Protesters attempt to obstruct pastoral visit by Patriarch Filaret (08/06/00)

Protesters attempt to obstruct pastoral visit by Patriarch Filaret

PARSIPPANY, N.J. - Protesters from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church - Moscow Patriarch (UOC-MP) attempted to obstruct the pastoral visit to Crimea on June 23-25 of the head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church - Kyiv Patriarchate (UOC-KP), Patriarch Filaret (Denysenko).

According to Keston News Service (KNS), the patriarch denies that the demonstrations disrupted his program and claims that he fulfilled everything he planned. The Crimean eparchy of the UOC-KP has several parishes but does not have a bishop and is under the direct supervision of Patriarch Filaret.

Officials of the Crimean eparchy of the rival UOC-MP have denied that they organized protests, describing them as spontaneous expressions of ordinary Church members' feelings. However, according to RFE/RL Poland, Belarus and Ukraine Report, Archbishop Lazar of the UOC-MP eparchy in Crimea issued an appeal prior to Patriarch Filaret's visit that people protest his arrival at the airport in Symferopol. Before the patriarch's visit, posters were put up in the UOC-MP's churches in Symferopol and throughout Crimea declaring that Crimea was not a place for the "schismatic." [Patriarch Filaret once belonged to the Russian Orthodox Church and was a metropolitan of the UOC-MP, but was anathematised by the Rusian Orthodox Church and labeled a "schismatic" after he was elected patriarch of the competing UOC-KP-ed.]

According to KNS, protests marked Patriarch Filaret's entire visit, with pickets gathered along his expected route. Many protesters held banners with slogans such as "Filaret - get out of Crimea" and "Anathema to Denysenko."

Hundreds of protesters were out in force at his point of arrival, Symferopol airport, where the police had to move them further away to allow the normal work of the airport to proceed, according to KNS. Patriarch Filaret's vehicle had to leave the airport along a different road. And, according to UOC-MP sources quoted by Interfax, "Patriarch Filaret had to sneak into Sevastopol across fields."

In Sevastopol, where the patriarch had planned to visit Khersones (the site of Kyivan Rus' Grand Prince Volodymyr's baptism), meet the city authorities and bless the students of the Ukrainian Naval Institute, he visited only the Institute of Nuclear Physics.

The Rev. Paisi, secretary of the UOC-MP eparchy in Sevastopol, told KNS on July 14 in an interview in Khersones that he objected to a "pastoral visit" by the leader of a group that he said has "neither a single parish nor a parishioner" in Sevastopol. "As for Khersones," he continued, "it is not quite true that Filaret was not allowed there, or maybe quite untrue. There were simply believers who stood with banners expressing their opinion about Filaret. He probably did not want to see those people and called the director of the reserved zone [Khersones] to say that he was canceling his visit. It is a very conventional notion - 'was not allowed' - he himself did not want to come." Defending the demonstrators' actions, the Rev. Paisi added: "We also are entitled to express our feelings."

According to RFE/RL Poland, Belarus and Ukraine Report, the press service of the UOC-KP denied that Patriarch Filaret's trip to Crimea had been ruined by the UOC-MP. The press service admitted that an attempt to prevent Patriarch Filaret from entering Crimea was made at Symferopol airport, but it said that "the authorities of the Republic of Crimea did everything possible to prevent any confrontation on religious grounds."

The press service listed a number of meetings and religious services held by Patriarch Filaret during his three-day stay in Crimea, underscoring that there were no "conflicts or clashes between believers."

In a telephone interview with KNS on July 4, Patriarch Filaret maintained that the whole program of the visit went well. "I visited Sofiyivka, a village not far from Symferopol, where I consecrated the cross at the location of the construction of a new church, then I had a meeting with the Crimean clergymen. I also visited Sevastopol Nuclear Naval Academy, where I was present at the graduation ceremony, and visited Bakhchesarai, where I had a meeting with Mustafa Jemilev, the chairman of the Crimean Tatar Mejlis, and Mufti of the Crimea Emir Ali Ablayev. On June 25 I served the liturgy in our Symferopol church. I was told that there were pickets in Symferopol airport, but I did not see them personally," he was quoted as saying.

Efforts by KNS to find out from the Metropolitanate of the UOC-MP in Kyiv whether it was aware of the protests instigated by the Crimean eparchy and whether it had approved them failed. In the absence of Metropolitan Volodymyr [Slobodan], the senior hierarch of the UOC-MP, nobody would take the responsibility of commenting on the actions of the Crimean eparchy. The Crimean eparchy failed to respond to KNS requests during the first two weeks of July for comments on the obstruction of Patriarch Filaret's visit.

Asked by KNS whether the eparchy had instigated the rally in Sevastopol, the Rev. Paisi declared: "No, people understand everything themselves." He claimed that Patriarch Filaret had not complained of any "aggressive actions" by believers.

According to KNS, during his meeting with Mr. Jemilev, Patriarch Filaret deplored the actions of the local Orthodox Church in Crimea, such as setting up crosses and religious placards that are found all over the peninsula, complaining that in a multi-confessional society such as Crimea, these types of actions create inter-confessional tension.

One of the issues also discussed during the meeting was the prospect of recognition of the UOC-KP by Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew.

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