 1993 Balamand statement “Uniatism, Method of Union of the Past, and the Present Search  for Full Communion,” which said that uniatism “cannot be accepted either as a method to follow or as a model for the unity which is being sought by our Churches.” The DECR claims that these statements have had no effect on the “rhetoric” of Ukrainian Greco-Catholic Church leaders.

In fact, “uniatism” was condemned by Cyril Korolevsky (Fr. François Charon), a friend and collaborator of Ukrainian Greco-Catholic Metropolitan Andrei Sheptytsky, in an article published in the Belgian journal “Irénikon” in 1927. “L’Uniatisme” has been published in both English and Ukrainian translations, and is thus well known. Understood as an excessive deference to Latin-rite Catholic models along with a condescending attitude towards the Orthodox Churches, uniatism has long been rejected by the Ukrainian Greco-Catholic Church. Understood as a method of union with the Roman Catholic Church, by which the Orthodox simply submitted to papal authority, uniatism belongs to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. No one in the UGCC seriously proposes it as a method of union today. It is thus difficult to see what kind of “effect” the Joint Commission’s statements from the 1990s are supposed to have on the UGCC’s contemporary “rhetoric.” The DECR has put up a straw man and is assiduously jousting with him.

As for the implication that Eastern Catholic Churches founded by means of historical uniatism have no right to exist – first of all, the Balamand statement that the DECR quotes makes it clear (at no. 16) that today’s Eastern Catholic Churches have the right not only to exist, but to participate in the Catholic-Orthodox dialogue. Second, if questionable historical origins disqualify contemporary church structures, then the Moscow Patriarchate, founded in 1589 through “methods of the past” like bribery and intimidation, should be dissolved.

The ROC’s DECR also claims that “the dependence of the Ukrainian Greco-Catholic Church on the Roman See is more direct and immediate than the dependence of the UOC on the Moscow Patriarchate, which is merely of a spiritual nature.” It goes on to say that the UOC is “independent” of the Moscow Patriarchate in administrative and financial matters, and that the only way the spiritual ties between them are manifested is that the Patriarch is commemorated at UOC parishes, and approves the election of a new Metropolitan of Kiev and All Ukraine.

This last detail is, of course, significant. Despite the DECR’s characterization of the UOC’s relationship with Moscow as purely “spiritual,” preserving its administrative “independence,” the latter’s control over the Kievan Metropolitanate is real and determinative. That, after all, is why its former Exarch for Ukraine, Metropolitan Filaret of Kyiv, who had unsuccessfully sought autocephaly (independence) for the Ukrainian Church, was removed from office and deprived of all ecclesiastical status. (He now heads the “uncanonical” Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kievan Patriarchate.) That is why a Kievan Metropolitan who unreservedly supports his people’s right to ecclesiastical as well as political independence cannot be elected in the UOC. 

The DECR’s comparison of Moscow’s relationship to the UOC with the Pope’s direct jurisdiction over the UGCC in matters of discipline and government is ill-conceived. The DECR points out that according to the dogmatic constitution “Pastor Aeternus” of the First Vatican Council, the Roman Church possesses a “pre-eminence of ordinary power” (ordinariae potestatis principatum) over every other Church – a jurisdictional power  which is both episcopal and immediate. Clergy and faithful must submit to this power not only in matters of faith and morals, but in those regarding the discipline and government of the Church throughout the world. The DECR concludes from this that the logic of Sviatoslav’s argument would require the Ukrainian Greco-Catholic Church, in order to become truly national and patriotic, to “secede from the Pope.” For as things are,  the UGCC is in “direct administrative dependence” on him. After all, it points out, Sviatoslav had criticized the Pope’s position on the conflict in Ukraine. Yet Sviatoslav thinks that the UOC would have to secede from the Moscow Patriarchate, to which it is linked “only by spiritual and prayerful bonds,” in order to call itself a “national and patriotic Church.” But Sviatoslav was simply referring to the well-known fact, demonstrated above, that this Church is effectively controlled by Moscow, and to the common-sense conclusion that a Church controlled by a foreign center that is at war with this Church’s people can hardly pretend to be national and patriotic. Patriarch Sviatoslav’s criticism of Pope Francis’ characterization of the conflict in Ukraine in no way violates or even challenges papal jurisdictional power. He does not need to “secede from the Pope” in order to lead a patriotic, national Church. Under the Catholic principle of subsidiarity, such matters are left to the local Church.

If, however, the UOC insists that it can become a truly patriotic and national Ukrainian Church that defies and denounces Moscow’s war against Ukraine, and the Moscow Patriarchate’s craven acquiescence, without leaving that Patriarchate – then it should do so.

Condemning the UGCC’s “rhetoric,”  the DECR ends its statement by calling for peace in Ukraine. But that, too, is rhetoric. Calls for peace ring hollow unless one is willing to name the aggressor and demand that he stop. And this the UOC will not do.

Andrew Sorokowski