The “first among equals,” Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, and the Ecumenical Patriarchate’s Holy Synod made history on October 11 when they issued an announcement regarding restoration of canonical status to the hierarchs of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church – Kyiv Patriarchate (Patriarch Filaret) and the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (Metropolitan Makariy) and their respective faithful flocks.
Regarded as the prime hierarch of world Orthodoxy, Patriarch Bartholomew had previously met in April with President Petro Poroshenko to discuss the expressed hope of the Verkhovna Rada and the people of Ukraine for the creation of an Autocephalous Orthodox Church in Ukraine under the omophor (canonical jurisdiction) of the Ecumenical Patriarchate.
At the time of the announcement, it was clear that the Ecumenical Patriarchate was not bowing to demands by the Russian Orthodox Church and the ROC’s calls for a pan-Orthodox Council to discuss the matter of autocephaly for Ukraine.
James Marson of the Wall Street Journal explained: “The decision by Patriarch Bartholomew is a striking assertion of his status as the foremost Orthodox leader, a position that Moscow has sought to challenge in recent years with its size, wealth and political clout.”
Fostering this renewed relationship between Ukraine and Constantinople (Istanbul), Patriarch Bartholomew sent two exarchs, Archbishop Daniel of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the U.S.A. and Bishop Ilarion of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Canada, whose efforts in Ukraine have born the fruit of reconciliation.
However, not everyone is pleased by the correction of the historical mistake perpetrated by the Russian Orthodox Church against Ukraine, which dates from 1686 when the Patriarch of Moscow usurped the independence of the Kyiv Metropolitanate by installing the Metropolitan of Kyiv, rather than having him be elected by a clergy-laity assembly. (More historical information can be found in the document “The Ecumenical Throne and the Church of Ukraine; The Documents Speak,” September 2018, Ecumenical Patriarchate. https://www.goarch.org/-/the-ecumenical-throne-and-the-church-of-ukraine/.)
Patriarch Kirill of the ROC has condemned the Ecumenical Patriarchate’s decision, calling for an end to Eucharistic communion with Constantinople, and ROC bishops claim that there is no longer one center of world Orthodoxy in Constantinople. The UOC-KP press secretary issued a statement in response, saying: “Patriarch Kirill has personally been an architect of the schism in the Ukrainian Church since 1991” and his conduct has “pulled all of Orthodox Christianity into conflict.”
Ominously, President Vladimr Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said that Russia would protect the interests of the faithful of Ukraine if the historic split leads to illegal action or violence, without going into details, claiming that “exclusively political and diplomatic” means to do so. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty noted on October 13: “Russian officials have sought to justify Moscow’s interference in Ukraine by citing what they said was the need to protect ethnic Russians and Russian–speakers.”
Archbishop Yevstraty (UOC-KP) said the ROC was “repeating the Kremlin’s policy of self-isolation in response to the legitimate decisions of the international community.”
Patriarch Filaret has called on the Orthodox bishops and faithful in Ukraine to make preparations for the election of the new prime hierarch of the Autocephalous Orthodox Church of Ukraine. These are the last major steps that need to be taken before the Ecumenical Patriarchate grants full autocephaly. Patriarch Filaret has stressed the need to maintain peace as external forces attempt to disrupt Ukraine’s chosen path of independence from Moscow.
President Poroshenko in a statement said: “…This is the fall of the ‘Third Rome’ as the most ancient conceptual claim of Moscow for the global domination. …Tomos is actually another Act of Declaration of Independence of Ukraine. The empire is losing one of the last levers of influence on its former colony.” Mr. Poroshenko also noted that a group of bishops from the UOC-MP that supported autocephaly for Ukraine were targeted with pressure, blackmail, threats and intimidation, yet had appealed with their signatures to the Ecumenical Patriarch. The president vowed to protect them as well as those who seek to remain with the ROC, so as to prevent violence and the threat of Russian intervention in Ukraine.
The religious divorce between Russia and Ukraine is as significant as the political divorce that was initiated on August 24, 1991, with Ukraine’s declaration of independence in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union. The ROC since 2014 has demonstrated its forceful take-over of churches and monasteries in occupied Crimea and in the occupied areas of eastern Donbas, targeting those elements that would resist Russification. Given the chance in Ukraine, the ROC would likely do the same as it has in Crimea.
And still, Ukraine maintains its peaceful course, as it asserts its independence, both politically and now religiously. As many experts have stated, it is a matter of when, not if, Ukraine will be granted a Tomos of Autocephaly by the Ecumenical Patriarchate, while the ROC further isolates itself as it fails to come to terms with its own past.