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Ukrainian Orthodoxy |
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Orthodoxie ukrainienne |
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Russia to President Yuschenko: Stop being such a Ukrainian Patriot . . . or else!
Dr. Alexander Roman alex.roman@unicorne.org
In a recent communication to Ukrainian President Yuschenko, Russian Federation President Medvedev said that Russian-Ukrainian relations are definitely at an “all-time low” and it is all Yuschenko’s fault . . . So what did Yuschenko do this time?
The Kremlin has gone on record saying that a number of “red flags” (no pun intended) have made themselves visible following the visit of the Patriarch of Moscow to Ukraine. These have put Russian-Ukrainian relations in “crisis mode” and the Russian president is thinking about withdrawing his ambassador to Ukraine and the like.
What is irking Medvedev and the Kremlin is President Yuschenko’s “deliberate and inappropriate meddling” in the affairs of the (Russian) Orthodox Church, among other contentious issues.
The Kremlin is clearly upset by Yuschenko’s efforts to unite the Ukrainian Orthodox Churches into one particular, autocephalous and canonical Orthodox Church in Ukraine. It isn’t happy that Yuschenko wants this united future Church to be independent of Moscow. This is why it is calling the entire movement for such a Church as being “politically-inspired by extreme nationalism.”
The Kremlin also considers that the Russian Orthodox Church is quite independent of its own geopolitical agenda in Eastern Europe and especially with respect to Ukraine. It considers as nonsense any suggestion that its direct control of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church has anything to do with its ongoing interest in ensuring that Ukraine doesn’t stray from the Russian bloc while eventually, as it sincerely hopes, returning to the “Pan-Russian Fold.”
Just to show how “politically neutral” it truly is, the Kremlin has also indicated to Ukraine’s president that it is also very much annoyed by the way that he and his people have “recast” the tragedy of the Holodomor of 1932-33 into the “false framework of a Ukrainian genocide” perpetrated by the Kremlin’s Stalinist ancestors. Such a “political lie” is being promoted only by “extreme nationalist elements.”
The fact that government jurisdictions around the world, including that of Canada and Ontario, have not only acknowledged the Ukrainian Holodomor as a result of Stalin’s determined effort to wipe out Ukrainians as a national group, but have also put annual commemorations of Holodomor Memorial Day into formal LEGISLATION (as Ontario did a few months ago with all-party support, including that of the New Democratic Party) makes no impression on the Kremlin.
No, the Kremlin has had quite enough out of President Yuschenko and people of his ilk. Russian-Ukrainian relations have only become more strained as a result of his actions. There is no satisfying Yuschenko and his “radical people.”
But the point really is that the Kremlin hasn’t bothered to ask the Russian people whether they are all so very much bothered by all this. The Kremlin is so used to speaking on behalf of Russia as it frames its own terms of reference which everyone else must accept.
And it is quite incapable of seeing its own history of repression of Ukraine and other nations as the major contributing factor to relations that have never been all that good, especially in the twentieth century. As for politics in the Church – when has that not ever been the case? Is the Kremlin serious about asserting the Moscow Patriarchate’s ideological independence of Great Russian Chauvinism and imperial aspirations that begin with the Church and end with national domination?
But President Medvedev is a person whose demeanour does not appear to fit his words – which is why one may scarcely believe they are not prepared for him by others. Perhaps the Kremlin could begin by leaving President Medvedev alone and let him speak up for himself (there goes that Ukrainian naivete again . . .).
In any event, if there is anyone who still thinks that the Moscow Patriarchate is not under the Kremlin’s ideological control, they should write the Kremlin to share their views with it. One can be sure that the Kremlin would love some third-party endorsements of its position right about now.
