Posted on 01/03/2019 4:36:23 PM PST by CondoleezzaProtege
The real problem is that the crisis is deeper and its reasons can’t in any way be reduced to politics or the question of autocephaly. And the people who live in Ukraine and the Ukrainian church bear in themselves exactly the same wounds of Soviet authority that people in the modern Russian Federation bear. They are not free of Soviet times just as we are not free; they haven’t repented and haven’t been reborn either. And that rebirth cannot happen if people continue to insist that the reasons for the horror of the 20th century are external, rather than within – or if they continue to believe themselves to be only victims. At present, in Ukraine there are only the very beginnings of repentance, but at the same time there are various nationalist and chauvinist tendencies to self-affirmation – and this is far from being an ideal situation.
Until most recent times, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church understood itself to be a part of the Russian Orthodox Church, despite all the inadequacies of its contemporary life. And now, the Ukrainian church is subject to serious testing ...alleging that if it wishes to be fully independent, it needs to break away from the wounds existing in the everyday consciousness and practice of the Russian Orthodox Church. The grass is always greener on the other side...and they aren’t considering in the least who they will be in relation to the Greek tradition.
People discuss the intricacies of the Byzantine or Russian ecclesial model, for instance, clarifying the differences and contradictions between them, but at the same time they are unable to see that behind all this stand much more serious problems which are fundamental for the church, and that these problems persist on both sides of the contemporary divide between Moscow and Constantinople...
(Excerpt) Read more at psmb.ru ...
And as for the people, whether in Russia or Ukraine, bearing in mind the horrors of the 20th century, they don’t really remember with much fondness the Soviet, communist times that they lived through. Unfortunatly, the authorities here don’t really see or understand this. Political authorities in the Russian Federation aren’t fighting all that hard for de-communization, to put it mildly.
ping!
Save Thy people, O Lord,
and bless Thine inheritance.
Grant victory to Thy Church over her enemies,
and protect Thy people by Thy Holy Cross!
History is made. Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew signed the tomos of autocephaly giving canonical independence to the newly created Orthodox Church of Ukraine.
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