Tomos of autocephaly reverses centuries of Moscow rule
KYIV – If Ukrainians worldwide waited over 70 years to regain independence as a nation, a significant portion of its Orthodox Christian congregants had to wait more than three centuries to restore spiritual freedom from the same overlord – Russia.
It came on January 6 when Christmas Eve is observed in accordance with the Julian calendar. St. George Cathedral in Istanbul, the seat of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, was the setting. A Ukrainian delegation consisting of Church hierarchs and politicians came for the historic ceremonies led by Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew.
The mode was traditional: a scroll written by Hieromonk Luke, a skilled calligrapher and hagiographer, was delivered from the Xenophontos Monastery in Mount Athos of northern Greece.
In an emotionally charged ceremony broadcast live on TV and online by Ukrainian media outlets, the Tomos, or decree, that bestowed independence on the national Orthodox Church of Ukraine, was presented to Metropolitan Epifaniy.
Thus, Ukraine became the 15th autocephalous Church in a community of 300 million believers.
“Today, a new page opens in the history of Ukraine,” Patriarch Bartholomew said on January 5 after signing the scrolled decree while addressing Metropolitan Epifaniy. “We entreat and exhort you to strive for unity and peace… also with those brother hierarchs who still remain under the omophorion of… our brother Patriarch of Moscow, in order that, through your inspired presence and prudent administrative service, you may help them understand that Ukraine deserves a united Church body.”
He advised Ukraine’s primate to use the Tomos “not as a symbol of power but as a testimony of love and sacrificial mind” while using its privileges “as elements of crucified love and not as premises for the establishment of an authoritarian Church.”
Andriy Kravchenko
The Tomos of autocephaly that bestowed autocephaly on the Orthodox Church of Ukraine is on display in Kyiv’s 11th-century St. Sophia Cathedral on January 7.
Speaking about the final granting of ecclesiastical independence, Metropolitan Epifaniy said: “Today, the Ukrainian daughter [of the Mother Church] – thanks to God’s will and your concern as our Mother Church – has grown and become established. At the Unification Sobor convened in Kyiv with the blessing of your All Holiness and with the support of the Ukrainian state and our president, the divisions that existed until recently in our Church were eliminated and unity was restored. We, Ukrainian hierarchs who arrived for this celebration on your invitation, are a visible sign of this: once we were divided, and now we are one.”
Metropolitan Epifaniy also spoke of the “Ukrainian nation, which for five years already has suffered from the war brought from the outside to our peaceful home.” He asked the ecumenical patriarch, the Mother Church and all autocephalous Churches “to pray for a just peace for Ukraine,” adding, “We believe that, just as God heard our joint sincere prayers for peace and unity for our Church, …He will hear these prayers also and will give our state peace and unity, and our nation well-being and prosperity.”
The symbolism of the January 6 date was not lost on the Ukrainian delegation attending the ceremonies. They sang “Nova Radist Stala” (A New Joy has been Revealed), one of the best known Ukrainian carols, after the event’s conclusion.
Metropolitan Epifaniy delivered his first liturgy with the Tomos on Christmas Day on January 7 at Kyiv’s 11th-century St. Sophia Cathedral. The masterfully created calligraphic document remained on display for public viewing until 7 p.m. as lines circled the UNESCO heritage site.
Andriy Kravchenko
President Petro Poroshenko and Metropolitan Epifaniy, who heads the newly formed Orthodox Church of Ukraine, both carry the scroll on which the Tomos of autocephaly is written inside the 11th century St. Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv on January 7 before the beginning of the Christmas liturgy.
For his part, President Petro Poroshenko of Ukraine thanked the “Holy Synod, the Ecumenical Patriarchate Council,… every hierarch who signed the appeal to the Ecumenical Patriarch to provide autocephaly to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine… At last, God has bestowed the Orthodox Church of Ukraine upon us.”
The Tomos was taken back to the Turkish capital, where members of the Ecumenical Patriarchate Council signed the certificate on January 9, according to a report by national Ukrainian television broadcaster TSN.
Kremlin opposition
Russia has treated Ukraine’s pursuit of ecclesiastical independence as a matter of survival. After Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew confirmed on October 11, 2018, that he would move forward with officially recognizing a national Ukrainian Church, President Vladimir Putin called a Security Council meeting the following day. In a move that harked back to his justification for invading Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula in February 2014, he promised to protect believers of the Orthodox faith inside the country. His longtime foreign affairs minister, Sergei Lavrov, called the affirmation of Church independence a “provocation.” Meanwhile a council of the Russian Church – known as a Synod – that same day said it was severing relations with the Ecumenical Patriarchate whose leader is known as the “first among equals.”
