NEWS AND VIEWS

A delegate's view of the UOC's 14th Sobor and the "omophor" issue

by Peter Paluch

Having followed the discussion on this newspaper's pages concerning the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, I would like to refer to the piece that evoked such a great response over the past several months: the Rev. John Nakonachny's letter to The Weekly. He and others have been invoking the 14th Sobor held in October 1995 and claiming that the fate of our Church was deliberated and decided in the affirmative at that conclave. Many readers accept this "logical" supposition because it was so often claimed by South Bound Brook. Readers, and especially the faithful of our Church, need to know that the issue of accepting the omophor of Constantinople itself was never debated, nor was it approved by the 14th Sobor.

When word of the omophor first leaked out in 1995, some individuals questioned not the omophor itself, but the terms and means of its implementation. Our leaders remained silent and, when pressed, they responded through proxies. The response was always imperious and caustic - never explanatory nor conciliatory. Instead of providing a clarification, the designated hitters hurled names and accusations at anyone who dared to seek an explanation, labeling them mavericks, traitors to the Church, perennial troublemakers, collaborators with Ukraine's enemies, heretics, and worse.

A loyal opposition was reluctanly formed. Activities of the loyal opposition were not commenced in glee, as the Rev. Nakonachny once expressed. No one then, nor anyone now, seeks to inflict harm. We simply seek an explanation and an accounting of the facts.

The process began with a letter to Metropolitan Constantine, that asked him to clarify rumors circulating among the faithful. Unfortunately, our metropolitan did not think us worthy of a response. The long silence and subsequent vituperative response drew the attention of others who, until then, showed no concern over the issue. As time passed, news leaks began to trickle out, the silence of our Church leaders became telling, and the tales they told were very troubling indeed. The circle of concerned faithful began to grow, and still, the nagging questions went unanswered. Our Church leaders grew even more obstinate.

A group of faithful at the two Clifton, N.J., parishes organized an ad-hoc committee to seek answers. The Rev. Nakonachny's casual dismissal of that group as being longtime troublemakers for our Church leadership is a feeble effort to dodge the essence of this controversy, which is: Are the faithful of our Church entitled to an answer, honest and forthright, from their leaders? Is our metropolitan beyond reproach; should he be inaccessible to his flock; is he infallible?

If this omophor was all that our previous leaders had sought, if it was good and desirable, then why not parade it through all our parishes, on a pedestal, giving us all an opportunity to praise the Lord and thank our leaders? And further, if all that was circulating throughout the Eastern Orthodox community was indeed false, then why not lay the facts bare? This would stop the debate cold in its tracks.

The Rev. Nakonachny's name-calling is painfully cruel. Most of us who are involved in this quest for truth welcomed the initial news that there was a rapprochement between our Churches. Because I had close friends in the delegation that traveled to Istanbul in early 1995 for a meeting with the ecumenical patriarch, I saw them off at Newark International Airport. We were all flush with expectation. My fellow faithful and I had no idea that our venerable entourage would return, Trojan horse in tow, violating their oath and our collective sanctuary.

So, then, who did what to whom? Who is entitled to object, and who deserves an explanation? Throughout our period of activity, we went to great lengths to avoid extremes. All our work was public and forthright. No one in South Bound Brook or beyond was excluded, regardless of their alignment. All mailings were sent to every priest, every parish; and a copy of all our mailings went to the Consistory. Often we first mailed the contents to the Consistory and waited for a response before we distributed our information to the broader public. We felt that if our Church leaders were not up to the task, if it was inconvenient for them to spearhead the debate, then they should not object to someone else fulfilling that responsibility on their behalf. It would provide our faithful the opportunity to examine the issue.

Not so! The Rev. Nakonachny's reference to the clandestine meeting in Clifton illustrates his quandary. If indeed it was meant to be an evil, conspiratorial plot, then how is it that the Consistory was so well represented at that Clifton meeting of "mavericks?" An invitation was sent to the Consistory, Metropolitan Constantine and Archbishop Antony. In attendance were the president of the Consistory, the Rev. William Diakiw; a member of the Metropolitan Council and an executive of the Senior Ukrainian Orthodox League, Emil Skocypec; the Rev. Myron Oryhon's wife, Linda, and the Rev. Oryhon's mother-in-law. They did their level best to defend the circled wagons.

