Metropolitan Volodymyr of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Moscow Patriarchate seeks reconciliation with other Orthodox churches, but only on his terms
he rifts that have divided Ukrainian Orthodoxy at least since independence, but he is offering reconciliation only on condition that rival leaders “repent” and rejoin his Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
The contradictions between the country’s religious leaders were highlighted last month when a replica of the Turin Shroud was brought to Kyiv. Among those who welcomed the relic’s arrival were the heads of two of the country’s three biggest churches – Lyubomyr Huzar of the Greek Catholic Church and Filaret of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Kyiv Patriarchate. The two leaders accompanied the shroud in a church procession through the streets of Kyiv, and it was subsequently displayed at St. Volodymyr’s (Orthodox) Cathedral and St. Basil’s (Greek Catholic) Church.
The head of the nation’s largest church, Metropolitan Volodymyr, was not present however.
Volodymyr considers Filaret a schismatic, who was excommunicated and anathematized for breaking church laws when he set up an independent Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
Filaret is Volodymyr’s strongest rival. While Volodymyr’s church is estimated to have 25 million believers, Filaret’s has about 10 million. In addition to a third, smaller Autocephalous Ukrainian Orthodox Church, the country also has 5 million Greek Catholics.
Rival churches
Born Viktor Sabodan in the Khmelnytsky Oblast village of Markovtsy in 1935, Volodymyr studied theology at the Leningrad Theology Academy. In addition to his religious training, Volodymyr also studied law. On graduating in 1962, he became a monk.
In 1965, at the age of 30, Volodymyr became rector of the Odessa Theology Academy. The following year he was made bishop of Zvenigorodsk in Russia.
In 1973, Volodymyr was appointed rector of the Moscow Theology Academy, and elevated to the rank of archbishop.
In 1984, he was appointed patriarchal exarch for Western Europe. In this capacity, he was based in France and was responsible for all Russian Orthodox believers in the exarchate of Western Europe. In 1987, he was appointed property manager for the Moscow Patriarchate and elected a permanent member of the Holy Synod.
After Ukraine became independent, Metropolitan Filaret, who had headed the Ukrainian Orthodox Church since 1990, launched a movement to declare the full canonical independence (autocephaly) of his church.
In November 1991, a council of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church voted unanimously for autocephaly. However, the hierarchical council of the Russian Orthodox Church refused to recognize it.
Eight months later, a council of bishops loyal to the Moscow Patriarchate was called in Kharkiv. The council deposed Filaret and appointed Volodymyr head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. Filaret refused to accept this decision.
This situation led to a split between Volodymyr’s Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which remained loyal to the Moscow Patriarch, and Filaret’s Ukrainain Orthodox-Kyiv Patriarchate.
In recent years, Volodymyr’s authority has been recognized abroad. In 1996, he was chosen to chair the United Nations’ international committee for celebrating the 2,000th anniversary of the birth of Christ. In March 1998, the Israeli government invited him to join the inter-governmental commission for preparing the celebration of the anniversary in the Holy Land.
Volodymyr is known for his strict observance of church laws. Services in the Ukrainian Orthodox Church are generally conducted in the Old Church Slavonic language, though at the request of parishioners they may be held in Ukrainian instead.
Volodymyr speaks French, and writes poetry.
Path to unity
Volodymyr sees overcoming the schism and creating a unified Ukrainian Orthodox Church as one of his most important tasks.
“There is one true church,” he said. “If there are many, that is unnatural and wrong. It means someone made a mistake somewhere.”
Volodymyr believes that the division in the church is politically inspired. He has said that the issue remains unresolved due to the intervention of outside political forces, though he did not specify which forces he has in mind. He sees the resolution of the conflict in its depoliticization.
“We will be able to heal the schism only when the politicians abandon their attempts to use the church and its problems for their purposes, when the media stop inflaming the situation, and when the state truly respects the laws by which the church lives, which are known in church language as the canons, and which are written not by lawyers but by the holy fathers,” he said.
He insists that in order to create a unified Orthodox church, the leaders of the other churches must repent and return to the one canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
“For believers, concepts like ‘with grace’ and ‘without grace,’ ‘orthodox’ and ‘non-orthodox,’ ‘canonical’ and ‘uncanonical’ are much more important than the epithets Moscow, Kyiv or Rome,” he said.
While many of Ukraine’s Orthodox Christians are not particularly concerned about the affiliation of the church they attend, those believers who are strong supporters of Ukrainian statehood tend to follow the Kyiv Patriarchate.
For the political elite, their choice of church can be a way of demonstrating their political allegiances. For example, Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych prefers to attend services at the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra, which belongs to Volodymyr’s church. Meanwhile, Our Ukraine leader Viktor Yushchenko favors Filaret’s Kyiv Patriarchate.
However, Volodymyr rejects suggestions that his church is somehow dependent on Moscow. He insists that it has broad autonomy: it establishes new eparchates; appoints the higher orders of clergy; and conducts its economic affairs independently.
“Our link with the Russian Orthodox Church is purely spiritual, as with the mother church, without which the problem of autocephaly cannot be decided,” he said.
“A free church has emerged in a free country. Even though we have suffered many injustices in the independent period, ours is the only true path,” Volodymyr said.
Disputed property
Meanwhile, the opposition Ukrainian Republican Party Sobor has expressed concern at the church’s attempts to settle property disputes by extra-judicial means. For example, on April 18, representatives of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church occupied a building at the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra that was previously used to store archeological exhibits.
Volodymyr considers such accusations unfounded. “This is just the implementation of the presidential decree on return of sacred buildings, church property and the elimination of the consequences of the God-defying and atheistical regime,” he said.
He insisted that such occupations are not the seizure but the recovery of church property.
“Cultural establishments and other organizations should have been thankful for the opportunity to use these buildings,” he said. “This use was often accompanied by blasphemy. Toilets and service buildings were placed in altars and the buildings were allowed to degenerate into a hazardous state.”
This article was first published in Russian in Korrespondent magazine on June 24 as part of its series devoted to the Top 100 most influential individuals in Ukraine.