Archbishop Yevstratiy
A medallion of Panagia, or St. Mary, was given to all the Orthodox Church hierarchs who came from Ukraine on January 5 to Istanbul after the signing ceremony of the Tomos by Ecumenical Patriarch Batholomew. It was made on the occasion of the Pan-Orthodox Council of autocephalous churches that took place in Crete on June 19-26, 2016, during which the issue of granting Ukraine autocephaly was supposed to be discussed but wasn’t as the Russian delegation refused to attend the event.
The Russian Orthodox Church, to which the only canonically recognized Ukrainian Orthodox Church was subordinated for at least three centuries, has since called the granting of the Tomos “uncanonical” and “unlawful.”
At least 40 Moscow Patriarchate parishes in Ukraine have so far switched over to the newly created Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU), Verkhovna Rada Chairman Andriy Parubiy told journalists in Istanbul.
Ukraine’s Parliament on December 20, 2018, approved a law that forces the Ukrainian Orthodox Church – Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP) to change its name to one that reveals its affiliation with the Moscow-based Russian Orthodox Church..
“According to the new law, any Ukrainian branch of a religious organization with a center in a state legally recognized by Ukrainian law as an aggressor must indicate its origins in its name,” the Kyiv Post reported.
Mr. Poroshenko said the new law would make it easier for Orthodox believers to make a choice between the new Church and the Russian-affiliated one. “It is easier to make a choice when all things are called by their names,” RFE/RL quoted him as saying.
UOC-MP spokesman Archbishop Klyment subsequently told the Hromadske news outlet that he saw no grounds for the name change, maintaining that the Church is based in Ukraine and autonomous from Moscow.
The statutes of the Moscow-controlled Church become void if it doesn’t register a name change with the Culture Ministry within four months after the law comes into force.
Canonical conviction
Since Ukraine re-gained its independence in 1991 amid the USSR’s implosion, every president – with the exception of Viktor Yanukovych – has sought canonical recognition from the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople.
Last year, the leader of Orthodox faithful worldwide commissioned a study to review how Kyiv lost canonical jurisdiction and how the see of the Metropolis of Kyiv was annexed by Moscow over the centuries. The review came after Ukraine’s government and clergy of the unrecognized Ukrainian Orthodox Church – Kyiv Patriarchate and Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church petitioned the Ecumenical Patriarchate.
Citing the findings of the study again on January 5 after signing the Tomos, Patriarch Bartholomew concluded that Constantinople remained Kyiv’s Mother Church and that ecclesiastical rights over Kyiv were unjustifiably transferred to Moscow.
“Now, however, the number of Russian Orthodox faithful will seriously decline because of the establishment of the OCU,” said George Weigel, senior fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, in a December 18, 2018, essay for National Review. “And with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew having shown both nerve and skill in guiding the creation of the OCU from a distance, his authority within those parts of world Orthodoxy not under Moscow’s thumb (or on its payroll) will be enhanced.”
Byzantine politics
Intrigue and powerplay were also evident in Istanbul. The Ukrainian clerics received a medallion of St. Mary and the baby Jesus from Patriarch Bartholomew that was made on the occasion of the Pan-Orthodox Council that took place on June 19-26, 2016, in Crete – Greece’s largest island.
The topic of Ukraine being granted autocephaly was supposed to be discussed during the council. However, the members of the Russian, Antiochan, Georgian and Bulgarian Churches refused to attend.
“And now even in such a small detail, God’s righteousness appeared, for ‘many are called but few chosen,’ ” said Ukrainian delegation member Archbishop Yevstratiy in a Facebook post while publishing pictures of both sides of the gold medallion. “Instead of those who repulsed their vocation, the pleasure of fraternal unity is enjoyed by others.”
Miles to go
Aside from gaining legal recognition in-country and getting parishes to join the unified Orthodox Church of Ukraine, the OCU awaits recognition from the 13 other autocephalous Churches: the Patriarchates of Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, Moscow, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria and Georgia, and the Churches of Cyprus, Greece, Poland, Albania, and the Czech Lands and Slovakia.
Patriarch Bartholomew called on them to recognize the OCU in a January 4 letter. If “we choose to ignore our brethren who are experiencing moments of agony in Ukraine, we will not have any justification [to give] on the Day of Judgment,” he said, according to Orthodoxia.info, a Greek-based religious news website.
Ukraine will also be limited in some actions, based on the actual Tomos.
It states that the “Ecumenical Patriarchate must approve any changes” from its language, according to an analysis by former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine John Herbst that was published on January 6 in a blog for Atlantic Council. “At least one part of the Tomos is something that the Ukrainian Church will want to change, since it states that the Ukrainian Church only has jurisdiction in Ukraine. This means that Ukrainian Orthodox parishes outside of Ukraine will be under the Ecumenical Patriarchate.”
Presidential Administration of Ukraine
Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew signs the handwritten Tomos of autocephaly that grants Ukraine an independent Orthodox Church on January 5 at St. George Cathedral in Istanbul, Turkey.