Ukrainian Orthodox autocephaly may soon be a reality. According to Archimandrite Cyril Hovorun, the tomos (decree) by the Ecumenical Patriarchate has already been drafted (Relihiina Pravda, May 26). The consequences would be profound.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko called on Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew to grant autocephaly to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church last April 17. The heads of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyivan Patriarchate (UOC-KP) and the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (UAOC) joined in the request. Naturally, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP) opposed it. On April 19, Ukraine’s Parliament voted to support the president’s initiative.
An autocephalous Orthodox church is “self-headed.” That is, its chief hierarch does not report to any higher earthly authority – although he recognizes the spiritual authority of the ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople. The autocephalous Church itself, and not some outside body, elects its head. He may be a patriarch, a metropolitan, or an archbishop.
It is customary in the Orthodox world for a nation-state to have its own autocephalous Church. This follows the principle that ecclesiastical order follows civic and political order (Council of Chalcedon (451), canon 17; Council in Trullo or Quinisext (692), canon 38). Thus, for example, after the Serbs freed themselves from Ottoman rule in the 19th century, Constantinople recognized their Church’s autocephaly in 1879. Hence, a Ukrainian state should have an autocephalous Orthodox Church.
Historically, it is the ecumenical patriarch who grants autocephaly. It was thus that the Bulgarian Church first gained autocephaly in the 10th century, and the Serbian Church in the 13th. But some Churches have simply declared themselves autocephalous, or begun to act as such. In those cases, autocephaly might be officially recognized later. Thus, the Muscovite Church became de facto autocephalous in 1448, but was not recognized as such until 1589. The Georgian Church declared its autocephaly in 1917, but it was only in 1990 that Constantinople recognized it.
Because autocephaly is a matter of both Church and state (the sharp separation between the two is basically a Western concept), the initiative sometimes comes from the secular power. In the modern era, this could be the government of a nation-state newly liberated from an empire. Thus Romania, formed in 1859 from formerly Ottoman-ruled Moldavia and Wallachia, passed a law on autocephaly in 1872. The Directory of the Ukrainian National Republic issued a law on autocephaly in January 1919. Georgian ex-seminarian Joseph Stalin directed the Russian Orthodox Church to grant the Georgian Church independence in 1943.
Sometimes, a Church attempts to grant autocephaly to one of its constituent parts. Thus, in 1970 the Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church purported to grant autocephaly to its North American Metropolia, known (a bit deceptively) as the Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church of America.
Autocephaly can also be overturned. In July 1811 the Russian government, having annexed Georgia a decade earlier, cancelled the autocephaly of its Orthodox Church, which dated back at least to 1010, and ethnic Russians headed it for a century after 1817 (as was the case with the Kyivan Metropolitanate for over 150 years).
Does the Moscow Patriarchate have the sole right, as it claims, to grant autocephaly to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church? It bases its claim on the fact that in 1685 the Patriarchate of Constantinople transferred the Kyivan Metropolitanate to the jurisdiction of Moscow. The validity of this transfer, however, has been challenged. Moreover, when in 1924 the ecumenical patriarch issued a tomos of autocephaly to the Orthodox Church in Poland, which then included the Ukrainians of western Volhynia, it declared the 1685 transfer uncanonical. Besides, the Kyivan Church is older than the Muscovite Church. For a “daughter Church” to grant autocephaly to her “mother” would be anomalous.
Assuming, then, that it is the Ecumenical Patriarchate that is entitled to grant autocephaly, which Ukrainian Church should receive it? Since the UOC-KP and the UAOC both supported the president’s appeal, it is they who would become autocephalous. It stands to reason that they should unite first. But Archimandrite Cyril disagrees. (“Why Ukraine Needs a Free and Recognized Orthodox Church,” Euromaidan Press, May 18). In his view, autocephaly should result not in a single Church, but a “pluralistic Orthodoxy,” with various Orthodox Churches in communion with each other.
But is it a matter of granting autocephaly, or merely recognizing it? The UOC-KP and the UAOC are already acting as de facto autocephalous Churches, and the latter has “autocephalous” in its name. It would thus seem more correct to speak of recognition. And since these Churches are not regarded as “canonical” in the Orthodox world, it might be better to first recognize their legitimacy, and then their autocephaly.
Can the ecumenical patriarch do this by himself? His synod would have to agree. Some opponents, like the Moscow Patriarchate, claim that a new autocephaly requires the consent of all the world’s Orthodox Churches, since it changes the structure of world Orthodoxy.
Moscow has reason to be concerned about Ukrainian autocephaly. It is conservatively estimated that this would deprive it of between 30 and 40 percent of its religious network. The effect on world Orthodoxy would also be considerable. True, the Russian Church would still be the largest, with a claimed 100 million Orthodox believers in Russia and millions beyond it. But a united Ukrainian Orthodox Church, comprising 26 million to 30 million faithful, would become number two, displacing Romania’s 18 million.
Ukrainian autocephaly might also affect ecumenism, perhaps even prompting a re-orientation of the Vatican’s Ostpolitik from a Russo-centric to a more multipolar view of Orthodoxy. And together with other independent Orthodox Churches, an autocephalous Ukrainian Church could, as Patriarch Filaret has said, contribute to a revival of European Christianity.
Finally, if we imagine Archimandrite Cyril’s community of Ukrainian Orthodox Churches to include those “Orthodox in communion with Rome” otherwise known as Ukrainian Greco-Catholics, with each Church free to seek ties with Constantinople, Rome, or both – the ecumenical implications are astounding.