This material was created within the mini-project “Thoughts Out Loud” for the joint project of the “Sophia Brotherhood” and the German foundation Renovabis, “Modern Ukrainian Orthodoxy: Debunking Myths for the Sake of Reconciliation of the Orthodox in Ukraine and Consolidation of Ukrainian Society”. The “Sophia Brotherhood” may not share the position of the authors; likewise, some opinions of Brotherhood members expressed within the project may not represent the consolidated position of the “Sophia Brotherhood”.
Deacon Ioan Ovchynnykov, Exarchate of the Ecumenical Patriarchate
The phrase of the rector of the Kyiv Theological Academy, His Grace Archbishop Sylvester Stoichev, about the “de facto autocephaly of the UOC”, which he voiced in a podcast in Vinnytsia, stirred almost the entire ortho-segment of the Ukrainian internet. There was a sea of debates, with even more remarks and comments.
The day before, I watched a new episode on the “Viche” channel with the participation of KTA professor Serhii Bortnyk and UOC priest Rostyslav Khrupchyk. And, to be honest, I got the impression that neither speaker actually gave a clear answer to the questions posed by the host, Ilona Sokolovska. Yet those questions concern the most important thing: is it possible at all to describe the current church reality in Ukraine, and does it exist in the form they are talking about?
So I decided to go back myself to the starting point of the discussion — to the very question that was put to Archbishop Sylvester in Vinnytsia: what is the status of the UOC after the Council in Feofaniia?
I will try to set out my own version of the answer.
I have a very strong feeling that Metropolitan Onufriy himself did not fully understand — and perhaps still does not understand — what exactly he did three years ago from the standpoint of canon law. Judging by everything, either he does not know it very well (with all due respect and reverence for him as a man of deep spiritual life), or he knows it only through the prism of the course “History of the ROC”, taught to him once upon a time at the Moscow Theological Academy.
Why do I think so? Because, for some reason, it very strongly seems that by convening “Feofaniia” Metropolitan Onufriy, belatedly by about half a year, decided to celebrate the centenary of the Council in Sremski Karlovci in 1921. That council marked the beginning of the “de facto autocephaly” of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (ROCOR), which existed until 2007 and was abolished, incidentally, not without the participation of Metropolitan Onufriy.
It is interesting that the Council in Sremski Karlovci was convened from the start as a “meeting”, and only at one of the evening sessions (the ninth) — on the proposal of Metropolitan Anthony Khrapovitsky — was the “meeting” elevated to the rank of a “Council”. Does this not ring a bell?
No, of course, there can be no full analogy here — commemoration of Patriarch Tikhon in ROCOR was preserved until his death in 1925, and only later did they cease to recognize the patriarchs elected in the USSR, and the primate of ROCOR commemorated “the Orthodox episcopate of the persecuted Russian Church” (pravoslavnoe episkopstvo gonymyia tserkvi rossiiskiia). However, convening that Council was not blessed by Patriarch Tikhon and the Moscow Synod, and the “Temporary Supreme Ecclesiastical Administration Abroad” from that moment, in fact, proclaimed disobedience to the decisions of the Moscow church authority — that is, in effect, “de facto autocephaly”. True, no “mistrust” of Patriarch Tikhon himself or “disagreement” with him was expressed, but with his decisions and those of the Moscow Synod — very much so!
How was ROCOR perceived by other autocephalous Churches? Until the late 1960s, Eucharistic communion was maintained even with Constantinople, and everyone regarded ROCOR as part of the Moscow Patriarchate.
What is the point of this whole excursus?
The point is that both the then status of ROCOR and the present status of the UOC share one thing in common: a complete lack of clear canonical logic and an extraordinarily odd optic in its application. When reading the resolutions of the Feofaniia Council and the new Statute of the UOC, I repeatedly get the impression that Metropolitan Onufriy and the other initiators of “Feofaniia” were guided not by the canon law of the Orthodox Church, but by a textbook on modern history of the ROC, in which they had read about Patriarch Tikhon’s decree No. 362. That decree was issued in November 1920, at the height of the civil war. It provided for temporary measures for bishops if communication with the patriarch or the Higher Church Council should be disrupted: the creation of temporary administrative bodies, organizing local church life, convening assemblies. That is, the decree was purely an emergency and temporary instrument. Nevertheless, ROCOR, citing precisely this decree, effectively proclaimed disobedience to the Moscow church authority, thereby realizing its “de facto autocephaly”. And it is exactly this historical parallel that gives the impression that Metropolitan Onufriy seemed to act according to the same logic at “Feofaniia” — although, of course, we will not find any direct reference to Patriarch Tikhon’s decree there.
