LETTERS TO THE EDITOR (01/16/00)

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

UOC-U.S.A. responds to patriarch's visit

Dear Editor:

In an article covering Patriarch Filaret's visit to one of our parishes (November 14, 1999) the patriarch's comments concerning the relationship between the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the U.S.A. and the Church in Ukraine, were quoted as follows:

"The question is not about uniting with the Kyiv Patriarchate, you already are part of the Kyiv Patriarchate. The question is that you simply need to confirm this now that the bishops in Bound Brook are trying to divide us, [to confirm] that you are part of the Kyiv Patriarchate - and not 'go over' to something to which you have always belonged."

This is a false and misleading statement designed to serve the purposes of an individual who is attempting to export into the life of our Church here in the United States the very same disunity he created and continues to foster in Ukraine. This head of the present-day Kyiv Patriarchate had absolutely nothing to do with the Sobor of 1990, except for his condemnation of it as the then exarch of the Moscow Patriarchate for Ukraine.

The Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the U.S.A. did not in 1990, and has not since, been united with or come under the authority of any jurisdiction in Ukraine. Patriarch Mstyslav forcefully maintained this position from the day he was elected patriarch of Ukraine through the day he reposed. The letterhead that was utilized by Patriarch Mstyslav throughout his reign clearly indicates that he considered himself to be patriarch of Ukraine and metropolitan of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the U.S.A.

In statements issued October 20 and 25, 1992, Patriarch Mstyslav denounced the unification of some hierarchs of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church in Ukraine (UOAC) with then Metropolitan Filaret and another hierarch of the Moscow Patriarchate in Ukraine into a new entity called the Ukrainian Orthodox Church - Kyiv Patriarchate (UOC-KP). This was a unification effected by Metropolitan Filaret with the cooperation and coercion of the Ukrainian government in June 1992. The fact that this unification was not accepted was evidenced during the funeral of Patriarch Mstyslav in June 1993. His funeral was attended by delegations from both the UAOC and the UOC-KP in the persons of Archbishop Petro (UAOC) and Bishop Roman (UOC-KP), each proclaiming his to be the legitimate successor jurisdiction to the Church of Patriarch Mstyslav.

The unification of our Church in the United States with any ecclesiastical body in Ukraine has never been proposed at any meeting of the Council of Bishops, Metropolitan Council or Sobor of our Church since the rebirth of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church in Ukraine. Therefore, we reject Patriarch Filaret's claim that the entire diaspora lies under his jurisdiction. We further deplore his interference in the life of our Church here in the United States, Canada, Western Europe and Australia/New Zealand, just as the Permanent Conference of Ukrainian Orthodox Bishops beyond the Borders of Ukraine did in 1998 (Ukrainian Orthodox Word - Vol. 5, May-June 1998).

The bishops, clergy and faithful of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the U.S.A. have supported the rebirth of the Church in Ukraine by word and deed to an unheard of extent since 1989, including various institutions of the Kyiv Patriarchate since its inception. Patriarch Filaret has never declined any of the assistance we provided. His current divisive actions "in gratitude" for our support speak volumes about personal character and motivation!

Perhaps Patriarch Filaret should spend as much time concentrating on the unity of Church life in Ukraine as he does disrupting the life of the Church in the diaspora by deliberately disseminating "disinformation" among the faithful - a leftover technique from Soviet times. Our Church in the diaspora continues to call for the abandonment of personal greed and ambition by individual Church leaders in Ukraine and for a concerted effort to unite into a single Ukrainian Orthodox Church - as did Patriarch Mstyslav in his last will and testament. Only united can the Church become the moral conscience of the nation and expect the allegiance of Ukrainian Orthodox faithful throughout the world.

The Very Rev. Frank Estocin
South Bound Brook, N.J.

The writer is secretary of the Consistory of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the U.S.A., Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople.

Ukrainians should look towards unity of Churches

Dear Editor:

The Ukrainian Weekly should be commended not only for in-depth coverage of developments in the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the United States of America (UOC/U.S.A.) but also for its increasing coverage of religious issues in general. This is an important subject, because religion is being used more and more as a tool of geopolitical manipulation that impacts us all in a significant way.

It is important also to your readers, because such manipulations by foreign religious potentates are usually directed against Ukrainian national interests. For example, Moscow's patriarch recently rejected a meeting with the Pope John Paul II on the following grounds: "How can one speak of sisterly relations (with Rome) when in western Ukraine, on the wave of nationalism, parishioners are being thrown out of churches, priests beaten up and holy places are desecrated?" (AOL News, November 20, 1999). This is the same patriarch who on November 12 blessed the genocide in Chechnya: "The Russian Orthodox Church supports the anti-terrorist aims that the Russian state authorities have set before the army and the law enforcement" (Russian Orthodox News).

Patriarch Filaret of Kyiv was quoted recently in The Ukrainian Weekly: "Today the Kyiv Patriarchate is surrounded by enemies from all sides. Earlier we had only one enemy - Moscow. Now we have Moscow, Constantinople and Bound Brook." The patriarch, of course, is right, and his list of enemies is by no means complete.

In a way none of this should be surprising, since the concept of a strong, independent and united Ukrainian Church in one of the largest of Christian nation's contrary to the strategic interests of foreign religious potentates. They have effectively used religious issues as a tool of divisiveness and subjugation of Ukrainians since the 16th century. So, after all that success, why change now?

Perhaps we should pay attention to what Roma Hayda, in addressing Patriarch Filaret of Kyiv on behalf of the Ukrainian's National Women's League of America, stated at a recent reception in Connecticut: "We must remember that the culture we sustain is rooted in Kyivan Christian tradition, belonging to an age before our Churches were separate. We need to explore the depth of our heritage, find strength internally in the Kyivan tradition, which is the basis of Ukrainian culture."

