CONFERENCE ADDRESSED TO
THE CEC AT CYPRUS
ON THE PROTECTION OF THE RELIGIOUS PATRIMONY
(8-10, 11, 2017)
The stalemate of the
Russian-Ukrainian conflict:
If the Ecumenical Patriarch
of Constantinople would open a pan-orthodox representation at Kiev?
Antoine
Arjakovsky
To
begin with, I would like to extend my warmest thanks for their invitation and
hospitality to the organizers, to the European Conferences of Churches and to
the Orthodox Church of Cyprus who have prepared this consultative meeting
centered on “The Places of Worship and of Religious Patrimony in Europe and the
Near-East; Their Statute and Protection under National and International Law”.
I
have been asked to shed a bit of light on the growing conflict within the
Orthodox world concerning the places of worship in Ukraine, notably on the
subject of the laws presently under discussion in the Rada which could
accelerate the changes of jurisdictional membership of ecclesial communities.
Please
allow me to be not content with presenting just the actual conflictive
legislative situation during this talk, but also, since the ultimate goal of
this consultation is to find roads of peace, to propose a solution to
the conflict, a solution which is doubtlessly original but, nonetheless, very
serious in my opinion, and that involves the opening of an office of the
patriarchate of Constantinople at Kiev. I will argue my proposition in three
steps before concluding with a fourth argument in favor of such a solution.
I
am going to risk getting away from the traditional and repetitive speeches,
pessimist or conventional, on the ecclesial anarchy which would be congenital
in the Orthodox world and avoid formulating a guiding proposition to resolve
the apparently inextricable Russian-Ukrainian conflict. For above and beyond
the present inter-ecclesial conflict concerning the possession of places of worship,
we find a real war which has already resulted in 10,000 deaths, hundreds of
thousands wounded and more than a million and a half displaced persons just in
Ukraine. Many observers believe that if there wasn’t a pluri-secular ecclesial
conflict between Moscow and Constantinople, there would not be a juridical war
about the places of worship nor even a military war between Russia and Ukraine.[1]
I
am aware that my proposition will be criticized, that it will be quickly
classified as utopian or even as dangerous but I also know that this is what
has happened in the past to many original ideas which, all the same, were
realized. So I ask your help by giving all your attention to this proposition
of peace and may those who will criticize it propose better ideas that will
really enable putting an end to the actual crisis of Orthodox ecclesial
governance.
1)
The
Russian-Ukrainian conflict of ecclesial jurisdictions
The
two laws being discussed at the Rada of Kiev since 2016 concern a new procedure
of accreditation in Ukraine of religious leaders who depend on a Church
situated in an antagonist country (n. 4511) and the modalities of the changing
of jurisdictions for religious communities (n. 4128). The patriarchate of
Moscow considers that these laws discriminate against the Ukrainian Orthodox
Church which depends on its jurisdiction. It insists that the properties of
religious communities depend on the decision of the archbishop and that the
members of these religious communities cannot be the ones who decide the
question of an eventual change of jurisdiction.
In
May 2017, the Ukrainian authorities replied, backing up their explanation with
statistics, that, first of all, they do not discriminate against any Church
when these send the documentation of a request for their communities to be
registered and when this documentation has been filled out in good and due
form.[2]
Secondly, they affirm that, according to the law in vigor in Ukraine, the
Churches do not have juridical personality and this is why only religious
communities (parishes, monasteries etc…) can make decisions and own property.
Ukrainian law, in conformity with the European Court of Human Rights, has
always defended this principle.
Law
n. 4128, supported in particular by the Ukrainian government but also by such
well-known orthodox personalities as the deacon of the Russian Church, Andrei
Kurayev and the Ukrainian archimandrite Cyrille Hovorun, specifies that the
members of a community are those who protect the parish from decisions that
could be made by transitory tourists.[3] The
Ukrainian authorities go on to explain that likewise, in accordance with law
4511 and with the consent of the OSCE (Organization of Security and Cooperation
in Europe) and given the state of war with Russia, they want to have the means
to be able to stop the activities of ecclesiastical leaders who could be found
to have links with terrorist organizations. Moreover, the Ukrainian authorities
reproach the Russian Duma for having adopted, in June 2016, new laws that went
against liberty of conscience and which impeded the missionary work of the
Churches without any protestation on the part of Patriarch Kirill.[4]
Taking
into account not only the virulent reactions of the patriarchate of Moscow but
also the reserves of representatives of the Roman Catholic Church who were
afraid of losing a good part of their places of worship if the faithful had a
voice equivalent to that of their hierarchical authorities and, finally, the
risk of seeing the Ukrainian state enter into the decision-making process of
the Churches (in fact, since the beginning of the Russian-Ukrainian war, the Patriarch
of Moscow has not been authorized to enter the Ukraine) these laws have not
been submitted to the vote of the deputies.
