Head of World Patriarchal Federation sees no valid reason for inaction on Patriarchate (10/27/96)

Head of World Patriarchal Federation sees no valid reason for inaction on Patriarchate

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

LVIV - Wasyl Kolodchin, head of the Ukrainian World Patriarchal Federation, said on October 10 that he sees no reason, nor valid excuse, why Rome has to this day not recognized a Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Patriarchate. He called the Vatican's failure to act "strictly political" in nature.

"The only hindrance to recognizing a patriarchate is the Moscow Patriarchate (of the Orthodox Church)," explained Mr. Kolodchin. "That's because for some reason in Rome they think that if a Kyiv-Halych Patriarchate of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church is recognized it would be the end of ecumenism, and so they are afraid, and Moscow has taken advantage of that."

Ecumenism is the Vatican Church's term for its effort to repair the almost 1,000-year rift between itself and the Orthodox Churches, which occurred in 1054 when Pope Leo IX excommunicated the eastern patriarch for not adhering to church dogma in what is referred to as the Great Schism.

The Moscow Patriarchate split from the eastern Church of Constantinople in the late 16th century, which in turn stimulated a reunion of a portion of Ukrainian Orthodoxy with the Church of Rome.

Mr. Kolodchin said no reason exists not to recognize a Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Patriarchate after the Second Vatican Council in the early 1960s expressed its desire that the Eastern Churches should form patriarchates. "All the patriarchates in the East, except for the largest and strongest, today have been recognized," explained Mr. Kolodchin, who was in Lviv as representative of the federation during the week of October 4-10 for the Patriarchal Sobor of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church at the invitation of Cardinal Myroslav Ivan Lubachivsky.

The longtime leader of the movement of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church laity for recognition of a Patriarchate, who is a resident of Detroit, was unequivocal in his thought that it is all a matter of Church politics.

Mr. Kolodchin said that for more than 30 years the Catholic Church has come up with one reason after another for denying recognition of a Patriarchate to the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church. "At first it was that you do not have your own territory. Then, after independence, it became that our Church should first re-establish itself in Ukraine. Now it is the ecumenism situation."

The idea of a Patriarchate for the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church was first proposed by Major Archbishop Josyf Slipyj, who arrived in the Vatican in 1963 after spending 18 years in the gulags of the Soviet Union for refusing to denounce the pope and the Catholic Church. Later that year, during a speech before the Second Vatican Council, he proposed a Patriarchate for the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church.

In 1969, at the fourth synod of Ukrainian Greek-Catholic bishops, he declared the Church a Patriarchate and in 1975 accepted the title of Patriarch Josyf I. The Roman Catholic Church has never recognized any of the moves.

Mr. Kolodchin explained that a Patriarchate does not necessarily find its existence in acknowledgment by the Church of Rome but in the attitude of its laity, clergy and bishops. "All the Eastern Churches that were perfected by a patriarchate, were not given it. It began as with us - by a grass-roots movement. And when the movement gained sufficient strength, Rome acknowledged the formally existing patriarchate. We must maintain a strong spine, we must continue to work as a patriarchal Church, and when [Rome is ready] they will acknowledge it."

Will it soon happen to the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church? Mr. Kolodchin remains an optimist. "I think that a Patriarchate will be recognized shortly. It may be a year, it may be more. But I am thoroughly convinced that it will happen," said Mr. Kolodchin.