These anomalies have contributed towards sectarian divisions in Ukraine and encouraged external secular and sectarian powers to manipulate and even interfere in Ukraine’s ecclesiastical choices and religious freedoms.
The Vatican’s decades-long “Ostpolitik” has had, as its central goal, the“reunification” of the eastern (Orthodox) and western (Catholic) wings of the “one church.”
However, it has largely missed that mark because of its fixation with the primacy of the Russian Orthodox Church, and, in turn, the Russian church’s fixation with Ukrainian Catholicism and Orthodoxy. By its failure to recognize that the Russian Orthodox Church is simply one of several dozen Orthodox churches (and not even the largest in terms of practicing believers among the 250 -300 million world-wide, Orthodox faithful), the Vatican has, by default, allowed the Russian church to assume a greater importance inits ecclesiastical affairs and ecumenical undertakings than is either warranted or productive.
The Russian Orthodox Church still harbors the delusion that it is the successor (the “Third Rome”) to Byzantium’s earlier role as a spiritual center of Christianity, and Putin’s attempt at a global network through “Russky Mir” includes this somewhat mystical though vapid “third Rome” concept.
This eagerness to give the Russian church greater credit than is its due or weight in the Orthodox world is one of the reasons why the world’s attention was focused on Havana this past week.
And it is also a reason why the content, implication, and sourcing of certain parts of the Joint Declaration was a disappointment, if not a surprise, to most Ukrainians.
The declaration’s reference to the Ukrainian Catholic Church as an “ecclesial” community rather than a full-fledged church (not unlike the Roman church); and its disingenuous reference to Russia’s occupation of Crimea and invasion of the Donbas as an internal conflict fueled by sectarian divisions was not softened by other text showing that the Russian church recognized this “community’s” right to exist. It’s a wonder that the negotiators – Russia’s Hilarion and Switzerland’s Cardinal Koch (but without Ukrainian consultation) – failed to give this last point away as well.
Although this criticism may seem harsh, we should acknowledge that – at least on the Vatican’s side – there was good faith, good intentions, and (most of all) adesire to become “peacemakers” and “build bridges.”
The error was not in the intent but in the Vatican’s eagerness to find “common ground” with Russia’s state-owned church even if it meant the duplicity of nuanced “diplomatic” language…something that is unworthy of Christ’s Vicar.
The silver lining is that the Havana Declaration is be a “wake-up”call for both Ukrainian Orthodoxy and Ukrainian Catholicism to shed the remnants of their dependence on, and faith in, the solicitous fair-mindedness of distant “mentors,” or passive acceptance of external interference in their affairs.
Coming out of the Maidan, both major churches have established a close working relationship.
Orthodox and Catholic priests and bishops stood side by side on stage praying the Lord’s Prayer and sharing space for liturgical services.
Confessions were heard and last rites administered without regard to church affiliation. We saw the beginnings of a de facto if not a de jure unified national church. The centuries-long, elusive “reunification” of Orthodoxy and Catholicism has taken root – not with the sizzle and drama and approval of “the patriarch of Moscow and all Russia” – but through Christian tolerance, kindness and charity. This, even more than the Russian Orthodox Church’s objection to the legitimacy of the Kyiv Patriarchate, or the Vatican’s embrace of the Russian church is the lesson we should be learning from our disappointment.
The global Catholic Church consists of the Roman rite and 23 Eastern Catholic or Uniate churches in full communion with the Pope. They are self governing (“sui juris”) entities and six of them have the juridical status of “patriarchates.”
The Ukrainian Catholic church is the largest, with almost 1/3of the total combined membership of the 23 churches, and with more bishops (44) than any other. It is better prepared, funded and organized to support a patriarchate juridical status than any other Eastern Catholic church.
It has over 40 times more members than the (smallest) Syriac Patriarchate with its 140,000 members. Despite its “Roman” affiliation, and excepting a few articles of faith, it is far closer to Eastern Orthodoxy than Roman Catholicism.
And yet, the head of the Ukrainian Catholic Church, His Beatitude Sviatoslav, is merely a Major Archbishop in the Roman Catholic hierarchy.
If the Ukrainian Catholic Church were to have a patriarchate status, it is unlikely that a Russian bishop and a Swiss cardinal would have negotiated adocument affecting it without its concurrence. As a patriarchate the Ukrainian Catholic Church would notremain a bargaining chip in the Vatican’s rapprochement with Russia’s state-owned church. Its Patriarch would be seen as an equal with his Orthodoxcounterparts, and not as an officer of the Roman church, but as the spiritual vicar and shepherd of his Ukrainian ”flock.:
Ukraine’sOrthodox (Kyiv) Patriarch is also likely to benefit from working closely with his Catholic counterpart. There is no significant doctrinal cause for eitherchurch to seek converts from the other. The one church defers to the Pope; the other to the Patriarch and his Synod, but both can claim apostolic succession. Close interaction may even facilitate the Kyiv patriarchate’s regaining of its appropriate canonical standing. Moscow’s claim to canonical authority over Ukraine has always been very dubious and the issue will have to be addressed far more vigorously with Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople (now Istanbul).
The Havana Declaration has highlighted the need for an Ukrainian Catholic Patriarchate status and the formal recognition of the Orthodox Kyivan Patriarchate’s canonical authority.
