www.byzcath.org Forums News & Events Church News Move to Kyev Announced?

OK, so where and when did Filaret preach heresy? Commit a liturgical sacrilege? Unfortunately this situation is like Estonia. It has nothing to do with faith, with the Gospel, only with following the MP party line and subjective determinations of "canonicity".

Previous attempts at "canonical" autocephaly for the historic mother see of all Rus, Kyiv, have met with failure. The reality is much more objective than criteria of "canonicity". Kyiv deserves autocephaly. Moscow has denied it. Filaret had the courage to do what he did and restore Kyivan autocephaly.

Moscow would certainly have been considered similarly "non-canonical" when it created a parallel church to Kyiv. Look what happened over little Estonia. Doesn't seem all that different in retrospect.

I am sorry you do not consider Filaret and the KP Orthodox. I and my hierarchy do. We will have to agree to disagree on that issue.

And I am still unsure why all of the emotional attention to the ecumenical relations between two churches, neither of whom are part of the MP. We consider the KP Orthodox, as we do not subscribe to subjective criteria for "canonicity" (Bulgaria and Estonia cases in point). It has nothing to do with lack of respect. It has to do with a completely subjective and inconsistent approach to this very issue of "canonicity", as well as the deserving autocephaly of the mother Church of Rus'.

We as the UGCC do not presume to dictate the MP's ecumenical stance nor comment on which Orthodox hierarchs ALexei has contact with. It is interesting, as Hal mentioned, that this topic brings so much emotion from those outside both the KP and the UGCC.

Back to Hal's comment to stay on topic, let us all rejoice that the see of Kyiv, the see of Metropolitan Mikhail Rahoza, will be very shortly returned to that same Kyiv, to the mother city of all Rus'.

I wish I were Husar's neighbor in Kyiv,where I could open up my bedroom window and yell out "Good morning vladyko, and how are you today?"
Lauro

Dear Lauro,

I believe the King of Scots had a similar tradition.

After the King ate his dinner, a Scot would intone the bagpipes and then shout out: "The King has had his dinner - the rest of the world may now eat!"

Alex

As far as I know, the problem of the "Kyivan Patriarchate" is not so much the Orthodoxy or Canonicity of its Church (canonicity can be solved after all), but his lack of moral authority and legitimacy due to the personal scandals of its hierarchs (money stuff, Filaret's personal ambitions, etc).

As history has shown, Moscow will eventualy recognize the autocephaly of a united Ukrainian Church in the future, when less politicaly-biased hierarchs arrive to the Russian church.

An intervention of the EP would be cool because Patriarch Bartholomew would show his power to his critics, and after all nothing can happen. Other Orthodox Patriarchs, P. Teoctist of Romania in particular, are not very happy with HH Alexei II because of his colonialist points of view.

Alex,

I don't know where you come by this. Neither our kings of Scotland nor Ireland had such world views of their own importance. Their objectives were to unite their peoples and keep out (or, as the need inevitably came to pass, drive out) invaders - few had ambitions outside their own domains and those that did never stretched beyond the British Isles.

Neil

Dear Neil,

Actually, I first heard of this at a lecture on Celtic history at the University of Toronto some years back.

A friend of mine who attended with me (and who now lectures there) came by my office during my last few days there, stood by my door, and said the exact same words.

There was a reading list that came with the lecture that contained this as well.

If I can't find it, I'll ask Lloyd if he can direct me. (We took it at face value at the time and it didn't interest either of us to pursue it. Lloyd is of Scottish background and told me he has read of it as well.)

And it is "King of Scots" not "Scotland" .

Alex

Well within the memory of many of us, the Moscow Patriarchate was accustomed to send then-Metropolitan Philaret (Denysenko) around the world to attend meetings to discuss Orthodox canon law, presenting Kyr Philaret as a great expert on the subject. Incognitus

Alex,

In reference to a single king, it is King of Scots; in collective reference to the Scottish monarchs, they are Kings of Scotland.

Many years,

Neil

Dear Neil,

As long as you know that!

Alex