For
his part, bishop Evstrati Zoria, the spokesperson of the Ukrainian Orthodox
Church (patriarchate of Kiev) proposed some compromises.[5] He
suggests, on the one hand, merging a third legal project which asks for a
precise clarification defining the membership of parishes to their original
jurisdiction with the project of law 4511. He requests that it be specified
that the state should not name any ecclesiastical personality, but only dispose
of the possibility of accepting or refusing the nomination of such and such a
bishop (just as the Pope has the right to refuse such and such an ambassador).
In addition, the patriarchate of Kiev is proposing to the other Churches that
the request by parishioners to change jurisdiction be dependent on a certain
threshold before becoming valid (for example two- thirds) and that the
parishioners who are in the minority enjoy the possibility of celebrating
elsewhere or in the same building as an alternative.
These
two laws will probably be rewritten and submitted to the vote of the deputies
during the months to come. On September 7 2017, President Porochenko notified
the Rada that he would not sign law 4511 in its actual form. He already
disposes, in fact, of all the legal means for preventing hybrid attempts,
already identified, unfortunately, by several observers, of collusion between
certain representatives of the patriarchate of Moscow and the Russian terrorist
forces installed in Donetsk, notably the Orthodox Army of Donbas[6]
which is led by a Russian, Mikhail Verin.[7]
2)
The
persistent conflict between the Churches of Moscow and Constantinople and a
possible solution
As
everyone knows, however, the real conflict is being played out between the
patriarchate of Moscow and the patriarchate of Constantinople, not only
concerning the status and control of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church but, above
all, concerning the control of the Orthodox Church as a whole. Everyone knows
that the Church of Kiev considers the Moscow Church as its daughter on the
historical level and not as its mother. The patriarchate of Moscow, on the
other hand considers itself the unique heir of the Church of Kiev and has tried
to impose its domination over Ukrainian Orthodoxy ever since the latter chose
to recognize the Council of Florence in 1439.
A
lot has been written about the fact that if the Church of Moscow loses its
jurisdiction over Ukraine, not only would it lose a great number of its
parishes and ecclesiastical structures but, above all, this would mean the end
of its grandiose project of becoming the “Third Rome”, the beacon not only for
Orthodoxy but for the whole Church of Christ. Conscious of the decisive
importance of this religious factor in the Russian-Ukrainian project, President
Petro Porochenko, himself an Orthodox, in September 2017, pronounced himself in
favor of a recognition of the autocephaly of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church by Constantinople.[8]
In
the month of September 2017, the Ukrainian deputy Victor Yelensky pointed out
that the Patriarch of Constantinople had not replied to the June 2016 request
of the Rada nor to that of President Porochenko to recognize the autocephaly of
the Orthodox Church of Kiev for fear that the Church of Moscow would lose the
essential part of its communities and react by severing all ties with
Constantinople.[9]
In
order to get out of the conflict and, above all, to avoid provoking other wars,
it would be useful to study a project of opening by the Ecumenical Patriarcate
a Pan-Orthodox office in Kiev. This would not only facilitate a reconciliation
among Christians in Ukraine but would also be more perfectly faithful to its
mission of Pan-Orthodox supervision which it inherited after the rupture
between the Eastern Christian world and the Western Christian world after the
fall of Constantinople in 1453. It could then offer to the more than thousand
year old local Ukrainian Church an autocephalic organization, capable of
electing its own primate while positioning itself in a privileged space for
presiding over and administering to the communion of Orthodox Churches. And
finally, it would put into practice, on the territory of the mother Churches,
the principle of inter-jurisdictional episcopal assemblies which already
function in the countries of what is known as the “diaspora”, ie three-quarters
of the planet, and which was formally adopted at the Council of Kolymbari in
June of 2016.
