Life dedicated to Christ and Ukraine

The creative legacy of Ivan Ohienko (Metropolitan Ilarion; b. Jan. 14, 1882; d. March 29, 1972) is a truly inexhaustible spiritual world, the depth and richness of which we may not even have begun to grasp. A scholar, philologist, and political, public, and religious figure, Ohienko lived a long and uniquely eventful life — and he dedicated all of it to the lofty goal of asserting a free, independent, and united Ukraine while enhancing the eternal spiritual principles of Ukrainian national Orthodoxy.

Today, when we are witness to a mounting, politically motivated offensive against the fundamentals of Ukrainian statehood under the pretext of “defending the lasting values of Orthodoxy” — with a distinctly imperialistic Moscow accent and with substantial support from very influential church and secular circles in Moscow — Ohienko’s scholarly achievements, as exemplified by his entire dedicated life, are exceptionally topical.

Ohienko wrote so much that dozens of articles are not enough to provide even a superficial description of his scholarly achievements. Therefore, I will deliberately restrict my discussion to just two works by this celebrated scholar, The Ukrainian Church (1942) and The Pre-Christian Beliefs of the Ukrainian People (1965), in the hope that on the basis of these works, which are not his largest, an inquisitive reader will be able to form an idea about Ohienko’s world outlook and the scope of what he accomplished. But first, a brief biographical sketch of this outstanding personality.

Ivan Ivanovych Ohienko was born into a peasant family in Brusyliv, a small town in what is now Zhytomyr oblast. After graduating from Kyiv University, the young scholar began specializing in old Ukrainian literature and the history of the Ukrainian language. Before long he obtained a Ph.D. at the university. Ohienko took an active part in the national liberation movement of 1918-22. In 1918-20 he was rector of Kamianets-Podilsky Ukrainian State University. In 1919 he was appointed education minister of the Ukrainian National Republic.

After the defeat of the Ukrainian national revolution, Ohienko shared the lot of many celebrated compatriots, who had to leave Ukraine. In 1920 he settled in Poland (near Krakow) and engaged in scholarly and educational work. In 1926-32 he was a lecturer at Warsaw University. In 1940 Ohienko was ordained an Orthodox bishop of the Kholm region and Pidliashia, and in 1944 he became Metropolitan of the Kholm region and Pidliashia. In 1944-47 Metropolitan Ilarion (Ivan Ohienko) lived in Lausanne. In 1947 he resettled in Canada, where he spent the rest of his life. There he was ordained head bishop of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

His lifetime achievement was his work on a flawless Ukrainian translation of the Scriptures, which lasted for more than 30 years. He completed the project in 1962. His works, such as Ukrainian Culture (1918), History of Ukrainian Book Printing (1924), Constantine and Methodius: Their Life and Activities (1927-28), The Emergence of the Alphabet and Literary Language among the Slavs (1937), The Byzantine Empire and Ukraine (1954), The Tale of Ihor’s Campaign (1967), and dozens of other books won international acclaim and were translated into many languages. Unfortunately, even today it is difficult to state that Metropolitan Ilarion’s intellectual and cultural-spiritual heritage has been duly appreciated in Ukraine.

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Therefore, my story is about Ohienko, historian of Ukrainian Christianity and pre-Christian folk beliefs. These two books by this outstanding scholar elucidate a huge complex of problems in terms of the conception and evolution of Ukrainian Christianity in the context of national history. I will dwell on some of the most topical problems.

First, Ohienko gives an unequivocally positive answer to the question of whether Christianity existed in Ukraine in the “prehistoric period” — in other words, before Ukraine became an organized state in the 8th and 9th centuries AD: “Everything we have today is eloquent proof that Christianity emerged in Ukraine, to a greater or lesser degree, at a very early age, maybe sometime in the age of the Apostles and existed here, even if it was maintained in small numbers until the Ukrainian people were officially baptized by Prince Volodymyr...After all, we did not live behind a stone wall; we had established contacts with various peoples from the West, who had long been Christians — so could Christ’s faith not have reached us considerably earlier than Volodymyr?”

Further on, the author of The Ukrainian Church points to the close connection between the spread of Christianity and cultural progress (in the broadest sense of the word), referring to the Polianians, one of the largest of the Eastern Slavic tribes: “Relations with the Greek colonies and their Christianity had quite an impact on our Polianians and soon made them into the most cultured tribe in all of Ukraine. At a time when the other Slavic tribes “lived like animals, in a most savage manner,” the Polianians “had a peaceful and graceful tradition, holding their sons and sisters, mothers, fathers, and relatives in proper respect.”

