The two-headed hydra of the Ukrainian split and world Orthodoxy MP

May 8, 2019 14:39 The article by the Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, the chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for External Church Relations, was published on the Jesus Internet portal . May 6 marks four months since the Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew signed the “Tomos” about the autocephaly of the “Orthodox Church of Ukraine”, according to which Epiphanius Dumenko was appointed head of the newly created structure with the title “Metropolitan of Kiev and All Ukraine”. Patriarch Bartholomew sent a letter to the heads of the Local Orthodox Churches demanding to recognize this structure as the canonical Orthodox Church of Ukraine instead of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church , headed by His Beatitude Metropolitan Onufri of Kiev and All Ukraine . Over the past four months, not one Local Orthodox Church has recognized the act of Patriarch Bartholomew, committed in flagrant violation of church canons. A number of Churches officially declared their disagreement with this act, the non-recognition of the legalization of schismatics, and the support of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church, headed by Metropolitan Onufry. Other churches took time to study the situation. But none supported the lawlessness. Why? First, we all know that the Ukrainian Orthodox Church unites the majority of Orthodox believers in Ukraine. It includes almost 13 thousand parishes, more than 200 monasteries, its members are millions of believers. It is she, and not a group of schismatics who has now received legitimization by Patriarch Bartholomew, is the only canonical Church of Ukraine, which Patriarch Bartholomew himself, not once, publicly declared, for the last time - in January 2016, on the Sinaxis of Primates of Local Churches. Secondly, it is the Ukrainian Orthodox Church headed by the Most Blessed Metropolitan Onufry that is the national Orthodox Church of Ukraine. This is not the “Russian Church,” as P.A. Poroshenko. Its members are citizens of Ukraine born and raised in their own country, having a Ukrainian passport and loving their homeland. Its administrative center is not in Moscow, but in Kiev. Contrary to Poroshenko’s allegations, prayers in the Ukrainian Church are not raised for the Russian authorities and not for the Russian army, but for the Ukrainian authorities and the Ukrainian army. The self-governing Ukrainian Orthodox Church has all the rights that allow it to be the national church of its country. It is connected with the Moscow Patriarchate by the spiritual and historical unity, dating back to the times of Kievan Rus, but it has no administrative, financial or any other dependence on Moscow. Thirdly, we all know that the schismatic community, now legalized by Patriarch Bartholomew, is a conglomerate of two groups, none of which had canonical hierarchy at the time of recognition by Constantinople. One group, the so-called “Kyiv Patriarchate,” is headed by a man whose excommunication from the Church was recognized by all the Local Churches, including the Constantinople. The other group goes back to the banned in the service of the bishop of the Russian Church and to a person who never had not only a bishop's, but even a priestly ordination. In the people of these people are called "samosvyatami." The recognition of this false hierarchy was accomplished without a proper investigation of its origin and even without formal re-positioning, by a single act of will of Patriarch Bartholomew. Fourthly, even after receiving the “tomos”, the schismatic community continues to demonstrate complete canonical lawlessness, the violation of all church rules. This community, which calls itself the “Orthodox Church of Ukraine,” has two chapters with almost the same title. One is called the “Metropolitan of Kiev and All Ukraine,” the other is the “Patriarch of Kiev and All Russia-Ukraine.” The first exists for external use, the second for internal. It is the second, not the first, that controls the “Kyiv Metropolis”. Here is his recent statement: “The HCV is officially recognized by the Ecumenical Patriarch. But in Ukraine there is the Kiev Patriarchate. Because we are not satisfied with the status of the metropolis. We have existed for more than 25 years as a patriarchy. And the people elected patriarchs. I am the third patriarch. And before me was Patriarch Vladimir, Patriarch Mstislav. The patriarchs were! And so for Ukraine we are a patriarch. And for the outside world, that is, for the Orthodox world, we are the Kiev Metropolis. ” Can such a two-headed hydra recognize at least one Local Orthodox Church? Fifthly, the split demonstrates complete spiritual and canonical inconsistency. The “tomos” positions are subject to ambiguous interpretation and are not executed. For example, in “Tomos” it is stipulated that the “Orthodox Church of Ukraine” cannot include parishes outside Ukraine. However, from the point of view of the false patriarch Filaret Denisenko, these parishes can not leave the so-called “Kyiv Patriarchate”: “We cannot force them, but we cannot reject them either. Since they do not want to move away from us, we consider them as ours. ” A two-headed hydra cannot but have double-entry bookkeeping. For the domestic consumer, there remains the “Kyiv Patriarchate” with a network of foreign “parishes”, and for the external one - the “Kyiv Metropolis” without them. Sixthly, with the support of the authorities, who shamefully lost the election, a campaign was launched — and not yet stopped — to seize the temples