www.byzcath.org Forums News & Events Church News UAOC accuses UOC KP of dirty media war

Dear Bergschlawiner,

Not forgotten at all! And what about the sins of the Patriarchs of Moscow under the USSR? I guess we can't forget them since no one seems to want to remember them in the first place.

Alex

Dear Orthodoxsinner,

There really is ONE Ukrainian Catholic Church! The RC Church is not the UGCC and the Ruthenians, God help them, are not part of our jurisdiction either.

They all are in full communion with one another though.

What I don't get from Orthodox Christians with whom I've had the privilege of discussing this matter in the past (and this probably has more to do with converts than with cradles) is that when it comes to the papacy, all sorts of issues, wrongs and evils are brought up by them - usually against a perceived "attack" on Orthodoxy which appears to have never done any wrong, historically or in contemporary times.

Are we not then dealing with two triumphalisms here? The other being a kind of "Orthodox triumphalism?"

Alex

Sorry you have lost me. How do you define Ukrainian? Catholic? Church?

For there to be 1 Ukrainian Catholic Church it would need to be the sole catholic church on the territory of Ukraine.

Currently you have Ukrainians as members of the RCC, UGCC, and the Ruthenian Church. That is 3 Catholic Churches in Ukraine.

Canonically speaking the Orthodox situation is far better since there is only one Canonical Church which is the UOC-MP. Pastorally speaking it is a difficult situation and hopefully there is some resolution soon but that requires dialogue between the break away groups and Metropolitan of Kiev and the MP.The EP will not get involved.

I agree that it is unfortunate that the Orthodox do not have an agreed upon method to qualify and recognize autocephaly.

Personally I think it should follow political boundaries. I know some will say that is ethnophyletism but in my mind it is the only criteria that works.

OK, now you've lost me . . .

I define "Ukrainian Catholic" as a member of the Particular Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church. Traditionally, that is what we call ourselves.

But when the Russian Orthodox Church participated in the destruction of the UGCC in 1946, there were many members of the UGCC who found themselves without a Church. They were unwilling to commit the sin of schism, from their POV, and become members of the ROC. At the same time, they didn't want to join the now underground UGCC (of which my great-uncle was its Primate beginning in the early 1960's).

So they joined the RC Church which, until then, was composed largely of non-Ukainians. Today, there is a Ukrainian Latin Rite Catholic Church (who even have chaplains working in the Ukrainian armed forces fighting in the current conflict there).

There is also an Armenian Catholic Church in Ukraine. More than one Particular Church can and does exist within the same political boundaries of a single nation - they share the same faith etc. There are also Orthodox churches of different jurisdictions in other countries, as you know.

I can't see how anyone can possibility see the current "Orthodox mess" in Ukraine as a positive feature at all.

The canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church is under Moscow and its Metropolitan is (unlike the previous Primate, His Beatitude Volodymyr +memory eternal!) quite the Russophile, giving offense even to members of his own Church by his ill-advised and very pro-Russian comments and actions.

The as yet uncanonical Kyivan Patriarchate is quite large now, including the more than 1,000 parishes of the UAOC.

If the "canonical" resolution to these problems is, as the UOC-MP Metropolitan has reiterated time and again, that the non-canonical Orthodox "return" to Moscow - that is just not going to work in the long run for very many Ukrainian Orthodox who are increasingly feeling quite alienated from the Moscow patriarchate and its involvement in Ukrainian church and even political affairs.

The Ukrainian Orthodox were in communion with the Ecumenical Patriarchate for about 700 years since the time of the Baptism of Kyivan-Rus' by St Volodymyr. No one, not even Ukrainian Greek-Catholics, feel any antagonism toward Constantinople at all. It is the Mother Church of the Church of Kyiv - just as the Church of Kyiv is the Mother Church of Moscow.

If you think the EP won't get involved with the Orthodox situation in Ukraine - it already has by blessing two of her Bishops in North America to attend, as observers, meeting with the "uncanonical" Ukrainian Orthodox.

If you check the latest comments of the UOC-MP Synod, you will see that His Beatitude, Metropolitan Onuphrios is quite perturbed by all this and has formally issued a demand to the EP for an explanation for its current involvement.

The UOC-MP itself is divided along Ukrainian-Russian lines in a way like never before. And its leadership isn't making things any easier for themselves either by, in a word, stupid comments that only increase popular anger against it.

Even an eparchy of the UAOC in eastern Ukraine is now in talks with the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church to go ahead with achieving full communion with it.

That is an indication of the extent of the grave problems from Orthodoxy in Ukraine.

So, yes, the situation with the Eastern Catholic Church there is much, much better.

If you still seek a definition of what the UGCC is, it has a website.

Alex

Hi Alex,

I think I see why we are losing one another at least in part. That is why it is beneficial to define terms. I define Ukrainian Catholic as any Ukrainian who attends any Particular Church. So the Ukrainian Catholic can be a member of the Latin Rite, Ruthenian Eparchy, or the UGCC.

I have been seeing articles for years that the EP was going to get involved and nothing ever happens. The EP is in a precarious situation within Orthodoxy they cannot afford an open war with Moscow especially since they have lost their bread basket of Greece due to the unfortunate economic situation there. Currently the EP needs the MP more than the MP needs them especially since relations between Antioch and the EP are currently strained. Also, the MP loses nothing by boycotting the Pan Orthodox Synod that is slated for 2016 but the EP will lose face and credibility if it can't pull it off.