Originally
the concept of the episcopal see was not static. It moved around in function of
the historical circumstances. It would be useful to recover its original
dynamic connotation. Its meaning is not to give a satisfied repose out of
history but to receive the divine wisdom.
The
famous French constitutionalist Maurice Hauriou wrote that “law is a sort of
pipe that tries to realize order and justice”. This is the reason why an
institution like the patriarchate of Constantinople, whose mission since the
rejection of the Council of Florence is to permit communion among those who
confess the Orthodox Faith, should question itself above juridical normativism
and in the very name of the common good.
3)
The
arguments in favor of a panorthodox representation of the See of Constantinople
at Kiev
De jure, the
Rus’ of Kiev, after the baptism of Vladimir the Prince of Kiev in 988, found itself
in the ecclesial jurisdiction of the patriarchate of Constantinople. The
Patriarch of Constantinople sent bishops there until the 15th
century and his authority was recognized by the Metropolitan of Kiev, Petro
Mohyla until the 17th century. Constantinople never recognized the
annexation of the metropolis of Kiev in 1686 by the synod of the Russian Church
after the invasion of the lands situated on the right bank of the Dnieper River
by the Russian Empire. Moreover, as of
1721, the Church of Moscow, whose status of autocephaly had been snatched from
Constantinople in 1588, lost its status as a patriarchate by a decree of Peter
the Great. This was brought up again at Kiev in August 2016 by bishop Job of
Telmessos, the envoy of Patriarch Bartholomeus to Ukraine. Let us also add that
the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the immigrants to the United States and Canada
was spontaneously placed under the jurisdiction of Constantinople when this
became possible after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
By
opening a panorthodox representation at Kiev, the Patriarch of Constantinople
could obtain, in return, that all the Orthodox bishops be placed under the
authority of an assembly of bishops (something Moscow had been incapable of
creating after the schism of 1991 between the Ukrainian Orthodox Churches of
the patriarchate of Kiev and those of the patriarchate of Moscow). Those who
would refuse should then place themselves under the direct jurisdiction of
Moscow but they would henceforth be obliged to satisfy the conditions of
control imposed by the Ukrainian state on Churches situated in antagonistic
countries. The head of this Church would dispose of autonomy in a first
instance and then, on the occasion of a new patriarchal election open to the
ensemble of the jurisdictions present in Ukraine, would accede to
autocephaly.
In
doing this, the Turkish Patriarch would be roundly criticized by the Russian
Patriarch. This act could lead, as it did in 1996 after the re-establishment of
the Estonian Orthodox Church, directed by a Greek Metropolitan, to a rupture of
communion between the two Sees of Moscow and Constantinople. But, on the one
hand, Patriarch Kirill did not recognize the authority of Patriarch
Bartholomeus when he refused to attend the Pan-Orthodox Council of June 2016 in
Crete, a move which already places him in a situation of schism, at least on
the level of ecclesial governance. On the other hand, Patriarch Kirill, for his
part, has not hesitated to create para-ecclesial structures in the Near East
and in Turkey itself on canonical territory directly under the Patriarch of
Constantinople. Sergei Stepachin, the Russian general of the FSB (Federal
Security Service) simply informed the Patriarch of Constantinople, in 2017, of
the creation of an antenna of the Imperial Orthodox Society of Palestine in
Turkey.[10]
This latter works to recuperate or redeem places of worship on canonical
territory of the Byzantine patriarchate. In France, we also know that the
Orthodox cathedral of Nice, which was under the jurisdiction of the
patriarchate of Constantinople, was taken away from it through the courts by
the Russian state with the support of the patriarchate of Moscow. The Patriarch
of Constantinople does not have much to lose since his authority is already
constantly and publically questioned by the Patriarch of Moscow.[11]
On
the other hand, the advantage that the ecumenical patriarchate would gain from
such a gesture is triple. For one thing, it would regulate 90% of the problem
of the division of Orthodoxy within the second largest Orthodox nation in the
world. It is well-known that ¾ of the 25 million Ukrainian Orthodox Christians
are presently under the jurisdiction of the patriarchate of Kiev.[12]
Moreover, it is estimated that the remaining quarter part of the faithful
(patriarchate of Moscow and the autocephalous Church) more than 75% would join
this new assembly of bishops as is testified already by the transfer of
parishes from the patriarchate of Moscow to the patriarchate of Kiev since 2014.
