Orthodox parishes in the U.S. ask to join Kyiv Patriarchate (07/19/98)

Orthodox parishes in the U.S. ask to join Kyiv Patriarchate

by Irene Jarosewich

PARSIPPANY, N.J. - The division among Ukrainian Orthodox faithful in the U.S. regarding the vision and future of their Church deepened recently when the request of several parishes in the U.S. to be accepted under the omophorion of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church - Kyiv Patriarchate (UOC-KP) was granted. On May 29, at a meeting of the Synod of the Kyiv Patriarchate, a statement was issued officially accepting the parishes of St. Sophia of Chicago, St. Stephen Church of the Millennium of Brunswick, Ohio, and St. Nicholas of Cooper City, Fla., under the jurisdiction of Kyiv.

On July 12-13, via teleconference that hooked up clergy and representatives of the parish councils of the three parishes, The Committee of Ukrainian Orthodox Parishes of the Kyiv Patriarchate, a new Church structure, was established and the Rt. Rev. Stephan Posakiwsky appointed its administrator. A fourth parish, Holy Trinity of North Royalton, Ohio, which was accepted by Kyiv shortly after the first three, was also included in the new organization.

Though individual parishes on separate occasions had appealed to Patriarch Filaret of the UOC-KP to accept diaspora parishes, an organized request from several parishes was submitted this past spring from an ad hoc coalition of parish councils, The All-Ukrainian Committee "Coalition of Parishes in the Diaspora for the Kyiv Patriarchate," which had been founded in 1997, and is headed by Wasyl Kosohor of Chicago.

According to the Rev. Posakiwsky, the decision of the parishes to leave the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the U.S.A. was due to the "betrayal of the clergy and faithful by the hierarchs of the UOC-U.S.A., who promised loyalty to Constantinople."

"They did this beyond the knowledge of our faithful and clergy," he continued, "we are, our Church is, 'sobornopravna' [governed by hierarchs, clergy and laity]. Only our bishops joined Constantinople - they gave [Patriarch] Bartholomew their approval, they did not give him our approval."

According to Lubomyr Husak, head of the St. Nicholas Parish Council, "Our parish changed its parish statute in February, so that the spiritual alliance is determined by the parish. For almost two years we have been discussing this move. Bound Brook acted outside authority of the existing statute in 1995 when it went to Constantinople."

Both Mr. Husak and the Rev. Posakiwsky claim that the decision of the hierarchs of the UOC-U.S.A. to join with Patriarch Bartholomew is not only an issue of breached loyalty, but brings with it a host of questions, such as: the disposition of Church property; allocation of parish and Church funds; the right of liturgical concelebration with hierarchs and clergy from the various Orthodox Churches in Ukraine; church governance; and the form and nature of the relations among the hierarchs, clergy and laity, none of which were fully answered.

The Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Canada accepted the omophorion of Constantinople in 1990, but, claims Mr. Husak, "They had a reason. There was no independent Ukraine at the time. ... Their Sobor voted to change their statute, and then went to Constantinople. Beforehand, they printed in full the proposed agreement. In the U.S., it's the opposite. The full text of the official agreement was never published."

The Ukrainian Orthodox hierarchs in the West responded to the May 29 statement made by the Sobor of the Kyiv Patriarchate with their own statement issued from the third annual meeting of the Permanent Conference of Ukrainian Orthodox Bishops Beyond the Borders of Ukraine, held June 12-14 in Winnipeg.

The hierarchs categorically deny that they ever agreed to not promote the autocephaly of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Ukraine - a denial in response to accusations that have been leveled at the bishops by the Kyiv Patriarchate, as well as faithful in the U.S., based on a ubiquitous document, the so-called Protocol 937.

The protocol, ostensibly a letter from Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople to Patriarch Aleksei of Moscow, states that Ukrainian Orthodox bishops, as part of their agreement with Constantinople, agree to refrain from advocating an independent Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Ukraine. The protocol, dated June 11, 1995, appeared on the Internet on the website of the Orthodox Press Service.

The bishops of the Permanent Council remind the Kyiv Patriarchate that an original of the alleged document has never been provided and in their statement allude to the possibility that the document could be viewed as deliberate misinformation. The bishops claim that they have not swayed from their position of convincing the leaders of world Orthodoxy of the right of Ukrainian Orthodox for an independent Church in Ukraine.

The bishops' statement of June 14 also addresses the inconsistencies in the actions of the Kyiv Patriarchate, most notably in efforts to create a unified Church in Ukraine, as well as the hostile attitude of the Kyiv Patriarchate towards the hierarchs of the Church in the West.

The statement calls into question the wisdom, legality and canonical status of the action taken by the Kyiv Patriarchate in accepting the parishes from the West - none of which have yet been officially released from the UOC-U.S.A. In fact, the bishops from the West request that the Synod of the Kyiv Patriarchate rescind its May 29 decision regarding the U.S. parishes and that it provide a written statement promising that in the future it will not accept parishes from the West and will focus exclusively on creating a unified Church in Ukraine.

However, organizers of the movement in the U.S. to unite with the Kyiv Patriarchate, such as Messrs. Husak and Kosohor, and the Rev. Posakiwsky, remain undeterred. The Rev. Posakiwsky said he believes many more parishes in the U.S. will join the movement to unite with the Kyiv Patriarchate.

The new committee has already broached the idea of inviting Patriarch Filaret to travel to the U.S. later this fall, after the Sobor in South Bound Brook scheduled for October, and claim to have agreement in principle from the patriarch that he will do so.