1993: THE YEAR IN REVIEW: Church: divisiveness in Ukraine and abroad (12/26/93)

1993: THE YEAR IN REVIEW

Church: divisiveness in Ukraine and abroad

As religion began to find its place in Ukraine's post-Soviet society, at least three Orthodox Churches began to vie for the attention of more than 30 million believers who consider themselves part of the Orthodox Church. And by the end of the year, two of those Churches had elected new patriarchs.

The Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which gained autonomy but not independence from Moscow in 1992, is led by Metropolitan Volodymyr Sobodan. It has over 6,200 congregations (over 6 million faithful according to the press office), 4,600 churches and 25 bishops in 28 eparchies in Ukraine.

As the successor Church to the Russian Orthodox Church, the only officially recognized Church in the Soviet Union, it still enjoys immense popularity, as many of the "babushkas" never bothered to change allegiance and feel themselves a part of "one great Russian Orthodox Church, one great Slavic Church," which dates back a thousand years. The seat of their Church is in the Monastery of the Caves (Pecherska Lavra) in Kyyiv.

When he arrived in Ukraine from Moscow last year, Metropolitan Volodymyr told reporters he planned to gain full independence from the Moscow Patriarchate, but he was willing to do so only via canonical means at the next Holy Synod, scheduled for 1995.

The second Orthodox Church in Ukraine today is the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Kyyiv Patriarchate, which claims 3,000 congregations (15 million faithful, according to the press office), 2,500 churches and 19 bishops. The Church inherited parish buildings and material resources from Metropolitan Filaret, formerly of the Russian Orthodox Church. It claims the Sobor of St. Sophia, dating back to the 11th century, as its seat.

Although Patriarch Mstyslav was wary of an Orthodox Church headed by a former Russian Orthodox Church official, namely Metropolitan Filaret, the faithful of the Kyyiv Patriarchate regarded Patriarch Mstyslav as their leader.

The 94-year-old patriarch had often repeated that he does not recognize the figures of Filaret and Antoniy, nor the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Kyyiv Patriarchate, which he said was created without his knowledge.

According to UOC-KP activist and member of Parliament Oles Shevchenko, a controversy that unfortunately may never be resolved developed surrounding the UOC-KP and the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church. Mr. Shevchenko said there are two documents attributed to Patriarch Mstyslav. In one, the patriarch declined to accept the decisions of the unifying sobor that created the UOC-KP; in another he blessed the changes in UAOC statutes that form the basis of the UOC-KP's existence.

Nevertheless, just weeks after the patriarch's death, the faithful of the UOC-KP observed the first anniversary of the unifying sobor of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which brought together a faction of the UOC-Moscow Patriarchate with the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church and named a locum tenens of the patriarchal throne. That was Metropolitan Volodymyr, who in October was named patriarch during the Church's sobor. Metropolitan Volodymyr, known among the laity as Vasyl Romaniuk, 67, is a former political prisoner persecuted for his religious beliefs during decades of Soviet repression.

The UOC-KP enjoys the support of the Ukrainian government, which on October 19 sent its envoy, Deputy Prime Minister Mykola Zhulynsky, to meet with the ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew, and delivered a letter asking the primate to recognize the independent Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

The UOC-KP hopes to unite all branches of Ukrainian Orthodoxy into one under the aegis of the Kyyiv Patriarchate, but as of 1993, the three Orthodox Churches had yet to begin discussions on such topics.

The smallest of the three Churches is the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church, which is regarded as uncanonical by the other two, but which has a strong following in western Ukraine.

The UAOC on September 7 elected Archbishop Petro Yarema, 77, of Pereyaslav and Sicheslav to the post of patriarch and successor to Mstyslav I. He took the name of Patriarch Demetriy to lead a Church that claims 1,500 parishes in eight eparchies, with five bishops and 300 priests.

"This is the fourth rebirth our Church is undergoing. We have gathered here to cleanse our Church, to free it from dictatorship," said Patriarch Demetriy.

The Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church continued to promote its teachings in western Ukraine, however, it still experienced resentment and misunderstanding in central and eastern Ukraine.

