With the same result?
According to the press service of Moscow’s Radonezh Orthodox Society, “The problem of overcoming the church rift in Ukraine was discussed in the Kremlin on November 29 during a luncheon with President Vladimir Putin of the Russian Federation, President Leonid Kuchma of Ukraine, and Patriarch Aleksiy of Moscow and All Rus’. A source in the Moscow Patriarchate explains that the Ukrainian head of state familiarized the hierarch of the Russian Church with his ideas about ways to overcome the crisis in church life resulting from the collapse of the Soviet Union. It has to be admitted that Kuchma’s view on the issue is very specific, allowing little for the actual sentiments of most believers in Ukraine who remain faithful to canonical Orthodoxy. Thus, Leonid Kuchma is convinced that granting autonomy to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate could solve a number of pressing issues. It is not clear, however, what Kuchma understands by autonomy, because the Kyiv Archdiocese enjoys a most independent status as it is. The new Statute of the Russian Orthodox Church, adopted by the jubilee Council of Eparchs in 2000, holds that the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (UOC MP) has self-governing status. Ukrainian hierarchs participating in the Council of Eparchs said that Ukraine’s faithful do not want to sever contact with the Mother Church and oppose autocephaly. And only the President of Ukraine, along with a number of other politicians, most of them Galician nationalists, stubbornly insists on complete independence for the Ukrainian Church, which would bring Kuchma considerable political dividends: an autonomous church will become not only an attribute of the Ukrainian sovereignty, but will also allow the president to intervene more radically in its inner life and use it to serve his ends.”
Thus our president is continuing his efforts to persuade secular and religious Moscow to practically assist with settling the Orthodox crisis in Ukraine. The previous quotation shows that these efforts are regarded as “very specific.” Indeed, why should we have Orthodox unity? Why should we have an independent Orthodox church taking orders from no one, like ones existing in non-Orthodox countries, such as Poland? Radonezh writes that the 2000 Council of Eparchs granted UOC MP self-governing status. Those abiding by strict canon obviously forget that there are three official church statutes in Orthodoxy: autocephaly, autonomy, and direct subordination to the hierarchy of another church, in our case the Moscow Patriarchate.
The reference to the “churchgoers of Ukraine” allegedly loath to “sever contact with the Mother Church,” (i.e., the Russian Orthodox Church) who “oppose autocephaly” is also quite significant. In fact, it was previously declared on more than one occasion that the people also oppose UOC autonomy. All those showing such jealous care for unity with the Russian Orthodox Church ought to remember that the faithful in Ukraine are not only Moscow-minded bishops, not only members of Russian societies/associations, or of the Communist Party of Ukraine. A considerable part of the parishioners, especially in the countryside, do not even suspect that they belong to the Moscow Patriarchate.
The meeting in Moscow was additional evidence of what certain ranking officials are trying to deny; the Ukrainian regime continues looking for a way out of the Orthodox blind alley, and continues to rely on Moscow’s assistance. Amen.