Even so long ago the Polianians espoused a cultured tradition of marriage, something totally unknown to the other Slavic tribes. Of course, all this could be attributed only to the influence of the Greek colonies, sums up the scholar, stressing: “It may be assumed that the kind of Christianity that was grafted onto the Ukrainian lands, probably in the age of the Apostles, never disappeared from them. Naturally, only individual families knew it, or perhaps only individual people; this creed could not have been widespread.”

Metropolitan Ilarion’s next thesis is that the Ukrainian Church was the “first-called” one; that it played a major role in the promulgation of Christianity in all the Eastern Slavic lands. He underlines that “Kyiv and Ukraine in general was destined to play a great historic role in the baptism of all of the northern territories ruled by princes Volodymyr and Yaroslav — territories that would later comprise Muscovy. This historic role has been habitually understated or simply kept away from the public eye by Russia’s historians, but we cannot help but draw attention to the fact that the Light of the New Faith of Christ was first shed north of Kyiv, from Ukraine, by the Ukrainian Church, the First-Called Church founded by Saint Andrew the First-Called; therefore, this church has every right to be recognized as the Mother Church in regard to the Church of Moscow. As I mentioned earlier, there are many Ukrainians on the list of the First Saints revered in the Moscow land.” Needless to say, these passages from Ohienko’s texts sound especially topical today, when we are hearing Moscow’s “land-uniting” exponents and witnessing their cynical use of the Russian Orthodox Church, which they are using as a tool in their anti-Ukraine game.

Ohienko provides convincing arguments, proving that it is impossible to overestimate the influence that the Ukrainian Church had on its northern neighbor: “The degree of influence we exerted on the Moscow — later, Russian — Church was tremendous, not only when we coexisted in the 10th-14th centuries, but especially in the 16th-18th centuries, when the Ukrainian clergy used their heads and hands to shape Muscovite-Russian culture. Ukraine constantly kept Muscovy supplied with theological books; there, properly edited, they would remain stored for many years. The Moscow Bible (1663) is only a reprint of the Ostroh Bible. Ukrainian trebnyk and sluzhebnyk missals, as well as other church books, formed the basis of church life in Muscovy. The Ukrainian Catechism, published in 1645, served as the basis of the Muscovite faith until 1867, the publication date of Metropolitan Filaret’s Catechism. In fact, there is not a single sphere of Muscovite church life that is free from a strong degree of Ukrainian influence. Incidentally, most of the reforms enforced by Patriarch Nikon and Tsar Peter I were basically developed by Ukrainian theologians.”

A true Orthodox Christian, which makes his scholarly legacy especially valuable, Ohienko strove to remain unbiased in his historical analysis of religious progress in Ukraine, as well as in his conclusions. He drew the reader’s attention to the colossal number of repressions and bloodshed that accompanied “Christianization” in Ukraine. Further eloquent proof of the celebrated historian’s unbiased attitude is his approach to paganism, highlighted in his Pre-Christian Beliefs of the Ukrainian People. Below are several of Ohienko’s most enlightening statements.

Metropolitan Ilarion states that in both Ukraine and Christian Europe, “so-called syncretism emerged over the centuries, or more accurately, dualism, a combination of the pre-Christian creed of a given people with its new Christian faith. This dualism continues to reign supreme in our world to a greater or smaller degree, yet it reigns among the peoples of this world.” Ohienko believes that the basis of all ancient religious beliefs, especially those practiced in Ukraine, are found “in three elements: animitism, the reanimation of everything found in nature; animism, breathing spirit into every element in nature; and anthropomorphism, in which everything in nature takes on human characteristics...We see this happening all over the world, in all ancient human beliefs, because all the elements — the sun, stars, moon, fire, water, plants, animals, rock, trees, winds, and so on — are alive. All of these have their own soul; they are all human-like. Let us remember The Tale of Ihor’s Campaign, a literary relic dating to 1187. Here nature is so very alive; commiserating with a man’s sorrow are flowers, trees, and birds. Here man communicates with Mother Nature — compare Princess Yaroslavna’s lament...”

All this is merely a drop in the ocean of Metropolitan Ilarion’s immense legacy. Let us study his works thoroughly, and then we will more clearly grasp spiritual Ukraine and our place in it.