A Place in the Hierarchy

During the presidential campaign in Kyiv, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, Archbishop of Constantinople, addressed two friendly messages to the Ukrainian people, expressing his support and approval of the democratic process in Ukraine. In his second message the Patriarch greeted the Ukrainian people and Viktor Yushchenko on the election victory (after the announcement of the preliminary turnout).

These messages may be described as yet another manifestation of the tectonic shifts caused by the extraordinary events that took place during the presidential campaign, which were totally unexpected for the rest of the world (frankly speaking, also for most Ukrainians). Also, it was an extraordinary move on the part of the Ecumenical Patriarch, as his office had never publicly demonstrated such attention to Ukrainian affairs, even less so in the secular domain. For Ukrainian Orthodox adherents, the Ecumenical Patriarch remains a distant, even abstract, entity, mostly having to do with the history of Kyivan Rus’ (official religious contacts with the Patriarch of Constantinople were terminated after the Kyiv See was subordinated to the Moscow Patriarchate in 1686), although Leonid Kuchma’s administration tried through diplomatic channels to get Bartholomew I involved in solving Ukrainian Orthodox problems.

Another very important fact is that in his second message Patriarch Bartholomew I offered to help settle the schism in the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. Not surprisingly, his messages triggered an immediate response from the Moscow Patriarchate. The office of external church contacts sharply denounced the Ecumenical Patriarch’s initiative as the first step in the direction of “redividing” the Orthodox world, specifically by excluding the Moscow Patriarchate-affiliated UOC from the Russian Orthodox Church and subordinating Ukrainian Orthodoxy to the Constantinople See. Such intentions must seem obvious to Moscow, especially considering the fact that the Constantinople See issued an official statement in the 1920s, which recognized the canonical territory of the Moscow Patriarchate only within the boundaries that were established in 1589, when the patriarchate was established; in other words, without the Ukrainian Church.

The Moscow Patriarchate’s instant response was only natural, because the point at issue is its supremacy in the Orthodox world, a matter of the highest priority. This supremacy is now mainly determined by the size of the church and the number of adherents, religious communities, temples, monasteries, and convents. The Russian Church remains the largest in the Orthodox world and it is resolved to maintain its lead and play a decisive role (in this it has always been supported by the secular authorities ranging from princes to tsars to Bolsheviks to the current Russian government). However, according to the historical canon, the Ecumenical Patriarch occupies first place in the Orthodox hierarchy and the Patriarch of Moscow, fifth.

How would the ROC’s status change if the Ukrainian Orthodox adherents withdrew? The answer is radical and spells disaster. At present, 10,000 UOC-MP parishes (Moscow-affiliated religious communities in Ukraine) make up slightly less than one-half of the Russian Church. Therefore, by losing these religious communities, the ROC would actually lose its status as the world’s largest Orthodox Church. Dear Reader, guess which church would then be the largest? Correct. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church, provided it is undivided, sound, and solid. It would have almost 15,000 communities, considerably more than in Russia.

The ROC’s main advantage in the Orthodox world is its size, and thus it completely depends on the UOC-MP membership. It is not so much a matter of revenues, not even political influence in Ukraine (as vividly demonstrated by the presidential campaign), as the prospect of losing international prestige and having to climb down one rung on the hierarchical ladder. That is why both the Russian Church and Russian government are holding fast and paying such close attention to the UOC-MP.

From the statement issued by the office of the Moscow Patriarchate’s external church contacts it follows that Moscow’s ecclesiastical diplomats feel certain that Patriarch Bartholomew I intends to include the Ukrainian Church in his sphere of influence, even place it under his jurisdiction — in other words, restore the status of the Kyiv See as it was in Kyivan Rus’. Such assumptions, it should be noted, are provoked not only by the Moscow Patriarchate’s suspicions, but also by the fact that in his message Patriarch Bartholomew I mentions Ukraine’s one painful problem, namely the church schism, but makes no mention of another, equally important, issue: granting the Ukrainian Orthodox Church autocephalous status, meaning complete independence. Here one ought to compare the size of the Ecumenical Patriarchate (some 3,000 parishes scattered throughout the world) to that of the Ukrainian Orthodox community (about 15,000 parishes). Also, the size and influence of the Church of Constantinople, once the de facto ruler of the entire Orthodox world, disastrously declined after the fall of Constantinople in 1453.

Assuming that the Ecumenical Patriarchate harbors such intentions (most likely they exist in the feverish imagination [of the Moscow Patriarchate]), they are not to the liking of both Moscow and Kyiv. Be that as it may, admitting a church to the world Orthodox community involves complicated and time-consuming procedures (even when they have the support of the Ecumenical Patriarch). For example, the Hellenic Orthodox Church of Greece remained unrecognized for several decades after that country became independent; the Moscow bishopric that withdrew from the Kyiv See had no legal status for almost 140 years, until the proclamation of the Moscow Patriarchate.

Apparently the presidential campaign in Ukraine also caused reverberations within church circles, and not only in conjunction with the Ecumenical Patriarch. There is hardly any doubt that recent events did little to introduce positive changes to the status and image of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church under the Moscow Patriarchate in the public eye. Quite a few parishioners and clergymen did not hold with the overactive campaign policy of their church, and some even voiced their disagreement (things like that happen very seldom in a church community). This, however, does not mean that the situation may change radically and quickly in this church, or that it will noticeably distance itself from the Moscow Patriarchate, or that part of the clergy will revise their attitude to the challenges of Ukrainian statehood.

Nevertheless, it is safe to assume that the UOC-MP policy will eventually change, even if gradually, because the days when bishops and parish priests felt free to act as they pleased in regard to many issues of national importance are now gone. This author believes that the most outspoken pro-Russian bishops will be quietly relieved of their posts, and the so-called Orthodox brotherhoods, etc., will be called to account. Also, the Ukrainian Church may finally remember that the divine services are celebrated in the Greek churches in Greek, in the Georgian ones in Georgian, and in the Orthodox churches of Western Europe in the languages spoken by the parishioners.

And, finally, we are very grateful to Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I.