The Rev. Nakonachny's reference to shoddy treatment or underhanded tactics is intentionally malicious. He knows full well that if the Consistory's point of view emerged battered and torn, it was not because someone blind-sided it at the church hall but, rather, because it fell flat on its face. They made a great effort, but like the Rev. Nakonachny, they had nothing more to offer than the references to uncanonical status and the mantra "trust our leaders." They had ample time and opportunity to argue their case - far more than the loyal opposition was given at the 14th Sobor. So, unable to have their way, shepherds of the flock threatened both clergy and laity with expulsion if anyone broke ranks.

* * *

I went to the 14th Sobor cheered by the prospect of an imminent forum for our cause.

Spotting me from the dais, Archbishop Antony made a beeline to meet me at the entrance. The archbishop shook a fistful of papers in my face and in a fit of anger declared, "if you don't stop passing this stuff around, I'll have you thrown out of the hall. I responded with "Slava Isusu Khrystu" and suggested that he do what he must do because I will do what I must.

The Rev. Nakonachny's claim that the issue of the omophor was freely discussed and overtly accepted by the Sobor is disingenuous to say the least. He presided over the general session, and Dr. Anatolij Lysyj sat at the dais along with a distinguished panel of laity and clergy. I made a motion to allocate time for the deliberation of the omophor. The motion was met with a hue and cry of "no" by what seemed like a well-coordinated bloc of opposition. The motion was voted down quickly and the deliberation was relegated to a Committee on Inter-Church Relations, not as "the acceptance of the omophor" but rather as an earlier "resolution" from the Metropolitan Council and a statement of the Council of Bishops. It was on the strength of assurances from these two bodies that the Constantinople deal had been hyped to the faithful.

The Sobor "resolution" later incorporated those assurances as the preconditions to the omophor. There has been no evidence that Patriarch Bartholomew agreed to those preconditions, rendering the much-ballyhooed omophor void and canceled.

Meanwhile, at the sparsely attended meeting of the Committee on Inter-Church Relations, Archbishop Antony was featured as the authority on the subject. Over a protracted period of time in which the question of the omophor was to be explained, the archbishop did all he could to deny that any agreement had been signed in Istanbul and that the resolutions of the Metropolitan Council were to be the governing document in our church relations. There were no other documents of agreement, and nothing - he repeatedly emphasized, nothing - was signed in Istanbul.

If there were no other terms, and the governing agreement would be the council resolution, then why object? At that point, Metropolitan Constantine walked into the committee and announced that he was ready to answer any questions concerning the omophor, because he was one of the two principals in the agreement. I commenced with the same series of questions I had asked Archbishop Antony. The response was equally protracted and adamant. Exhausted, Metropolitan Constantine blurted out that we, the Sobor that is, must approve the omophor.

I raised my eyebrows and asked: Must? Why must? Besides, the committee was not deliberating the omophor, the committee was asked to review and approve the resolutions of the Metropolitan Council. It appeared to me to be the beginning of the process of negotiations, which if accepted by the ecumenical patriarch, would lead to the granting of the omophor.

The metropolitan responded with: No! We must approve this issue because we made commitments. We promised.

I suggested: You promised to do your best to lobby for this issue, committed to promoting it among your faithful. Surely Patriarch Bartholomew knows that our Church is "sobornopravna" (self-governing) and no agreement can be binding without the Sobor voting on it and passing it? He cannot blame you for trying and, if it does not pass, we can shake hands, part company and resume talks again at some later date. God knows, Your Eminence, you did your best.

At that point the metropolitan revealed a sense of panic and said: Well if you are going to be so difficult, you can talk as much as you like. It really does not matter what you decide here.

I followed: It doesn't matter what we decide here? Why not?

He responded: Because we made commitments and nothing you do here can change that.

I returned: I presume you mean a commitment to work for the agreement. To sell your people on the agreement. These things take time, no one can be sure when and how they will pass. I'm sure that the ecumenical patriarch understands this. He is always negotiating with one or another group, and some negotiations take years to conclude.

The metropolitan, at this point, visibly anxious, said: It doesn't matter, I tell you. You can talk all you want. We are committed.

Finally, I said: If it does not matter what we say here, and what we decide here, Your Eminence, then why are we even here? If you claim that we are committed, then you must have reached a binding agreement in Istanbul. Your Eminence, I ask you once again, did you sign any document in Istanbul, regardless of what you call it?

At that point, Metropolitan Constantine dropped his head and mumbled: Yes, I signed. Archbishop Antony, seated next to him, dropped his head into his hands in disbelief. I thanked the metropolitan for his candor and sat down.