If the KP and the UAOC wanted normalization outside of dealing with the UOC-MP they would be better served by turning to their Slavic neighbors: The Polish Orthodox Church and or the Church of the Czech and Slovak Lands. Both of which have good relations with Moscow, relationships that Moscow does not want to sour. They could make strong appeals on their behalf and provide temporary normalization of their status.

No question, those are three distinct Churches. (I could argue about calling them all "Ukrainian" ... 99.9% of the Latin Church isn't in Ukraine or Ukrainian in any sense.) But the important thing is that those three Churches are all in full communion with each other, and mutually recognize each other as canonical.

I just saw this, and your other posts from yesterday, a short while ago ...
That's better? Well, I'm sure you're entitled to your opinion. I won't try to change your mind since your opinion doesn't carry weight with me.

But I would like to ask: do you have any evidence of significant geographical overlap between the UGCC and the Ruthenian Catholic Church? That seems to be very important to you, but everything I've seen points to exactly the opposite.

Well I am sorry if I struck a nerve. I was just trying to figure out what was meant by another poster. I never said there was significant overlap between the Ruthenian Eparchy of Mukachevo and the UGCC. What I am saying is that the eparchy of Mukachevo and its 400+ parishes are a Ukrainian Catholic Church in their own right. The people in the pews are Ukrainian Citizens. They live, work, vote and pay taxes in Ukraine and by everyone's acknowledgement they are members of the Catholic Communion of Churches.

And the same can be said of those dioceses of the latin rite made up by Ukrainian Citizens on the territory of Ukraine.

And I want to point that the points that I am making are based on my limited understanding and I do not claim to be an expert.

Wading into the status of the Eparchy of Mucachevo and attempting to 'prove' that it is a 'Ukrainian' Greek Catholic Church opens up a whole can of worms which really is not germane to Peter's point. Since 1945 the territory of the Mucachevo Eparchy was ceded to the USSR, included in its geographical definition of "Ukraine" and remained in Ukraine after independence in 1992. However, while the citizenship of those native to Transcarpathia is no doubt Ukrainian, that doesn't make them all ethnically Ukrainian. It is more than a nuance that accounts for the separate existence of that Eparchy. There are plenty of ethnic Hungarians in Transcarpathia and ethnic Romanians there as well - they are admittedly Ukrainian citizens, but that legality does not make them ethnic Ukrainians either.

You didn't. No need to apologize.

True, you didn't. But then, why it is a problem that they are both in the same country?

Thank you for your response. It is interesting and informative. If I am understanding you correctly when members of this thread refer to the UGCC as being the Ukrainian Church they are talking about ethnicity/culture and not geographical boundaries.

So when some in this thread are supporting an Autocephalous Ukrainian Orthodox Church are they speaking of a church for ethnic ukrainians that will exist at the same time and be in union with a separate Russian UOC-MP? Or are they envisioning an Authocephalous Ukrainian Orthdox Church that will be based on the geographical borders of the nation and will encompass all ethnicities?

Well I guess in my mind the ideal would be one country = one church. (Yes I know there are countries with 2 orthodox churches in them but I see that as an aberration and abuse) And I guess I didn't understand the nuances related to ethnicity.

If I could just ask 2 follow up questions.
1) are the members of the latin rite churches ethnic Ukrainians?
2) How do ECs view the Pan Orthodox Council that declared ethnophyletism a heresy?

Thank you all for your responses.

Mimicking the national borders does not make the charge of "ethnophyletism" any less an "abuse", since it is defined as "Phyletism or ethnophyletism (from Greek ἔθνος ethnos 'nation' and φυλετισμός phyletismos 'tribalism') is the principle of nationalities applied in the ecclesiastical domain: in other words, the conflation between Church and nation. The term ethnophyletismos designates the idea that a local autocephalous Church should be based not on a local [ecclesial] criterion, but on an ethnophyletist, national or linguistic one. It was used at the Holy and Great [Μείζων Meizon 'enlarged'] pan-Orthodox Synod in Constantinople on 10 September 1872 to qualify 'phyletist (religious) nationalism,' which was condemned as a modern ecclesial heresy: the Church should not be confused with the destiny of a single nation or a single race."

However, it should be noted that most, if not all of the EC Churches are supranational - in that because of being in the Catholic Communion, it's national identity is secondary to it's ecclesial; also, many of them (as well as Orthodox) have members that are not ethnically 'native' from clergy to bishops to laymen.

Also, if the idea of 'one country, one Church' were actually implemented, the first to object would be the largest ignorer of that principle - the ROC which claims jurisdiction over nations that don't exist, were forced into union, are now divided and even those that reject union.

It also should be noted that 'ethnophyletism' is one of the most bounced around and misapplied terms in American Orthodoxy, especially among converts. The truth be told, it was condemned by the Constantinople dominated faction at said Synod as the Phanar's control over the Orthodox in lands formerly part of the Ottoman Empire was disintegrating as the empire was disintegrating. The counterargument is that the condemnation was more of a tacit endorsement of a number of claims which Constantinople continues to make into the 21st century regarding its claimed role/rule over the Orthodox in the so-called 'barbarian lands'

Excellent points.