Wars of Religion. Because in Ukraine the Most Ecumenical Are the Greek Catholics

n the war underway in the Orthodox world between the patriarchate of Constantinople and that of Moscow - the former in favor of and the latter against the creation of an independent and united Ukrainian Orthodox Church - there is a third wheel which is the Greek Catholic Church of Ukraine, with its four million faithful.

Which side this is on in the conflict is no mystery. With Constantinople. As repeatedly explained by its major archbishop, Sviatoslav Shevchuk, most recently in October in an extensive interview with John L. Allen and Inés San Martin for the American website “Crux”:

But in taking this stance the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church is suspected by Moscow of aiming at an even more ambitious goal: to lead the nascent Ukrainian Orthodox Church into unity with the Greek Catholics as well, and thus to obedience to the Church of Rome.

The “foreign minister” of the patriarchate of Moscow, metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, has repeatedly expressed this suspicion to Francis. And the pope has shown him understanding and solidarity. Last May 30, after receiving Hilarion at the Vatican, he ordered the Greek Catholics “not to meddle in the internal affairs of the Russian Orthodox Church,” and reviled “the banner of uniatism, which no longer works, is over.”

“Uniatism” is the most intolerable thing there is for the Orthodox. It stands for the mimicry of those who display a resemblance to them in everything, in the Byzantine liturgy, in customs, in the calendar, in the married clergy, but also obey - and want to make others obey - the pope of Rome, with the deception of a false reestablishment of unity between the Churches.

And this is precisely the most disparaging accusation that the patriarchate of Moscow applies systematically to the Greek Catholic Church of Ukraine. So systematically as to get it included in the joint declaration signed by Pope Francis and by Russian patriarch Kirill on the day of their embrace in Havana, February 12, 2016.

It is an accusation that Archbishop Shevchuk rejects for the umpteenth time as “false” and “offensive” in his book-length interview entitled “Tell me the truth,” published in Italy by Cantagalli this fall: “We are a ‘sui iuris’ Church with full apostolic succession. The renewal of our communion with Rome was not an application of the method of uniatism.”

The “renewal” to which Shevchuk refers bears the date of 1595, and took place in Brest, a city that today is on the Belarusian border with Poland. In the account of it that the patriarchate of Moscow presents today, the synod of Brest was the treacherous act by which the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church had its birth, separating from Orthodoxy and subjecting itself to Rome.

But what is the historical interpretation that the Ukrainian Greek Catholics make of this? In the book-length interview, Shevchuk deals with it clearly. And it is important to review it, seeing that few know about it.

The true year of the Ukrainian Church’s birth - Shevchuk says - was 988, the baptismal date of Prince Vladimir of Kiev. At the time, “Moscow did not exist yet,” nor was there yet the schism between Rome and Constantinople.

“The Church of Kiev always saw Constantinople as its prototype, and its first metropolitan came from there,” Shevchuk continues. After the schism took place, in the 15th century Constantinople and Kiev were still pushing to restore unity with the Church of Rome, in part because of the vital interest of Byzantium in finding allies in the West, to defend itself from Muslim encirclement.

The metropolitan in Kiev was Isidore, “a Greek sent from Constantinople with the task of persuading the grand duchy of Russia as well to let him represent them at the Council for union,” convened by Pope Eugene IV in 1438 in Ferrara and the following year in Florence.

“Metropolitan Isidore,” Shevchuk continues, “signed the decree of union in Florence and returned to Kiev, where the news of the end of the schism was received with great enthusiasm. Vice-versa, in Moscow he met with great hostility, to the point that the grand duke imprisoned him and had him condemned as an apostate. As far as we are concerned, that was when the first split between the Church of Kiev and the Church of Moscow took place. Another metropolis was founded in Moscow, which then formally became a patriarchate in 1589.”

Constantinople fell in 1453. But then Ukraine was also hit by the Protestant wave and the subsequent Catholic Counter-Reformation set in motion by the Council of Trent. “Here as well Kiev felt the need for a reform,” meaning a return “to that tradition which had its roots in Constantinople and had underwritten the decree of union. In this context was born the idea that the reaffirmation of communion with Rome would be able to save the heart of the Cathlic-Orthodox tradition and at the same time promote it, renew it.”

It is in this context that Shevchuk situates the synod of Brest. “All the bishops of the Ukrainian Church met in Brest in 1595 and signed a new decree of union, which afterward was promulgated in Rome by Clement VIII. This act did not constitute a rupture with the preceding history, nor were the bishops thinking about founding a new Church as much as eliciting a reform safeguarded by the bond with the universal Church, presided over by the bishop of Rome. They were aware that they could not look for help from Constantinople, which by then had fallen into the hands of the Turks, nor from Moscow, which did not yet represent a traditionally recognized spiritual and religious center. From all of these evaluations - spiritual, reformist, ecclesial, geopolitical - was born the idea of the union of Brest, which we cannot consider an act of ‘uniatism.’ In Brest the whole Church, in union with its metropolitan, reaffirmed communion with Rome, in the form that had been memorialized in Kiev through the whole first millennium. Here the memory persisted of the undivided Church, before the schism of 1054.”

