[Catholic/Orthodox Caucus] Backstage. Francis’s Missing “Gift” To the Ukrainians

L'Espresso ^ | July 9, 2019 | Sandro Magister

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[Catholic / Orthodox Caucus] Backstage. Francis’s Missing “Gift” To the Ukrainians

The July 4 visit to the Vatican by Vladimir Putin, who is certainly not a friendly face for Ukrainians, cast a shadow over the meeting in Rome, over the next two days, of the synod of the Greek Catholic Church of Ukraine, with its major archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk (see photo).

On July 5 Pope Francis delivered a speech to them that was very evasive on the tough questions, that is on both the ongoing military conflict and the dispute among the Churches of the Orthodox camp, both with Russia as protagonist. Nor did he provide a glimpse of what could be meant by what the Vatican nuncio in Kiev, Claudio Gugerotti, had hinted at as a “gift” that the pope would give to the Ukrainian Church.

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This “gift” could certainly not have been the elevation of that Church as a patriarchate, with its 5 million faithful. Acting as spokesman for this age-old aspiration had been, at a memorable session of Vatican Council II, Ukrainian metropolitan Josef Slipyj, just released from the prisons of Siberia. And in 2003 this dream was close to becoming a reality, when then-president of the pontifical council for Christian unity Walter Kasper sent a letter to the Orthodox patriarch of Moscow to announce the imminent turning point. Immediately cancelled by the Vatican, however, because of the very strong negative reactions not only of the Russian Orthodox but also of the ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople.

The would-be patriarch went back to the title of “major archbishop,” and in public, on the part of the Holy See, the elevation of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church as a patriarchate has not been proposed again since. But the anticipation remains very lively among the Ukrainian Greek Catholics, and even at the academic level many scholars maintain that it is theologically well-founded. One standout among its most convinced and authoritative supporters was, for example, the American Jesuit Robert Taft, an eminent specialist on the Eastern Churches and for three decades a top professor at the Pontifical Oriental Institute, who died at the age of 86 in 2017.

The fact is, however, that the realization of this goal appears farther away now than before, in spite of the thaw between Rome and the patriarchate of Moscow, evidenced by the embrace of Francis and Kirill in Havana. On the contrary, precisely on account of this embrace.

But then, excluding the patriarchate, what could have been the “gift” of Pope Francis to the Ukrainians?

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Until a few days before the July 5-6 assembly in Rome, it was taken for granted among the well-informed that the news would consist of the promotion of a Ukrainian bishop to a prominent role in the Vatican curia, that of secretary of the congregation for the Oriental Churches.

The predesignated was Teodor Martynyuk, auxiliary of the Greek Catholic diocese of Ternopil. But more than his promotion, the real news would have been the future of the churchman whose place he would have taken: Archbishop Cyril Vasil, 54, Slovakian, the current secretary of the congregation.

Vasil is a Jesuit, but he is not in the good graces of Jorge Mario Bergoglio, especially after in 2015, during the hiatus between the two synods on the family, he sided publicly against communion for the divorced and remarried. The pope, therefore, would look with favor on his removal from the Vatican.

Away from Rome, nevertheless, Vasil would obtain that which is for him the true objective. He would return to his Slovakia as the major archbishop of a new Eastern Church of the Ruthenians, which would unite Slovakians, Croatians, Hungarians of the Greek Catholic rite, plus the annexation of a Ukrainian diocese, that of Mukachevo, it too populated by Ruthenians, for a total of about 200,000 faithful.

The erection of this new reality as a major archepiscopal Church would include the three Byzantine-rite Catholic dioceses already present in Slovakia today: the metropolis of Presov, Bratislava, and Kosice. Plus a fourth would be created, that of Humenné. But it is evident that if the diocese of Mukachevo were also to switch to this new major archepiscopal Church, for the Ukrainian Greek Catholics it would be a heavy blow.

In effect, the diocese of Mukachevo is not part of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church that has in Shevchuk its major archbishop. It figures as “immediately subject” to the Holy See and is the object of an old dispute between Slovakian and Ukrainian Greek Catholics.

So if Vasil’s goal were to become reality, the “gift” of Bergoglio to the Ukrainian Greek Catholics would turn into a joke, certainly not offset by the promotion of Martynyuk as secretary of the congregation for the Oriental Churches.

Shortly before, however, the Roman expedition of the synod of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church and its meeting with the pope, it leaked out that Martynyuk had declined to leave Ternopil for the Vatican.

The “gift” has fallen through and the entire operation has had a temporary arrest. It will be revisited in September.

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N.B.: Pope Francis recently, unilaterally, "gifted" nine relics of Saint Peter, the first pope, to the Russian Orthodox; not to the Greek Catholics nor the Ukrainian Catholics.

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