Ukrainian patriarch visits U.S.
Patriarch Filaret of Kyiv and All Rus’-Ukraine paid a pastoral and diplomatic visit to the United States in late October 2007. During his visit, assisted by the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America, the Ukrainian patriarch met with Senator George Voinovich, Congressman Sam Brownback, and Representative Gus Michael Bilirakis, the head of a group championing the Greek Orthodox Church in the US, which is under the aegis of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I.
This is the first high-level meeting between the head of the Ukrainian church and US politicians. Patriarch Filaret’s previous attempt to take part in such a meeting was blocked by President Leonid Kuchma’s administration. During his meetings with the US congressmen, the patriarch stressed his intention to unite the Ukrainian Orthodox churches as a single Local Church that must become part of Ecumenical Orthodoxy and occupy a worthy place there, as the Great Church of the Ukrainian People, which was founded more than a thousand years ago.
Optimists say that the Kyiv Patriarch’s meetings with the American politicians will help attain recognition for the Kyiv Patriarchate in the Orthodox world. Unfortunately, this is not exactly the case, as even US senators and congressmen are unable to exert a noticeable degree of influence on the modern Orthodox world. However, the Patriarch’s visit to the US is an encouraging sign, as the American politicians would hardly have been willing to meet with him without the blessing of Patriarch Bartholomew. The fact of the matter is that, contrary to what some people believe, these meetings had nothing to do with the recognition of Kyiv Patriarchate by the Ecumenical Patriarch. Instead, it had everything to do with initiating concrete measures aimed at meeting Ukraine halfway, for example, on the part of some Ukrainian bishops under the aegis of the Ecumenical Patriarchate.
During his visit to the US Patriarch Filaret dealt with issues other than those pertaining to high politics. In the following interview Archimandrite Yevstratii Zoria, press secretary of the Kyiv Patriarchate, comments on the Patriarch’s pastoral visit to the United States.
Besides high international politics, were there any other reasons for the Patriarch’s trip?
This was a traditional annual pastoral visit, which is part of the Patriarch’s duties. There are some 10 parishes in the US that are part of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate (UOC-KP). All of them are directly subordinated to the Patriarch, although on a day-to-day basis these churches are under the administration of Vicar Bishop Paisii, who is a US national.
What language did the Patriarch use to communicate with the American parishioners?
There was no problem here because almost all the parishioners have preserved their Ukrainian mother tongue. This process has been largely facilitated by the fact that Orthodox churches in the US are not only centers of church life but also Ukrainian cultural communities. Usually every church has a hall where the parishioners can gather to socialize, choirs, and other groups. Believers who live in other cities often have to drive hundreds of miles to get to their church. Ukrainian Americans do so willingly because they want to offer up prayers, communicate with their fellow countrymen, and do something useful for the church. At times this desire acquires a scope unknown in Ukraine. For example, it is traditional to sell Ukrainian varenyky to raise funds for the church. In fact, varenyky are very popular in the US because they are homemade, not made by machines.
How are contacts shaping up with the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in the US, which has been subordinated to the Constantinople Patriarchate since the mid-1990s and is thus canonical, unlike the Kyiv Patriarchate?
There are contacts between these two churches, although the episcopate of the UOC-KP of the Constantinople Patriarchate is somewhat chagrined by the loss of the parishes that refused to be canonical within a foreign church and therefore joined the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate. Nevertheless, diplomatic relations are maintained. When Patriarch Filaret visits the United States, he meets with Metropolitans Konstantyn and Vsevolod, although there is a degree of estrangement because we have different views on certain events in church life. For example, the Kyiv Patriarchate believes that the ordaining of Metropolitan Mstyslav as Patriarch of Ukraine marked the beginning of the Autocephalous Church that united Orthodox believers in Ukraine and the US. However, a large part of the American church asked to be under the aegis of the Constantinople Patriarchate; they became canonical but ceased to be part of the Ukrainian Church. This is no fault of the Kyiv Patriarchate.
Your Beatitude, what kind of relations does the Orthodox Church of Georgia have with the Moscow Patriarchate?
Lately the ancient Georgian Orthodox Church has been increasingly distancing itself from Moscow and its burdensome patronage, ever since the Moscow Patriarchate started openly supporting the dissenting activities of Russian bishops in Georgia’s canonical territories. Here is a characteristic detail: Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I attended the festivities commemorating Georgia’s Catholicos-Patriarch Illia II, but the Moscow patriarch did not. Also, the Patriarch of Constantinople was accorded a top-level welcome in Tbilisi. Among other things, he was awarded a doctorate by the Georgian Academy of Sciences.
(Everyone in Georgia listens to what the 75-year-old Catholicos-Patriarch has to say, especially in recent days, when he made several political statements. One of them reads that the Georgian people will not rest until Abkhazia and the Tskhinvali region are returned to Georgia: “This is a wound in the body of the Georgian people; no one should expect this nation to put up with this situation.” In a letter to President Bush the head of the Georgian church expresses the hope that the United States will help Georgia retain its state integrity. — K.G.)
What do you think are the likely consequences of Patriarch Filaret’s meetings with US senators and congressmen? Did they really discuss the possibility of a single Orthodox Church in Ukraine?
During his meetings with the congressmen the Patriarch apprised them of the religious situation in Ukraine. This is an incredibly complex issue, and it can be resolved only within the Moscow-Constantinople framework because even though the Ukrainian Orthodox Church as a whole — the Kyiv Patriarchate, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, and the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church — numerically almost match the Russian Orthodox Church, with its branches abroad, the struggle for autocephaly promises to be a long and difficult one mainly because for the Moscow Patriarchate this means struggling for supremacy in the Orthodox world — and this comes first!
Nevertheless, I am convinced that those top-level meetings in the United States will have an effect. After speaking with Patriarch Filaret, the US congressmen and senators may take a certain stand. They may even propose an option to be considered by the Ecumenical Patriarch, and this may result in improving relations between Phanar [the historic area of Constantinople, where the Ecumenical Patriarchate settled in 1599] and Kyiv.
— P.S.: Let us hope that Patriarch Filaret’s meeting with the head of the senate group to assist the Greek Orthodox Church took place with the Ecumenical Patriarch’s knowledge and consent, and that this is proof that the Constantinople Patriarchate is prepared to take certain steps (even if they are barely noticeable) in the direction of recognizing the Kyiv Patriarchate. After all, we are allies: just like Ukraine’s Orthodox community, the Constantinople Patriarchate has always suffered — in one way or another — from the arbitrary rule of the Moscow Church. It is not hard to estimate that the departure of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church from the aegis of the Russian Church wouldl reduce the latter’s parishes twofold. What other allies does the Ecumenical Patriarch want?