Shevchuk points out that “only in 1620 was a parallel Orthodox hierarchy set up in Ukraine,” by a patriarch of Jerusalem who, upon returning from a journey to Moscow, “ordained as bishops a group of monks who did not accept the decisions of the synod of Brest.”

In any case, “the synod of Brest and the controversies that it provoked had the distinction of inciting a great ferment - on one side and the other - that was theological, biblical, pastoral” and in which two great figures stood out in the 18th century: in the Orthodox camp the metropolitan Peter Mohyla, and in the Catholic camp the metropolitan Josyf Veliamyn Rutsky. “Among these personages, erudite, open, and - what matters more - holy, was born not only a dialogue and a friendship, but also a project of reconciliation,” aimed at the “formation of the unified patriarchate of Kiev.” A project that “would be reborn in the 20th century with the metropolitan Andrej Sheptyckyj.”

In the meantime, however, Ukraine had long been dismembered among Russia and Austria. And in the territory of Kiev, the Church in communion with Rome had been forcibly erased and its metropolitan exiled to Lviv, in the western region under Austrian dominion. Until in 1946, after the Soviet Union had also annexed this part of Ukraine, “the pseudo synod of Lviv also approved the liquidation of our Church,” with its metropolitan Josef Slipyj already in prison in Siberia.

Set free in 1963, “in a famous session of Vatican Council II Slipyj launched a heartfelt appeal for the recognition of the patriarchal ‘status’ of his Church, carrying on the ideas and perspective of his predecessor Sheptyckyj, that perspective which he had in turn taken from the great metropolitans of the 17th century, which included unity with the Russian Orthodox side. The shared martyrdom on both the Orthodox and Catholic side was for Slipyj the fact that eliminated an historic division.”

Here ends the historical reinterpretation undertaken by Shevchuk in his book-length interview.

It can be added that in light of this reconstruction it comes as no surprise that the elevation of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church to a patriarchate - once it had risen from the catacombs after the collapse of the Soviet system - was very close to being realized. In 2003 the president of the pontifical council for Christian unity at the time, Walter Kasper, sent a letter to the Orthodox patriarch of Moscow to inform him of the imminent turning point. Which was immediately cancelled by the Vatican, however, because of the very strong negative reactions not only from the Russian Orthodox but also from the ecumenical patriarchate of Constantinople.

The almost-patriarch fell back on 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 brought up again since then. But on the academic level, this elevation has continued to be upheld by many scholars as historically and theologically well-founded. One who distinguished himself as among its most convinced and authoritative supporters was, for example, the American Jesuit Robert Taft, a great specialist on the Eastern Churches and for three decades a preeminent professor at the Pontifical Oriental Institute, who died last November 1 at the age of 86.

The fact is, however, that the realization of this goal now appears even farther away than it was before, in spite of the thaw between Rome and the patriarchate of Moscow, born witness to by the embrace between Francis and Kirill in Havana. Or rather, precisely on account of this embrace.

The patriarchate of Moscow, in fact, is fiercely against the birth of an “autocephalous” Orthodox Church in Ukraine, free from its control and connected instead to the ecumenical patriarchate of Constantinople. It is so against this that on its account it has even broken off Eucharistic communion with Constantinople.

Between the two, Francis sides with Moscow. And the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church is paying the price.

Of course the fake pope sides with the dictator in Moscow. Mr. Bergoglio wouldn’t do the right thing even if it would save the world.

I have to say, Rome *should* be aligned with Moscow here. The Ukrainians are creating a completely unnecessary schism as part of the extended anti-Russia tantrum they have been throwing. Not good news for the faithful, in the long run.

Rome shouldn’t be siding with *anyone* against the Catholic faithful, which is what the long-suffering Greek Catholics of Ukraine are.

“The Ukrainians are creating a completely unnecessary schism as part of the extended anti-Russia tantrum they have been throwing.”

Tantrum? It’s a tantrum not to like the people who invade and occupy your country?

The Ukrainians are well within their rights to tell the Russians...all of them...to go to hell.

“to lead the nascent Ukrainian Orthodox Church into unity with the Greek Catholics as well, and thus to obedience to the Church of Rome.”

You’re kidding right?

Lutherans and Roman Catholics are more likely to reconcile than Orthodox and RC. If you thought there was bad blood between Protestants and Roman Catholics, just watch an Orthodox and RC get into it sometime.

The idea that the Ukrainian Orthodox will split off from the Russian Orthodox church and suddenly team up with Rome is ridiculous on its face.

I have no dog in this fight, but I know horse hockey when I see it.

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