Secondly,
that would enable the assembly of bishops to find protection from a state that
would accept it (on the executive level as well as on the legislative), which
would be ready to give it financial assistance and, above all, more breathing
room than the Turkish government allows. Indeed, this government blocks all
missionary activity to the point of refusing to return to the patriarchate its
school of theology on the island of Halki. It can be added, in addition, that
the Orthodox live with the myth that the ecclesial See of Constantinople did
not fall in 1453 but only the imperial city, and this in spite of the painful
evidence of the closing of the Cathedral of Saint Sophia, the end of the
Church’s political privileges and the progressive shrinking of its ecclesial
role in the Phanar. This refusal of reality is, above all, a sign of the
incapability of Orthodox Christians to accept the role of history and human
freedom in the mystery of the divine-humanity.
By
having a contact with the Ukrainian Church the patriarch would also be able to
advance his project of reformation within Orthodoxy. Let us imagine that the
Churches of the Greek tradition have not always attained the level of
consciousness of the 1917 Council of the Russian Church since they did not
always recognize the decisions and orientations of this Council (elections of
the bishops, ecumenical involvement, the translation of liturgical texts, the
social commitment of the laity, etc.). This leads to the ridiculous situation
where the bishops elected according to the rulings of the Council of Moscow and
who are under the jurisdiction of Constantinople (the Russian parishes of the
exarchate of France in Western Europe and also within the Orthodox Church in
America in the United States) are not recognized by….the patriarchate of
Constantinople.
Conclusion
Prophetic
gestures are often productive over the long term. In the West, it was after
they went to Avignon that the Roman popes really became powerful. Olivier Clement
imagined an itinerant See for the Patriarch of Constantinople which would begin
with the island of Patmos. Patriarch Athenagoras, when he presided at the
opening of the Center of Chambesy, had, for a while, the same vision of
organizing its federative mission of preparation for the Pan-Orthodox Council
and of ecumenical witness before international institutions (United Nations,
World Council of Churches) using Switzerland as its base. But the historical
advantage of the Ukrainian Church over Greece and Switzerland is that this
Church is its direct daughter, the living fruit of its missionary activity and
a place of future reconciliation with the Church of Moscow.
Paradoxically,
by leaving Istanbul and accepting to immerse itself into history, by facilitating
the reopening of the worship in the Cathedral of Hagia Sophia of Kiev (with,
very certainly, the support of the Greek Catholic Ukrainian Church which has
never ceased to affirm its belonging to the Byzantine tradition), the
patriarchate of Istanbul, which had not been able to prevent the closing of
Hagia Sophia of Constantinople by the sultans, would really be able to actualize
its role of primate of the whole Orthodox world…By recovering its liberty of
action, it could also advance more firmly in its relationships of fraternity
with the Protestant Churches and the Catholic Church.
Finally,
by putting into place a post-ethnic governance of the Church as was proposed by
the Fathers of the Council of Kolymbari, it would make possible not only to
progressively put an end to the political-ethnic-religious conflict between
Russia and Ukraine, but also to the
disputes which tear apart other local Churches. After all, the geo-political
dream of Orthodoxy can no longer be the Empire of Constantinople nor the eternal
status of dhimmi (the status of non-Moslems in a Moslem state) nor even less a
post-modern or neo-Russian version of Byzantine symphony – that unfortunate
invention of Eusebius.
The
geo-political vision of the Orthodox Church can only be that of an encounter
with the Divine Wisdom, which is nothing other than the vision of Saint John
the Evangelist in his Book of Revelation.
[1] A. Arjakovsky, Russia-Ukraine : From War to Peace ?,
2015: http://data.tsn.ua/files/Livre_en_anglais-libre.pdf
A. Arjakovsky,
Russie-Ukraine : de la guerre à la paix? Paris, Parole et Silence, 2017; see also : A. Arjakovsky, Russie-Occident;
comment sortir du conflit? Paris, Balland, 2017.
[12] In 2016 as a whole,
38.4% of the Ukrainians declared themselves members of the Orthodox
patriarchate of Kiev whereas 17.4% declared that they belonged to the
patriarchate of Moscow. But due to the fact of the so9viet history of the
Ukraine, there are twice as many parishes registered as belonging to the
patriarchate of Moscow (about 10,000) than to the patriarchate of Kiev. https://risu.org.ua/ua/ondex/expert_thought/open_theme/67281/
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