Unfortunately, this exchange confirmed the irrelevance of the earlier resolutions of the Metropolitan Council and Council of Bishops statement that were crafted to placate the masses.

The two most difficult issues for the ecumenical patriarch are our autocephaly and our "sobornopravnist" (self-governance). We are the only Church that has both independence and self-governance, with both clergy and laity having a say in how the Church is administered - the Church, mind you, not the faith. Churches that enjoy self-rule do not care about recognition, they understand the inherent contradiction, and they seek to satisfy the needs of their flock, not some distant potentate.

Ukrainians, after centuries of wrestling with the issue, are still unable to recognize this oxymoron.

This quandary appears to be a uniquely Ukrainian syndrome and afflicts other Ukrainian Churches as well. A patriarchate establishes autocephaly (independence). Independence in both Church and state is rarely granted, it is almost always won in conflict, bloody or bloodless. One doesn't ask for it, one takes it. Witness the Roman papacy braking away from the five patriarchates that constituted the original Church. They went on to build the Holy Roman Empire. Martin Luther ushered in the age of reformation. Henry VII who declared independence for his Church and proclaimed himself head of the Church of England. Tsar Theodore I of Moscow pilfered our legacy and constructed a huge empire with no small thanks to our very own mercenary clerics. All of the above were "samosviaty" - all were non-canonical at the time, and none the worse for their bold decisions. All went on to enjoy fantastic success both for their Churches and their people, and all, in due time, became legitimate, recognized and canonical on their own terms. Even poor battered Bulgaria eventually gained recognition and canonical standing.

The recognition of an independent ecclesiastic entity is a difficult issue for any patriarch. In our case, it is doubly so. The other sticky issue for any patriarch is our governance by clergy and laity. Many Churches are now struggling to adopt reforms that would give lay members a voice. Ours is the only Church that has a long tradition and a recognized precedent. We are not self-ruling with lay influence because of a recent trend, as the Rev. Nakonachny fallaciously implies in the little cameo at the end of his letter. We were such at the very beginning. When St. Volodymyr established our Church, he demanded and received that right from the Ecumenical Patriarchate in 988. For seven centuries we and our tradition of self-governance were recognized by all of Christendom.

One of the casualties resulting from the 1686 sale of our Church by the ecumenical patriarch to the Moscow Patriarchate was the destruction of our independence and our way of governing ourselves. The sale resolved a long-festering problem that the ecumenical patriarch could not resolve on his own. Our Ukrainian Church never fit the traditional mold required by Eastern Orthodox or Western Latin traditions. So why would the ecumenical patriarch agree to recreate this problem in 1995, after being free of it for over 300 years? Whatever the agreement reached in Istanbul, it would have to satisfy these concerns.

Considering the intricacies and the seemingly recondite nature of these issues, how is it possible that our clergy could wrap this all up in one brief trip to the Phanar? The answer is frighteningly obvious: They either did not understand the core issues of what our Church is all about, or they sold us out.

Notwithstanding the Rev. Nakonachny's claim that our 14th Sobor was a model of democracy, one would be hard-pressed to call it a Sobor at all. Furthermore, that specious parliamentary maneuver failed to draw a single note of protest from our distinguished panel of leaders and dignitaries. Proponents of the omophor rejoiced at the successful show of force, but few paid any attention to the blatant contradiction, a contradiction of both the letter and the spirit of our constitution. It was a betrayal of the mandate that every delegate carried into the Sobor and the mandate this generation received from its predecessor. To many at the Sobor this seemed innocent enough. Some may have viewed it as a mere flexing of the establishment's muscle.

It was not until well after the 14th Sobor that many of our faithful belatedly realized that the deal struck by our hierarchs was never meant to be deliberated, because it could not be. The defeat of the motion to debate the merits of the omophor was an absolute necessity, no matter the cost, manipulation or fraud practiced on the delegates and our Church. However, it is only the first installment of what is to come if the proposed changes to our Constitution are approved.

For all the doubting Thomases among us, and the blind who refuse to see, I refer you to the Greek Orthodox Church in America, and its blissful omophor under the ecumenical patriarch: see the Cleveland Plain Dealer, March 28, 1998, and the Chicago Tribune, March 22, 1998.

Peter Paluch of Rutherford, N.J., was a delegate to the 14th Sobor of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the U.S.A.

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, October 4, 1998, No. 40, Vol. LXVI

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