"The Ecclesial Crisis in Ukraine and its Solution According to the Sacred Canons" by Metropolitan of Kykkos and Tylliria Nikiforos is an interesting read. But first, who is the author:
His Eminence Nikiforos, Metropolitan of Kykkos and Tillyria, is a senior and widely respected Bishop of the Church of Cyprus and abbot of the ancient and renowned Kykkos monastery in the Troodos mountains. In 2001, the Municipality of Athens bestowed on him its highest distinction, the Golden Key to the City, in recognition of his ecclesiastical, social and cultural work. He has also been awarded Honorary Doctorates from the Department of Pastoral and Social Theology of the Aristotle University Of Thessaloniki and the Department of Social Theology of the University of Athens.
And what is in the book. It's really one hierarch's answers to the following questions:
- Ukraine belongs to the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of which patriarchate?
- Who has the Right to Grant Autocephaly and under What Conditions?
- Does the Ecumenical Patriarchate Have the Canonical Right to Receive Appeals?
- Who is the Head of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church?
Finally, what do I think: Many of the criticisms of what his All-Holiness did were actually pointed criticisms of the man himself or of supposed byzantine machinations going back decades. Sometimes people even throw in Freemasons for good measure. Though I have always found a rain of arrows to be a poor offensive technique compared to more targeted assaults. The issue of Ukraine is one of ecclesiology and not of any caricature one chooses to put together. In fact, whether the move to make an autocephalous church was a "good" idea is secondary to whether the Ecumenical Patriarchate could have done what it did within the bounds of canonical order or how we will "fix" the current impasse.
You may well be of the opinion that very little of what the EP is doing is laudable. You may think that the EP is an important check on the state-backed Russian Church and an essential voice against so-called "fundamentalism." You might think "I''m never going to Ukraine. I plan to ignore this issue entirely." All of these are very common opinions. But this book only covers Ukraine as a springboard to dive into the deeper waters of those questions listed above. Regardless of whether you care about Ukraine or not, I hope you do care about these more universal topics. I would invite you to buy this book and also get some material from those in favor of what was done in Ukraine or over the expanded role of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in general; there was much that came out of the Crete meeting that asserts related positions that are worth reviewing, for example. Read them both and come to your own conclusions. This is not a long read nor is it weighed down with terminology that sets up any sort of undue barriers. I hope that any article or book that follows to contradict it is as readable and I look forward to read it as well.
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It's hard for me to understand why Metropolitan Nikiforos would publish this, except that he must have some other disagreement with the Archbishop of Cyprus. It comes across as more of a propaganda piece than anything else. There's enough holes in this work to sink a styrofoam chest.
ReplyDeleteIf Constantinople were able to counter His Eminence's arguments, it would. Instead it just insists that it must be listened to, while refusing to meet to discuss it.
ReplyDeleteThe ROC refused to meet with Patriarch Bartholomew at Crete, and now the ROC refuses to meet with Metropolitan Epiphany to discuss peace in Ukraine.
DeleteUkraine was not even a matter on the agenda for Crete, so that has nothing to do with what we're discussing.
DeletePatriarch Kirill proposed a deep study of all the issues involved in the Ukrainian issue. It was Patriarch Bartholomew who absolutely refused.
It wasn't on the agenda at Crete only because the ROC requested that it not be. However, the topic of Ukrainian autocephaly was still very much considered a pressing issue for the EP especially since Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea. Since jurisdictional disagreements should canonically be resolved within a 30 year time frame, the clock was ticking ever since the 1991 independence of Ukraine and schism to resolve the matter. If Russia couldn't resolve the schism, then the EP made it quite clear that they would. Sure, there is still schism, but who is in schism with Russia? Metropolitan Epiphany commemorates Patriarch Kyrill and says that all are welcome.
DeletePatriarch Kyrill proposed a "deep study" of all the issues involved only after Ukrainian autocephaly was given. The time for dialogue on the matter was before, not after. Crete would have been such an opportunity, but the ROC purposefully requested the matter not be discussed and then didn't even show up anyways. Now if Russia wants to discuss the matter, they need to discuss it with Metropolitan Epiphany. Of course Russia won't give him the time of day, let alone even acknowledge his existence.
Ukrainian autocephaly was at no point being considered for the Crete agenda.
DeleteAnd no, Pat. Kirill proposed this study several months before "autocephaly" was given. You simply have your basic facts wrong.
It's public knowledge that Ukrainian President Poroshenko visited the Phanar on March 10,2016 several months before the Crete Council. In this visit, he was well-received and made the case to Patriarch Bartholomew for Ukrainian autocephaly. Then just days before the council, on June 16, the Ukrainian parliament even sent a formal request for autocephaly to Patriarch Bartholomew. The EP responded positively that they would consider the request. This was certainly an opportune time for the ROC to engage in dialogue about the matter at the Crete Council if they wanted to. Instead, the ROC backed out of Crete after hearing about the Ukrainian parliament's formal request for autocephaly.
DeleteIt was two years later, on July 1st, 2018, Patriarch Bartholomew made the following announcement:
"Let us not forget that Constantinople never ceded the territory of Ukraine to anyone by means of some ecclesial Act, but only granted to the Patriarch of Moscow the right of ordination or transfer of the Metropolitan of Kiev on condition that the Metropolitan of Kiev should be elected by a Clergy-Laity Congress and commemorate the Ecumenical Patriarch."