of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church by supporters of the schism. This seizure is carried out by force: masked men rush into the temple, beat believers, expel them and the priest from the building, proclaim themselves to be its rightful owners. How should world Orthodoxy respond to this iniquity? Just as it has already responded in the person of Patriarchs of Alexandria Theodore, Antioch John and Jerusalem Theophilus, who gathered in Cyprus and together with the Archbishop of Cyprus Chrysostomist "called on all parties to cooperate to achieve, on the one hand, the Eucharistic unity, which is the fullness of the Church in Christ Jesus, and on the other hand, in order to protect believers, temples and monasteries from attacks and all kinds of violence, no matter where they come from and whatever their causes and motives, which cause them. ” Taking an unprecedented decision to legalize the Ukrainian schism, Patriarch Bartholomew counted on the fact that the hierarchs of the canonical Church would join the structure created by him and that this structure would be recognized by the Local Orthodox Churches. Neither the one nor the other, the blitzkrieg failed. Instead of healing the schism, Patriarch Bartholomew only deepened it, causing a fair rejection of his actions in world Orthodoxy. And if earlier, being “the first among equals”, he could play a coordinating and consolidating role in the family of Local Orthodox Churches, now, declaring himself “the first without equals,” he self-destructed as a coordinating center. Therefore, it is quite natural that the Primates of the Local Orthodox Churches begin to look for new formats for interaction. And the first sign is the meeting of the four Primates in Cyprus. The final communiqué of the meeting states: “After His Beatitude Archbishop Chrysostom of Cyprus reported on a mediation initiative that he personally undertook, three Primates agreed with her, so that His Bliss continued to engage her in favor of unity in Christ of the Orthodox Church.” What does this mean? The fact that in the absence of a coordinating center in the person of the “first among equals” the Orthodox Churches will try to create a different center of interaction. In the conditions when the first diptych in fact self-removed and self-isolated, the second, and the third, and the fourth, and the tenth can be the coordinator of the general Orthodox efforts to overcome splits and disorder, because the Orthodox Church entrusts this mission to her wisdom and humility, not claiming primacy and domination. When in the 5th century the Patriarch of Nestorius of Constantinople fell into heresy, the Patriarch of Alexandria at the Third Ecumenical Council played a decisive role in condemning this heresy. And when in the 15th century the Patriarch of Constantinople supported the union with Rome, the other Eastern Patriarchs did not recognize this act. Now, when the Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew was on the side of a split, world Orthodoxy was by no means decapitated. The head of the Ecumenical Church has never been the Patriarch of Constantinople. The Lord Jesus Christ Himself has always been and remains. And if in the Catholic tradition there was an idea of ​​the Pope as the vicar of Christ, His earthly representative, then in the Orthodox tradition there was never such a view. "Since a person is subject to death and cannot be the permanent head of the Church, our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, as the Head, holding the helm of the government of the Church, rules it through the Holy Fathers." In 1723, four Eastern Patriarchs signed these words - Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem. And in 1895, responding to the call of Pope Leo XIII, the Synod of the Church of Constantinople declared: “... Addressing the fathers and the Ecumenical Councils of the Church of the first nine centuries, we make sure that the Bishop of Rome was never considered the highest authority and the infallible Head of the Church, and everyone the bishop is the head and head of his private church, submitting only to conciliar decrees and decisions of the catholic church as the only infallible, and in no way was, as church history shows, an exception to this rule Bishop of Rome. The only eternal Head of God and the immortal Head of the Church is our Lord Jesus Christ. ” The current Patriarch of Constantinople, in fact, denied the general Orthodox teaching explicitly expressed in these texts, and imagined himself to be the only infallible head of the Orthodox Church, who has the right to take appeals from any Local Churches, interfere in their lives, judge and adjudicate their cases at their discretion and arbitrariness. But the sad experience of his voluntaristic intervention in the Ukrainian situation showed: with full respect for the existing institutions resulting from the primacy of honor according to the diptych, the fullness of world Orthodoxy rejects such an overrun of the authority of the Constantinople Patriarch, as in the past, she consistently rejected attempts of certain hierarchs to assimilate themselves not their prerogatives. The schism remains a schism, and the Orthodoxy from the endured trials only grows stronger. This shows an example of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which today is following the path of confession, calmly and courageously responding to external and internal challenges. In her feat of standing for truth, she has strong support from the Local Orthodox Churches, and it is this consolidated support that will ultimately help heal the Ukrainian schism.