On December 8, 2009, a regular hierarchical council of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (UAOC) was held in Kyiv. The council mainly focused on the internal life of the UAOC and also the present church-denominational situation in Ukraine.
The bishops of the UAOC passed two decisions as to negotiations with other Orthodox jurisdictions in Ukraine: to intensify the negotiation process with the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Moscow Patriarchate and to start negotiations with the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Kyivan Patriarchate, for which the council has set up a special committee. At the same time, according to uaoc.net, the beginning of the negotiations with the UOC-KP was conditioned by the demand from the leadership of the UOC-KP to “give up the practice of forcefully seizing churches of the UAOC.”
“At its previous councils, the bishops of the UAOC already considered the issue of the canonical status of Patriarch Filaret (Denysenko) and stressed the inexpediency to introduce today the Eucharistic communion with the bishops of the UOC-KP as long as the UOC-KP is headed by its present head. At the same time, we consider it useful to renew the negotiations between the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church and the UOC-KP. In our opinion, in the present conditions of the negotiation process, the personal question of Filaret may be factored out as this question may lose its urgency with time,” reads the document.
“The renewal of the dialogue between the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church and the UOC-KP at the level of authorized committees, in our opinion, will become possible immediately after representatives of the UOC-KP stop the practice of forcefully seizing our churches on an initiative of that jurisdiction’s hierarchs and with the assistance of local authorities,” specifies the statement.
The document also says that the UAOC sincerely welcomes the beginning of the preparation of the dialogue between the UOC-MP and the UOC-KP even though such a dialogue “in the historic prospective is a choiceless way to restore the church unity.”
The bishops of the UAOC also considered the importance of the Ecumenical Patriarchate for the life of the modern Orthodox Church and Ukrainian Orthodoxy. According to the hierarchs of the UAOC, it is exactly the Constantinople Church, the mother church of the ancient Kyivan Metropolitanate, that is to play the key role in the inter-jurisdictional dialogue and establishment of the unified national church.
“The bishops of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church call the bishops of the UOC-KP and the UOC-MP to a higher level of openness and more systematic cooperation with representatives of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, which is the mother church of the ancient Kyivan Metropolitanate and which, being not involved in the existing conflict, is free from political motivation in its actions. We condemn the ungrounded and politicized criticism of the great Church of Constantinople and His All Holiness Most Holy Patriarch Bartholomew by certain representatives of UOC-KP and UOC [MP],” reads the statement.
“We again remind our fellow hierarchs from the UOC-KP and the UOC-MP that the Ecumenical Patriarch is not only the head of one of the national churches but also the hierarch with the primacy of honor and a number exceptional powers in the Orthodox world, in particular, he is the highest instance of appeal, which is to consider the arguments which arose between the bishops in Ukraine (see Rule 3 and 4 of the Sardician Council (344)),” says the document.
The hierarchs testified that they completely rely on the mother church for specific ways to overcome the consequences of the schism and expect “of His All Holiness Patriarch Bartholomew and the Holy synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate to provide medicine capable of healing the divided Church body.”
The Council also passed a decision to revive the men’s Monastery of St. Michael known since the 13th century in the village of Pidmykhailia of Kalush District, Ivano-Frankivsk Region on the request of Metropolitan Andrii of Halych [Galicia: editor] of the UAOC.