“Independence and self-governance”
I don’t think I will be revealing America to anyone if I repeat what has already been said many times: canon law has no such categories as “independence” and “self-governance in its administration”. It has only autonomy and autocephaly. How, why, and thanks to which “good person” these mutually exclusive concepts ended up in Patriarch Alexy II’s charter for the UOC and then in its Statute is explained quite clearly by the author of the charter, the late Hieromonk Innokenty Pavlov. I quote:
“I remember, Kirill (Gundyaev — author’s note) summons me and says: ‘So, write a Tomos about the independence and self-governance of the Ukrainian Church.’ I say: ‘Your Eminence, forgive me, but if there really is such a historical demand, why not grant it autocephaly, or at least autonomy?’
‘No, no, no, these words must not be there. Only independence and self-governance in internal administration, while with the Universal Orthodox Church it remains in unity through the Russian Orthodox Church.’ Well, I thought to myself: that sort of thing simply doesn’t exist in history, there never was such a thing.
And here, then, with these words… But I understood it like this: you know, there was such a game even before the revolution: “don’t say yes or no”. Well, here it’s the same: “don’t say yes and don’t say no”.
So I thought this: frankly speaking, the whole matter is hopeless. And, without much thought, I took down from the shelf an issue of the Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate from 1970, which contained the Tomos on the autonomy of the Japanese Church — that tiny little church of 25,000 souls. And I copied out from it all the main provisions, especially since they basically corresponded to the task that had been set. The only thing I did was remove the word ‘autonomy’ and slip in these absolutely… well, because they are mutually exclusive concepts: ‘independence’ and ‘self-governance’.”
As they say, no further comment is needed…
But precisely for that reason, the subsequent reference to this charter in the new “Feofaniia” Statute of the UOC looks extremely strange.
Proponents of autocephaly within the UOC, for example Archbishop Sylvester Stoichev, insist that this reference is merely a historical note, the “birthday of the UOC”, and does not mean that the charter continues to function as a legal document for the UOC. With all due respect to His Grace Sylvester, such an interpretation does not seem convincing to me; rather, it looks like wishful thinking.
From the standpoint of the formal logic of documents, a reference to another act always presupposes the application of its norms.
Let us read the original document:
“The Ukrainian Orthodox Church is independent and self-governing in its administration and structure in accordance with the Charter of His Holiness the Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus’ Alexy II of 27 October 1990…”
That is, if the Statute says “in accordance with the Charter”, this is not just a remembrance of the past — it is the fixing of rights and powers within the limits defined by the charter. The service word “in accordance with” functions here as an operator of correspondence or as a condition of reference: property X has force precisely within the framework outlined by document Y. There is no other way.
From this logical analysis there follows, unfortunately, the same conclusion reached by the experts of the State Service for Ethnic Policy and Freedom of Conscience: in accordance with its Statute, the UOC is “self-governing” and “independent” within the Moscow Patriarchate. That is, from the point of view of the statutory documents of the UOC, it is not possible to speak of any “de facto autocephaly”.
So did nothing really change after Feofaniia?
But there is a huge “but”. And, to be honest, I was surprised that no one drew attention to it in the latest program on “Viche” — neither the host nor the guests. However, to grasp the significance of this “but”, we need to construct two hypotheses:
Hypothesis 1: Metropolitan Onufriy secretly commemorates Patriarch Kirill as his ruling hierarch.
Hypothesis 2: Metropolitan Onufriy does not secretly commemorate anyone.
If the first hypothesis is true, and indeed, secretly or at the proskomedia Metropolitan Onufriy continues to commemorate “our great lord and father Kirill”, and the diptych is merely a veiled commemoration of Patriarch Kirill, a bit of sleight of hand, then in that case the UOC really is a part of the Moscow Patriarchate, and in reality nothing has changed. However, this hypothesis does not seem plausible to me; otherwise, the extremely pro-Moscow forces within the UOC would have no reason to be so worried about the current situation — yet we know they are very troubled by it. For instance, it is known that Metropolitan Feodosii of Cherkasy has declared at clergy meetings that “strictly speaking” Metropolitan Onufriy should already have been recognized as a schismatic, but “because of his authority in the Orthodox world” he has not yet been so recognized. Thus, going forward I will assume that this hypothesis is not valid.