Both the Orthodox and Catholic branches of Ukrainian Christianity are in a state of flux today and undergoing major structural and philosophical changes. Philosophical changes in the religious landscape are a search for common religious roots in the Kyivan Church, the Mother Church of both Orthodox and Greek-Catholic Ukrainians. There is an emerging recognition that the humanistic traditions of Kyivan Christianity are distinct and different from the foreign absolutism of Roman Catholicism and the formalism and monarchism of Byzantium's Orthodoxy. It seems that the future of Christianity in Ukraine and in the diaspora lies in the native roots of the Kyivan Church, rather than in foreign imports.

The driving force behind this sea of changes in religious life is the emergence of the independent Ukrainian state, religious freedom in Ukraine, and the resurrection of the Ukrainian Orthodox and Ukrainian Catholic Churches formerly suppressed by Russian imperialism. These historic events promise a renaissance of Christianity in Ukraine.

Such a renaissance can be based only on the humanitarian traditions of the Kyivan Church. The recent elections in Ukraine demonstrated that there is no return to the Communist past. There will be also no return to past exploitation of Ukraine by hierarchs of Moscow, Constantinople or Rome.

The Orthodox and Greek-Catholic laity in the diaspora are beginning to play an increasingly significant role in this process of change. Brought up in the Western traditions of individual action and responsibility, they are not blindly obedient to Church hierarchy. They understand that Church affairs are too important to all of us to be left to bishops alone.

Perhaps Alexander Pryshlak, addressing Patriarch Filaret on behalf of the Ukrainian Patriarchal Society of the U.S.A., summed it up best. Referring to the ideal of the late Patriarch Josyf Slipyj in creating one, unified Ukrainian Church, he stated: "This will require tolerance, yet we all live with the idea of the unity of all the Ukrainian Churches."

Yes, tolerance and striving for unity should be the guiding words in our religious life.

Ihor Lysyj
Austin, Texas

Independent Church in Ukraine threat to many

Dear Editor:

Thank you to The Ukrainian Weekly for the recent article about Patriarch Filaret's pastoral visit to his parishes in America and also for the interesting article about the lawsuit filed against the faithful by one of the South Bound Brook bishops. The Orthodox Church in Ukraine is certainly undergoing a great deal of assault as it struggles to gain its independence. For example, in recent years it has suffered the attack by the Berkut special forces during the late Patriarch Volodymyr's funeral procession in July 1995; the notorious insult to all Ukrainians by the ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople on September 24, 1997, when he met with the Moscow patriarch on Ukrainian soil and proclaimed that the only Ukrainian Orthodox Church that Constantinople recognizes is the one that is loyal to Moscow; the attack on Archbishop Adrian and a small group of Ukrainian Orthodox faithful - including children - by the Russian authorities in Noginsk, Russia (near Moscow) in October 1997; the assassination attempt on Patriarch Filaret in 1997 when a radio-controlled plastic explosive was discovered in a Kyiv monastery he was planning to visit (note: two priests and a church activist were murdered about the same time); the anathema leveled against Patriarch Filaret (and the Kyivan Patriarchate) on March 8, 1998, by the bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church inside Ukraine (a.k.a. "Ukrainian Orthodox Church - Moscow Patriarchate"); and the attack on Patriarch Filaret and a small congregation of parishioners in the Donetsk Oblast city of Mariupol, during the consecration of a new Ukrainian Orthodox Church on April 30, 1999.

Yet, in all of this, we wrestle not against flesh and blood, "but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places." (Ephesians 6:12) This is not simply a case of "Church politics," rather, this is a spiritual battle. It is a continuation of the same war Metropolitan Vasyl Lypkivsky and his bishops fought in the 1920s when they, with many others, bravely laid the foundation for an independent Orthodox Church in Ukraine.

I had the good pleasure of visiting my relatives in Ukraine over the Christmas holidays last year. My father and I were blessed to have spent several days with Patriarch Filaret (and the Rev. Dimitri - who was beaten with a pipe in the most recent attack on April 30, 1999) and to have seen the tremendous work the Church is doing. The patriarch spends much of his time leading the faithful in the various divine worship services, as well as instructing 300-plus seminarians.

We met several of these fine young men. We also had the distinct pleasure of meeting another bishop of the Kyiv Patriarchate - a man who had spent a decade in Siberia due to his love of freedom. These brothers and sisters of the UOC-KP deserve and have my respect. I will not turn my back on them - or worse, join in the attack on them.

Before Ukraine gained independence, Patriarch Filaret was one of the highest-ranking bishops in the Russian Orthodox Church. Indeed, he was one of only three candidates for the leadership of the Moscow Patriarchate itself. Therefore, his renunciation of the Russian Orthodox Church and its Communist ties and immediate move to the newly resurrected Ukrainian Orthodox Church was a severe blow to Moscow. True to form, Moscow went on the attack, beginning with character assassination of the patriarch, then the deceptive name-change of its Church in Ukraine, and, most recently, with physical violence.

Patriarch Filaret is first and foremost a bishop of the Holy Orthodox Church, continually "rightly dividing the word of (Christ's) truth." He certainly is not perfect. However, he has repented and even has suffered personal physical attacks on several occasions due to the threat he and the Ukrainian Church (Kyiv Patriarchate) pose to the still-very-much-alive Soviet Church.

Ukraine finally is free. It is only a matter of time before the Ukrainian Orthodox Church is also free.

Nicholas Zabrodsky
Lansing, Mich.

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