EDITORIAL: Man of vision (11/09/97)

EDITORIAL

Man of vision

The first visit to the United States of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew received light press coverage, though his message of spiritual unity and moral revitalization for Orthodox faithful can potentially affect close to 300 million adherents of the Orthodox faith worldwide, including more than 5 million faithful in America. His recent pastoral visit to the Ukrainian Orthodox Archdiocesean Center in South Bound Brook, N.J., gave those present a glimpse of a man with a mission who views this moment in history following the collapse of the religiously hostile Soviet empire in traditionally Orthodox lands as an opportunity to reverse decades of spiritual emptiness and moral decay. And he spoke of unity and reconciliation as essential to spiritual integrity.

Ukrainian Orthodox are of mixed minds on unity: unity of the Orthodox faithful in Ukraine is good; however, unity of the Orthodox faithful in Ukraine with the Russian Church is bad. Spiritual unity with Constantinople for Ukrainian Orthodox in the diaspora is basically good, as long as it leads to eventual reunification with Orthodox in Ukraine in an independent Church; if not, then it's bad. There's a historically justified wariness among many Ukrainian Orthodox that unity is actually a code word for subservience, even annihilation.

It is precisely with this wariness that the patriarch appears to want to grapple - and not only as it concerns the Ukrainian Church. While Ukrainians focus on unity and what it means for us, the patriarch is also speaking to the wariness with which other Orthodox Churches view themselves and each other. The Ukrainian-Russian tension is not the only one in the Orthodox world; deep historic tensions exist between all eight Orthodox patriarchates and within all 15 Churches. (When we asked a Serbian priest attending the event to list the four "ancient" patriarchates, he replied, without missing a beat: "Actually there are five - Constantinople, Antioch, Jerusalem, Alexandria - and Rome.") When the ecumenical patriarch speaks of unity, he is urging all the Orthodox Churches, including the Russian, to focus on Orthodox spirituality and faith, and less on historical animosities and assumed prerogatives.

For those who doubt that change is possible on a spiritual level, they can rest assured that it is possible at least on a secular level. Though most Americans find the concept of a government committee for religious affairs to be weird and ominous, Ukraine, nonetheless, has held on to this Communist-era creation. Viktor Bondarenko, current chairman of the State Committee on Religious Matters, a seemingly pleasant youngish man, brought a greeting from the government of Ukraine. There were many present at the patriarch's dinner, where the greetings were given, who remember an earlier state commitee chairman, the notorious Mykola Kolesnyk, who as recently as 1990 announced with total conviction at conferences in the U.S. that there was not, and never had been, religious repression in the Soviet Union, that religious movements were really nationalist-political fronts, and that the number of true religious believers in Ukraine was no more than several thousand old women. So, it was quite startling to hear the current chairman, Mr. Bondarenko, greet the patriarch warmly and appeal for his support in creating a unified, independent Orthodox Church in Ukraine.

The hierarchs of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church listened closely to the patriarch's words. According to Archbishop Antony, "The patriarch offered in private meetings and public statements great hope about his continued efforts to bring unity and recognition in a 'new situation' in Ukraine. He added, "We all clearly interpret this 'new situation' as the recognized autocephaly of our Ukrainian Orthodox Church. However, as the patriarch said, we will need to help all parties concerned come to the understanding, througout this prolonged and dedicated endeavor, that the new realities in Ukraine demand solutions according to ancient Orthodox tradition - independent churches in independent nations. The spiritual needs of Ukraine's more than 35 million Orthodox Christians can be satisfied and the Church's mission of salvation of souls accomplished by a fully developed and native ecclesiastical structure."

The patriarch is a man of vision - he embraces the third millennium of Christianity as an opportunity for new beginings - and in his pastoral visit gave Ukrainian Orthodox the message that he understands their vision, as well as their pain.

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