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| By: Philip Hammond As a Canadian Orthodox Christian who is living in Ukraine I find it sad that politics has become so intertwined in the life of the Holy Church here in the lands of Rus'. I see on one side a new, more Europe-oriented patriarch who is trying to make sure the Church of Rus' remains international and does not become a vehicle for 'Great Russian' nationalism (to the point where he even suggests living in Kiev half the year!), no matter how much the Medvedev government wants this. On the other I see a divided Ukrainian Orthodoxy, one part led by a former KGB agent who for decades served the Kremlin and only truly cares about having the title of patriarch and power over others and the other part led by people who value ethnicity over anything else. I do not call for or even expect the eternal unity of all the descendants of Rus' within one local Church, but I do hope and pray that if/when autocephaly comes to Orthodoxy in Ukraine that it is given to all Orthodox Christians in Ukraine and that it recognizes that Ukraine's Orthodox Russians, Romanians, Ruthenians, Belorussians, and Greeks and cares for them. We are all the children of one Mother Church and we all believe as one. These passing things - states, nations, languages, governments - should not so deeply and readily divide us from one another. God help us... | |
| By: Alex Roman Dear Philip, Thank you for your comments! Regardless of what we think of the patriarch of the UOC-KP (and he is certainly not the only formerly Russian Orthodox hierarch who had dealings with the KGB - we should be fair here), the fact is that the movement toward a Ukrainianized Orthodoxy is very strong and also within the UOC of the Moscow Patriarchate. This is why His Beatitude Metropolitan Volodymyr of Kyiv is taking its values most seriously and is taking steps to meet the challenges he faces with it. The problem is that there is no longer a "Rus'" but Ukraine and Russia. That is not "political" in any sense - just a sociological fact that is made complicated by the bad historic relations between those two countries. As Canadians, we tend to somewhat devalue the importance of cultural/national identity, language and the right to exist as such. In fact, Canadians have historically never known what true hegemony and national repression is (thankfully!). What the Ukrainian Orthodox in the several jurisdictions (and also those belonging to none as yet) want is what the Russians have taken for granted - their own Church where they may experience Orthodox Christianity throught medium and prism of their own cultural identity and traditions. That does not mean that they value "ethnicity" over anything else. In fact, in Ukraine the Ukrainians are not "ethnic" - they are simply Ukrainians living in their own land that is independent of Russia's imperial grip - for the most part. The Ukrainian Orthodox tradition, whether it was called "Ruthenian" or by another name before "Ukrainian" became the standard term has always been very ecumenical toward other Orthodox Christians and even toward sects in a way Orthodox Russia never was. The Old Believers of Russia, for example, fled to Ukraine where they could even produce their own literature in freedom. The Roumanian/Moldovian St Peter Mohyla was not only always warmly welcomed in Ukraine and Kyiv, but the Ukrainian Kozaks actually voted for him as their choice for Orthodox Metropolitan of Kyiv. Greek Orthodox settlers arrived en masse in southern Ukraine at Mariupolis where the Greek colony has always thrived. I know many Russians who actually prefer to live in Ukraine (where they don't have to learn Ukrainian if they don't want to) rather than in their native Russia. There is also no reason to assume that the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine will somehow move out after a unified Ukrainian Orthodox Church is established. The Orthodox Church is Roumanian in Roumania, Greek in Greece, Russian in Russia and it should be Ukrainian in Ukraine. Again, the saints of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church as is written about on this website indicate how truly multinational the UOC has always historically been. The Ukrainian Orthodox only desire what every other Orthodox Church has. The fact that it wants to be a unified national Church - well, most Orthodox Churches are organized that way. National Churches are also in the RC Church. The Mother Church for Ukrainians is Kyiv which inherited so much from Constantinople. Moscow is not and cannot be a "mother" to Kyiv since it is Kyiv's Orthodox Daughter Church. Given the harsh historical imperial realities of Muscovite/Russian domination over Ukraine, Moscow isn't the flavour of the century with many Ukrainians, culturally or spiritually. It is because of Ukraine's historically being divided into parts by various colonial empires that we find it difficult to come together as one Orthodox Church. There are those who would also like to see the Ukrainian Greek-Catholics form one Church with the unified and canonical Mother Ukrainian Orthodox Church with her head in Kyiv rather than in Moscow. And the idea that somehow Patriarch Kiril and the Russian President do not share the same geopolitical goals is something which is hard to accept. There was nothing in his statements about keeping Ukraine under Moscow's control (albeit with a possible Ukrainian flag in his throne room - but seeing is believing here)and also his very disturbing statements about the Stalinist regime vis-a-vis Hitler's that seemed to try and justify this dark aspect of Russia's past that would bear any of this out. Rus' as such is no longer around. What has taken its place is an ideology of domination based on Muscovite/Great Russian identity. Many Ukrainian Orthodox and Catholics aren't the only ones who irk at the very thought of coming back under Moscow religiously and culturally - there are others, including the Georgians, who were once in Moscow's grip and found it a most spiritually and culturally suffocating experience. But, as always, prayer and good will can overcome even the greatest of obstacles! Cheers! Alex | |
| By: Anonymous Why are so many people so blind to what Russia really is, as is clearly the situation with Philip below? Why does he not question and worry about the safety of Ukrainian, Roumanian, Georgian, and other Orthodox in Russia, but is so worried about other Orthodox in Ukraine? Ukraine never murdered millions upon millions as the Russians did. Ask any neighbour of Russia how kind and helpful the Russians are - no one complains about the Ukrainians, or the Lithuanians, or the Moldavians or the Georgians - except the Russians! Why are people, especially those brought up outside the former Soviet Union, so blind to what Russia and Russian Orthodoxy really is? Did not the Holy Spirit decend upon the Apostles to give them the gift of other languages so that they could spread the truth about OLGS Jesus Christ to all nations, in their own tongue? Does this not immediately imply that all languages and traditions, once becoming Christian, are made holy and proper? Is this totally lost upon other Orthodox people? Did not OLGS Jesus Christ say that the two most critical, vital and all important laws are to Love God and Love Your Neighbour as You Love Yourself? Can no one see that this is completely alien to the Russians and the Russian Orthodox Church. I'm amazed how the rest of the Orthodox world is blind to this ... it truly makes me wonder whether the Orthodox Church in the world and its teaching of its own members is so politicized that the only important thing is canonicity and its political implications, rather than the true practice and tradition of other Orthodox who only lack 'political' inclusion, but otherwise practice Orthodoxy, often more truly and properly, than some 'canonical' churches. | |
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