Today, the UGCC, which was legalized in 1989 after 45 years in the catacombs, thrives in western regions of the country, numbering close to 3,000 congregations, more that 4 million faithful and over 2,200 churches in six eparchies. To date, it has not been officially rehabilitated.

"The Ukrainian Catholic Church's wounds are healing with time," said Cardinal Myroslav Ivan Lubachivsky, who relocated from Rome to Lviv in 1991.

However, it did not seem that Church was getting closer to being granted a Patriarchate, despite the fact that a Patriarchal Curia was named in the summer. "Today our Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church, with its canonically recognized major archbishop, already has the rights of a patriarchal Church. The only thing we are still waiting for is the declaration of the title of patriarch," said a Church spokesmen. "That may come when the Church celebrates the 400th anniversary of the Treaty of Brest [in 1996]," said Cardinal Lubachivsky during a recent interview.

Right now he is dealing with grass-roots problems such as finding priests for the people (there is a shortage of 1,000) and contending with a lack of funds.

Church-state relations are generally getting better, as are Catholic-Orthodox relations on western lands. Unfortunately, there have been a few problems in 1993, including a clash in Kyyiv in the summer, when the leaders of the UGCC arrived in the capital for the groundbreaking of a Greek-Catholic parish in Kyyiv.

A planned liturgy at the Church of St. Kirill did not take place because all entrance gates to the church had been chained and blocked by approximately 100 elderly Orthodox women, who were later identified as members of the UOC-Moscow Patriarchate.

To date, the Greek-Catholic community in Kyyiv does not have its own church to hold services in, but in the eastern regions, the UGCC has close to 40 parishes, including congregations in Yalta, Sevastopil, Vinnytsia, Kamianets-Podilski and Donetske.

Meanwhile, the Roman Catholic Church has three parishes (two churches) in Kyyiv and 374 churches throughout Ukraine, as well as 517 congregations in such areas as Zhytomyr, Kamianets-Podilski, Vinnytsia, the Lviv region and other areas. The Vatican also has a representation in Kyyiv. Also, Cardinal Achille Silvestrini, prefect of the congregation for Eastern Churches, toured Ukraine in October, the first such visit of a prefect to newly independent Ukraine.

Other confessions also flourished in Ukraine, including Evangelical Baptists (1,297 congregations), Pentecostals (790 congregations), Jehovah's Witnesses (409 congregations) and Seventh Day Adventists (326 congregations).

The Hebrew faith also flourished in Ukraine but as The Weekly was going to press, no statistics on these congregations were available.

In the diaspora, too, there was news on the Church front as Patriarch Mstyslav I of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church passed away and new bishops were consecrated for the Ukrainian Catholic Church - one of them amid much controversy.

Mstyslav I, patriarch of Kyyiv and all Ukraine, died on June 11 in Grimsby, Ontario, at the home of relatives. Born Stefan Ivanovych Skrypnyk on April 10, 1898, in Poltava, he was consecrated a bishop in May 1942. He served Ukrainian Orthodoxy in his native Ukraine, and in exile in western Europe, then Canada and the United States. He was responsible for the establishment of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church's worldwide center in South Bound Brook, N.J., and worked toward unifying Ukrainian Orthodox faithful around the globe. On November 16, 1990, he was enthroned as the first patriarch of the reborn Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Ukraine.

Patriarchal funeral rites were offered in South Bound Brook on June 21-23 with Metropolitan Constantine, primate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the U.S.A., as the principal celebrant. Some 3,000 hierarchs, clergy and laity from around the world came to offer their last respects. Among the mourners were representatives from Ukrainian and non-Ukrainian Orthodox Churches as well as the Ukrainian Catholic Church. The patriarch's body was entombed in the crypt of St. Andrew's Memorial Church, an edifice he had built in memory of the victims of the 1932-1933 Great Famine in Ukraine. Patriarch Mstyslav's testament, read at the memorial tryzna after the religious rites were concluded, was an exhortation to unity "for the sake of God, the martyrs of the Church and the people" to achieve the goal of a sovereign Church dependent on no one.

