Tuesday, October 16, 2018

Met. Hilarion gives frank interview on EP situation

(ROC-DECR) - ‘The way to returning from a schism is always open and this way lies through repentance’ said Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, head of the Moscow Patriarchate department for external church relations, speaking in the Big Game analytical TV program about ways of coming out of the situation caused by the anti-canonical actions of the Patriarchate of Constantinople because of which the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church, on October 15, 2018, had to recognize as impossible to remain any further in the Eucharistic communion with it.

As is known, by its decisions of October 11 the Patriarchate of Constantinople ‘revoked’ the decision made over 300 years ago to transfer the Metropolis of Kiev to the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate, thus encroaching upon the canonical territory of the Russian Orthodox Church and stated its readiness to implement the project for ‘Ukrainian autocephaly’. In addition, the Synod of the Patriarchate of Constantinople in defiance of canonical order admitted into communion the leaders of the Ukrainian schism.

‘The Patriarchate of Constantinople has joined the purely political project, which has existed already for over a quarter of a century, to create the so-called autocephalous Ukrainian church’, the DECR chairman reminded the audience, ‘the project was initiated and supported by political leaders but it is not supported by the basic mass of the church people in Ukraine. It is evident from the thousands-strong processions with the cross held in Kiev; it is evident from the overcrowded churches of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church. And we regret that the Patriarchate of Constantinople, for its selfish reasons, has embarked on the path of support for the schism – this anti-church political project’.

It is not the first case of this kind in history, Metropolitan Hilarion stated with regret, ‘we remember how Constantinople used to support the Renovators’ schism and delivered blows on the Russian Orthodox Church every time when she found herself in a hard situation’, the archpastor noted, ‘Here is the price of fraternal love so often assured by the Patriarchate of Constantinople’.

‘We have now come to face a new church reality: we no longer have a single coordinating center in the Orthodox Church, and we should very clearly realize that the Patriarchate of Constantinople has self-destructed as such’, Metropolitan Hilarion stressed. He reminded the audience that for several decades the Moscow Patriarchate and other Local Churches participated in preparing a pan-Orthodox Council; their representatives and Primates would get together for meetings, which were organized by the Patriarchate of Constantinople. ‘But having invaded the canonical boundaries of another Local Church, by legitimatizing a schism it has lost the right to be called the coordinating center for the Orthodox Church’, the hierarch said.

Is there a possibility that the Patriarchate of Constantinople will disavow the steps it has made? ‘A possibility for repentance is always there, though the logic of the recent actions do not presuppose any steps in the opposite direction’, His Eminence assumed, ‘but we still very much hope that reason will prevail. Patriarch Bartholomew has been often called ‘the spiritual leader of the 300 million-strong Orthodox population of the planet’, but from these 300 million at least a half should be subtracted; for he is not the spiritual leader for either the Russian Orthodox Church or the Local Orthodox Churches, which I think will not support his predatory actions. Precisely for this reason I say that he has now lost the right to be called the coordinating center for the Orthodox Church’.

The Moscow Patriarchate will continue communion with other Local Orthodox Churches, the DECR chairman said, ‘we will continue visiting each other, coordinating our efforts, our views, but the Patriarchate of Constantinople has now fallen out of this process and we should very clearly realize it’.

20 comments:

  1. In other words, Moscow wants to become the new "single coordinating center"...Third Rome here we come...look out, rest of Orthodox World.

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    1. And if they did, what of it? The MP is a big, present-day deal. The Phanar is a historical relic. The Turks don't even let +Bartholomew worship in his own cathedral, which has been turned into a Muslim museum. There are a tenth of Orthodox in Turkey as there are just Antiochians in the US. I don't like Moscow keeping parishes in the US after supposedly granting a Tomos to the OCA, but that appears to be the extent of Moscow's imperial ambitions. They otherwise seem content with the present-day national model.

