(A response to Leonid Kravchuk’s interview with The Day, No. 3, February 1)
I quite agree with those who bestow responsibility on the Orthodox Church for the backwardness of East Slav nations. The Orthodoxy defines the church as the body of Christ while Western Christianity (at first Protestants but now also Roman Catholics) simply treats it as an organization of believers. Do we need to debate at length about which of these interpretations complies with totalitarianism and which one with democracy?
I do not know the details of Ukrainian legislative norms about religion. But what is absolutely clear is that these norms proceed from the West European interpretation of the church. These were taken advantage of by Ukrainian believers who established churches outside the so-called body of Christ monopolized by the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) (UOC {MP}). But are they aware they have thus gone beyond the limits of the Orthodox interpretation of church? In this situation it is illogical to demand the recognition of canonicity through entreaties and waiting for grace. Equally illogical, from the viewpoint of “lay” consciousness, was the decision of the Russian Orthodox Church to excommunicate Metropolitan Filaret, for he no longer belonged to THAT church.
Esteemed Leonid Kravchuk complains that political obstacles emerge, above all, on the road to canonicity. But canonicity is a political goal in itself. It is politicians, both lay and religious, who need the unity and canonicity of the Ukrainian Orthodoxy. Also in need of the canonicity are the hierarchs who want to satisfy their ambitions and get all the perks associated with foreign trips.
Yet, I would like to address the following questions to the believers who are not church politicians but are sincerely worried about canonicity. Do you really think that people who sincerely believe in God, who try to follow His commandments, dispose of their destinies and property in lay life, and raise their children need special permission to communicate with God in their native language? If you really think so, why do you have such contempt for yourselves? Why do you disdain so much your trust in God and your interpretation of God’s ways if you want to receive recognition of your right to communicate with God in your native language from the hierarchs who proceed not from the understanding of God’s will but exclusively from their own ideological or political interests, and you cannot but understand this with your lay consciousness?
I think if achievement of the unity and canonicity of the Ukrainian Orthodoxy is treated now by patriotically-oriented lay and religious politicians as a real goal, this testifies to their dilettantism and romantic illusions. It is easier, of course, to proclaim a noble but unrealizable goal and complain about the wickedness of one’s opponents or lack of conscientiousness in the people than to identify and solve step by step real problems.
The activity of pastors can be clearly divided into two spheres, depending on its object. One thing is to lead your flock to God and teach how to better understand Him. Of course, no interference in this sphere is permissible. But it is quite a different thing to direct the flock, which has already reached a certain understanding of God, to certain other things. If they are in the field of politics, this activity of pastors is in fact political, not religious. I do not think it is possible to effectively regulate it by means of law. But the attitude of the relevant state bodies to the political activity of pro-Russian UOC (MP) hierarchs should be approximately the same as toward foreign military attaches, agents of influence, and other political adversaries against whom it is usually impossible or ineffective to wage an open struggle. All the suitable methods of the secret services should be applied without hesitation with respect to church politicians because it is difficult in theory but easy in practice to separate this sphere from religious life proper.
And now, as in the case of any burning question in the life of our society, it is a advisable to add with a sigh: “Of course, this requires some political will...” There could be approximately the following test of political will in this question. Parliament would do very good to resolve that the name of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) be changed so that it pointed out in no uncertain terms that this church belongs to the Moscow Patriarchate, so that this name not be used between inverted commas and be obligatory whenever one writes or reads the name of this church. It is more important that this decision be fulfilled rather than it be 100% legitimate. It is up to politicians to make logical things legitimate.
But we see that patriotic-minded church figures have no real clout on this country’s higher political leadership, while UOC (MP), for example, has recently actively been building a relationship with official law-enforcement agencies. I do not know, of course, how strong is the potential competitiveness of UOC (Kyiv Patriarchate) without the administrative factor. If it is roughly the same as that of our television, the efforts of patriotically-minded church leaders and their supporters should be aimed at reducing the church’s social role.