In Canada, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church this year marked its 75th anniversary. The Church dates its beginnings back to July of 1918 in western Canada, when 150 lay delegates gathered in Saskatoon organized the Ukrainian Greek-Orthodox Brotherhood of Canada. In 1990 the UOC was received into eucharistic communion by the Patriarchate of Constantinople. Today the Church has over 120,000 faithful in 275 parishes served by 100 clergy under the leadership of Metropolitan Wasyly Fedak.

Also in Canada, but within the Ukrainian Catholic Church, there was a changing of the guard as Metropolitan Maxim Hermaniuk was succeeded by the Very Rev. Michael Bzdel, a fellow Redemptorist, as primate of the UCC in Canada. Metropolitan Hermaniuk became the first Ukrainian Catholic metropolitan in Canada in 1956. Now 81, he had announced his retirement. The Very Rev. Bzdel, 62, was consecrated a bishop and installed as metropolitan in ceremonies at Ss. Vladimir and Olga Cathedral on March 9. He is the first Canadian-born metropolitan for that country's Ukrainian Catholics.

It was a double consecration ceremony as the Rev. Peter Stasiuk, too, was elevated to the episcopate. The Rev. Stasiuk, 49, director of St. Vladimir's College in Roblin, Manitoba, had been chosen to serve as bishop of the Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy of Australia to succeed Bishop Ivan Prasko, 78, that country's first Ukrainian Catholic bishop, who was retiring due to ill health. Bishop Prasko had been tapped to head the exarchate of the UCC in 1958; in 1982 the exarchate was upgraded to an eparchy. Bishop Stasiuk's territory covers not only Australia, but New Zealand as well as the South Pacific.

Episcopal succession in Toronto, however, was not as smooth.

On December 29, 1992, the Rev. Roman Danylak was appointed apostolic administrator for the Toronto Eparchy. With this move, the Vatican effectively stripped the incumbent eparch, Bishop Isidore Borecky, 82, of his authority by transferring it to an administrator. The Rev. Danylak told The Weekly in January that his appointment stemmed from Rome's resolve to implement the mandatory retirement age of 75 for bishops. Previously, in 1989, an unsuccessful attempt had been made to remove Bishop Borecky from his position at the helm of the Toronto eparchy. Bishop Borecky had claimed at that time that he never submitted his resignation and that he was not bound by the Canon Law for the Eastern Catholic Churches until a coadjutor was named.

In May 1992, Bishop Borecky had requested that the Synod of Ukrainian Bishops name an auxiliary bishop, not a replacement or a successor, and thus the appointment of an administrator was considered by many observers to be in direct contravention to those wishes. A group of clergymen from the Toronto Eparchy in late January deplored the Rev. Danylak's appointment as "a serious breach of normal channels of protocol and relationship between the Roman Apostolic See and the particular Patriarchal Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church."

In late January, the Rev. Danylak sent a circular to all clerics and religious of the eparchy to inform them of his episcopal ordination on March 25 and to assert that all the eparchy's official business would henceforth be handled from the office of the apostolic administrator. Bishop Borecky, meanwhile, continued to act as eparch of Toronto, ordaining priests, calling meetings of the clergy, etc. He refused all press interviews, however.

Some parishioners made known their displeasure with the Vatican's moves, noting that the situation in Toronto seems to parallel damaging policies of Rome toward the Ukrainian Catholic Church in Ukraine and Poland.

On March 24, approximately 110 protesters picketed outside St. Michael's Cathedral in Toronto, site of the Danylak ordination, to protest the Vatican's appointment of an apostolic administrator and its apparent disrespect for the traditions of the Pomisna (Particular) Ukrainian Catholic Church. The next day the Rev. Danylak was consecrated as the titular bishop of Nyssa amid a boycott by some of the eparchy's clergy and Bishop Borecky himself. There was no formal protest action, though one had been threatened.

During the summer, Bishop Borecky attempted to name his own Eparchial Curia. Meanwhile, Bishop Danylak remained in confrontation with many members of the eparchy's clergy, threatening at least one with excommunication for his protests against the Vatican's actions and accusing another of "heretical notions" and of encouraging schism in the eparchy. Thus, at year's end, the situation in the Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy of Toronto is far from resolved.

| Home Page |