This was basically a forewarning. When Patriarch Kirill finally visited the Phanar on August 31, 2018, the EP had already decided, though non-publically (according to orthochristian.com) that they would grant Ukraine its autocephaly. Patriarch Kirill's response requesting a "deep study" at that point was merely a stalling tactic. Ukrainian autocephaly was already decided. Where was the ROC's "deep study" in the interim between the Crete Council and Patriarch Kirill's 2018 meeting at the Phanar?
Was it coincidence that on June 11, 2016, the Moscow Patriarchate made a big stink in Russian media by criticizing the Ukrainian parliament's proposal to formally request autocephaly from the EP, and then two days later, on June 13, 2016, the ROC decides to officially withdraw from Crete? Of course the "official" explanation was that Russia wouldn't go to Crete because Georgia, Bulgaria, and Antioch weren't going. That has to be one of the most transparently lame excuses ever. Even though Ukrainian autocephaly was not going to be part of the official agenda at Crete, there would have still been plenty of opportunities to discuss the matter on the council's sidelines with the other churches present. Archbishop Job of Telemos publically said as much and just two days before the council.
DeleteIt is evident that Russia was simply not interested in a "deep study" of Ukrainian autocephaly, that is until it could later be used as a stalling tactic.
Okay, so they could have discussed Ukrainian autocephaly on the sidelines, but they could do that anywhere. Not going to Crete had no literally no effect on whether or they could have sideline discussions about Ukraine.
DeleteBut the fact that EP and Greek bishops keep pointing to the MP not going to Crete only further strengthens the idea that the OCU is revenge for Crete.
And you're simply sidestepping the fact that it's the EP who made the decision to do something, and he made that decision //without talking to anyone about it.// Both before and after the actual granting of "autocephaly," he has stubbornly refused the call of primates, hierarchs, and Synods that he call a council to deal with this.
DeleteNo matter how many times someone cries "But Crete!", it won't change the fact that Patriarch Bartholomew is simply ignoring what the entire Church is telling him.
The reason why I mentioned Crete in the first place is that much of the issue of "authority" to call councils or rearrange -cephaly or the role of the EP in general came out as a result of those who felt obliged to go and those who spurned the authority/necessity entirely. The groundwork for discussion of Ukraine and whether Constantinople can do what it did in the method it did can be found in the back and forth of the Churches around the time of the Crete event.
DeleteThere was no canonical necessity for Patriarch Bartholomew to call a council to discuss Ukrainian autocephaly. Perhaps there should be and will be someday, but that's beside the point. Moscow never consulted with anybody when autocephaly was unilaterally granted to the OCA either. Everything that Patriarch Bartholomew did has been shown to either be based on historical precedent or within his right as Archbishop of Constantinople and Ecumenical Patriarch.
DeleteThe much-discussed 1686 transfer of authority from Constantinople to Moscow had the unusual stipulation that the Ecumenical Patriarch always be commemorated first by the Metropolitan of Kiev. This is clearly a delegated transfer of authority, essentially assigning Moscow as a middle-manager. Yes, middle-managers can be fired, and Moscow was ultimately fired from that role in 2018. The Ukrainian schism was approaching the 30 year mark, and not for any doctrinal differences either, but rather for reason of wanting autocephaly. In the end, it was Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea that made the EP really question whether Moscow was capable of being middle-manager of Ukraine anymore.
I found the book to be a dissapointment. It lacked hard data, tables and charts. there was no quantification of the information. for example for the past 100 years, what were the individual jurisdictions and how many clergy, parishes and faithful were involved in eaxh. for the past 30 years what were the splits, who led them, how many parishes, faithful, and churches were involved. how do/did these groups compare with the eastern rite parishes,,,, in a map of ukraine how were these individual groups dispersed - i.e. moscow patriarchial eastern ukraine?,, black barts group western ukriane?, etc.
ReplyDeleteverbiage and polemics are great but hard facts and data indicate what the real situation is and was.
remember with all this squabbling amongst the eastern orthodox the uniates are rejoicing, and should it not be the other way around?,,,,, shouldn't ukraine go back to its pre brest-litvosk roots? the book was too expensive for the value i received from it.
Why would quantifiable information have any bearing on a canonical question?
ReplyDeleteYou need to know the quantitative facts,,,who is in the majority, who are the leaders, are the factions mostly in segregated areas,,,,how do the orthodox compare with the dark side, the unia,,,,this is all important because if the canonical group has ninety percent, then the schismatics are trivial,,,,if the schismatics are mostly in the west then they are a footstep away from being uniates which can be the phanats ultimate goal,,,,it is all in the numbers. Otherwise the book is all unsupported speculation and supposition.
DeleteNot really. A canonical argument is a legal argument that doesn't change one way or the other with relation to numbers or whatever tge Greek Catholics are up to.
DeleteThe whole picture needs to be evaluated,,,the significance is in the numbers,,,also a major player in the background is the uniates church, which theoretically is in schism also.
DeleteExcellent book and accurate rendering of the situation. Recommended reading for all.
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