Walter Kish

Those of you who follow religious affairs in Ukraine will know that that country is blessed with no less than three contending Ukrainian Orthodox churches.

The largest in terms of following, is the one under the Moscow Patriarchate with over 7000 parishes. Although its history goes back centuries to when the Russian conquest of Ukraine resulted in the forcible shift of Orthodox church power from Kyiv to Moscow in the late 17th century, the current version is largely a product of the Soviet era. Subsequent to their coming into power, the Communists forcibly liquidated all other Christian churches and created a compliant Orthodox church that became another tool to monitor and control the masses. In Ukraine, all churches that weren’t destroyed or expropriated for more pragmatic uses were put under the control of the approved Moscow-based church. Included in this were churches that had formerly been the property of the Uniate or Ukrainian Greek Catholic church. The Orthodox Church became an obedient servant supporting the policies and practices of the Communist regime, including their odious efforts at Russification.

Subsequent to Ukraine’s inde-pendence, strong efforts were initiated to re-establish a truly Ukrainian Orthodox church. The most successful of these was the creation of a break-away Kyiv Patriarchate in 1992, currently headed by Patriarch Filaret, at one time a bishop and the number two man in the Moscow Patriarchate. Starting from scratch, but fueled by both religious and nationalistic zeal, the Kyiv Patriarchate has been growing at a rapid rate, and now claims more than 3000 parishes, primarily in central and eastern Ukraine. This effort has been strongly opposed by the Moscow Patriarchate under Patriarch Alexiy, which has spared no effort in trying to suppress and destroy this threat to their religious hegemony in Ukraine.

From a historical continuity and canonical point of view, the Moscow Patriarchate claims that they are the only “legal” Orthodox church in Ukraine, and have gone to great lengths to discourage, subvert, sabotage and bad-mouth their new competition. The recent incident in Poltava where they bussed in a large number of their supporters and provocateurs and forcibly took over a Kyiv Patriarchate church whilst inflicting violence on the priest and some of the parishioners, is indicative of the aggressive and questionable nature of their “Christianity”. It has been said that the policies of the Moscow Patriarchate are less concerned with spiritual matters than with supporting the longer-term political aims of Russia in regaining control of their former Ukrainian colony.

Unfortunately, the Moscow Patriarchate has strong tacit support from the current Kuchma admi-nistration. This support manifests itself in the form of constant bureaucratic impediments and harassment whenever the Kyiv Patriarchate tries to build new churches or seek official accreditation, support or approval for any of its activities.

The third Orthodox presence in Ukraine, numbering less than 2000 parishes, is the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church headquartered in Lviv. It has been in some turmoil since Patriarch Dimitriy died in 2000, and has been troubled by financial and factional disputes. There have been numerous attempts aimed at bringing together the Autocephalous and Kyiv Patriarchates, but mistrust and power politics has prevented a long overdue unification.

These religious squabbles in Ukraine have left the Ukrainian Orthodox churches in the diaspora in a very uncomfortable position. Though most are sympathetic to either the Autocephalous or Kyiv Patriarchates, and would like to provide more than just surreptitious moral support, as part of the ecumenical world Orthodox brotherhood they are obligated to support the “official” Moscow Patriarchate as the only “legitimate” Orthodox Church in Ukraine. Thus the Orthodox Church here is put in the very unorthodox position of having to support a church in Ukraine that is hostile to the Ukrainian language, culture and probably its very existence as an independent nation state.

The situation would be comical if it weren’t so tragic.