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    2. "The MP is a big, present day deal
      The Phanar is a historical relic." Lol! The irony is rich when you realize that Constantinople made the same sort of argument against Rome in the 10th and 11th centuries. So, the Pentarchy is nothing and that a see was founded an apostle is nothing. In the end the answer seems to be that whoever is the biggest and most powerful should call the shots.

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    3. James, if you look at the 28th canon of Chalcedon, it explicitly states that Constantinople's dignity, equal to Old Rome, is due to the presence of the Emperor and Senate in that city. Power does seem to be key here. That being said, I don't like the idea of Moscow or any modern power center getting more ecclesiastical clout. I honestly don't think we even need such a center.

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    4. And, if you look at Rome's response, it did not accept that specific canon.

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    5. Well the EP does accept the canon and cites it at every chance it gets (but leaving out the part about the emperor and senate).

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    6. Joseph, I apologize, I do not want to sound snarky. I agree, the issue is power and it crops up and recurs as an issue throughout the history of the Church.

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    7. So fortunate that “unknown” aka an anonymous person is putting words in +Hilarion’s mouth that he didn’t say or even imply. The amount of hatred towards the Russian Orthodox Church by some is staggering. +Bartholomew and +Kyrill got along fine until +Bartholomew started the utter nonsense, first with the so called great council, and now with this unwanted and church destroying Ukrainian autocephaly. If you’re going to spew russophobia, at least have the courage to attach your actual name to it.

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    8. I don't get the impression the MP considers himself papal with relation to his brother Patriarchs in the same sense as Rome or Constantinople. I'm also suspicious of the fact that the exarchs are from the Americas and this arcane conflict has US State Department bureaucrats weighing in on it.

      The US and Canada seem to be where the NATO powers prefer to park Slavic and Middle Eastern dissidents until needed back in the old country.

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  2. I'm not sure if "frank" is the right term for a reiteration of well known talking points.

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    1. Some are. Some are rather cutting "for its selfish reasons" and "self-destructed" for example.

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    2. "Some are. Some are rather cutting "for its selfish reasons" and "self-destructed" for example."

      I see your point (about verbiage over and above the usual talking points).

      Strangely and to my surprise, I am more convinced by the EP's verbiage than Moscow's. What are these "selfish reasons"? Moscow's legalistic "repent schismatics!" is never going to go anywhere, so the EP is actually stepping into it *sacrificially* and doing something about this ecclesiastical situation of millions of Ukrainians. I don't really buy all the geopolitical speculation as far as motivation, so I am left with the EP actually acting in good faith for spiritual and canonical order (and I can hardly believe I just wrote that).

      I find the "self-destruction" line unconvincing as well as Islam, the fall of the Empire, the rise of nation states, etc. are the real cause of the EP's long decline.

      Hilarion is looking and talking like the politician in the room, not the EP. If Moscow is not careful, they are going to come out of all this with more political taint than the EP...

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    3. I agree with you, Jake.

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  3. Whether "the Patriarchate of Constantinople ‘revoked’ the decision made over 300 years ago to transfer the Metropolis of Kiev to the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate" is in question, but he treats it as indisputable fact. I might have missed it, but has the MP proven the EP's claims to have maintained its de jure rights over Ukraine? I'm not sure "possession is 9/10 of the law" is found in the Rudder, and I don't think refusing to make a stink over one's rights while under the Turk and with a far more powerful local church with state sponsorship is the same thing as simply granting de jure standing to the de facto.

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    1. Well, "longstanding custom" has legal weight in both Roman and canon law. But, there's not enough of a consciousness of legal procedure in Orthodoxy to litigate on the basis of anything other than two sides proof-texting canons at each other.

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  4. where there's subversion, there's אש

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  5. As always, if there is a failure here on either side, it will be the failure to love. In the meantime, as shipwrecked Aeneas encourages his survivors on the shores of northern Africa, we will, in patience "wait for better days."

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  6. Pray for His Beatitude Metropolitan Onufry.

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  7. To me it comes down to the lifting of the anathema. One church cannot lift something that another church laid down—lawfully and recognized by Bartholomew himself. The EP is claiming papal levels of authority and it's baseless.

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