If Metropolitan Onufriy does not secretly commemorate anyone, then we must concede that the canonical status of the UOC has in fact changed, and that it was changed solely by Metropolitan Onufriy himself. It is known that even before Feofaniia, almost from the very beginning after the full-scale invasion, he stopped commemorating Patriarch Kirill with the qualifier “our”. In any Christian liturgical tradition, the word “our” in the context of canonical subordination has always had important significance: it meant the acknowledgment of canonical authority — of bishop over presbyter, of metropolitan over bishop, of patriarch over metropolitan. Everything else, such as “great lord”, is merely local custom. Therefore, the formula “our great lord Kirill” which many remember, was in essence devoid of canonical content: it might as well not have been said at all, because the absence of the word “our” already in itself meant a break in canonical subordination to one’s patriarch.
As is known, two days after the Council in Feofaniia, Metropolitan Onufriy celebrated the Liturgy in the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, where at the Great Entrance he commemorated for the first time the diptych of primates of the autocephalous Churches, starting with Patriarch John of Antioch. And if we do not accept hypothesis number 1, canon law allows for only one canonical answer: this meant the unilateral proclamation of an autocephalous status for the UOC by its primate. Canon law does not allow any other interpretation here.
Therefore, the so-called “commemorators” in the UOC can go on “commemorating themselves to death” before their Moscow idol as much as they like — there is no longer any sense in this. If a bishop commemorates Metropolitan Onufriy, and a presbyter commemorates the bishop under whose canonical authority he stands, the canonical connection with the Moscow Patriarchate is in fact broken. This will probably be an extremely unpleasant discovery for Metropolitan Feodosii of Cherkasy or for some Kyiv vicars who evidently believe that every mention of the name “Kirill” during the Liturgy has some canonical or even sacral meaning. In reality, it is merely empty air-shaking by these bishops, and all the more so by priests, if Metropolitan Onufriy himself does not do this.
Thus, if we hold to the second hypothesis, we see an obvious discrepancy between what is written in the Statute of the UOC and the liturgical recording of canonical subordination, which in my view has fundamental importance. If in accordance with the Statute of the UOC it is difficult to speak of “de facto autocephaly”, then in accordance with liturgical practice this is a self-proclaimed autocephaly.
What conclusions suggest themselves here, and what can be done about this?
At first glance, one might be tempted to agree with various pro-Moscow “anti-Feofaniia” voices: Metropolitan Onufriy has fallen into schism by heading an unauthorized autocephaly. But that is only at first glance — for here another big “but” begins.
As we all know, after 11 October 2018, subordination to the Moscow Patriarchate for Orthodox bishops of Ukraine in principle became uncanonical — Ukraine returned under the omophorion of the Ecumenical Patriarch, and on 6 January 2019 the Tomos on autocephaly of the Most Holy Church of Ukraine was handed over. As is known, His All-Holiness Patriarch Bartholomew has repeatedly stated that the Tomos of autocephaly was given not to the hierarchy of the OCU, but to the entire Orthodox Church in Ukraine. And this means, as it seems to me, that the UOC already possesses not just some “de facto” but a quite specific and full autocephaly granted by the Ecumenical Patriarch — it simply does not yet wish to acknowledge it.
Archbishop Sylvester Stoichev and many other “autocephalists” within the UOC have repeatedly stated that the Ukrainian church crisis can be resolved only at a pan-Orthodox level. Personally, such ideas seem somewhat utopian to me. If we look at the present situation in the Orthodox world, it is quite obvious that no Synaxis of Primates can now be convened, and even if it were, it would not be able to decide anything positive.
By the way, I am constantly astonished at which figures from other Local Churches are cited and posted on various UOC resources as its “defenders”. With rare exceptions — perhaps apart from hierarchs of the Romanian Church or the primate of the OCA, Metropolitan Tikhon — these are people who in fact support not the UOC itself, but its enemies, those who want to destroy all of Ukraine together with the UOC. They support not the UOC but the “ROC in Ukraine”. It is well known that such “defenders” of the UOC as the Serbian and Bulgarian patriarchs, Archbishop Theodosios of Sebastia from the Church of Jerusalem, have repeatedly broadcast Russian propaganda narratives about the war in Ukraine, and some of them openly express support for Putin and Patriarch Kirill.
Therefore, it is strange to suppose that a Synaxis of Primates, with the participation of Patriarch Porfirije of Serbia and Patriarch Daniil of Bulgaria, will be able to adopt any decision at all in favor of Orthodoxy in Ukraine. And in general, it is doubtful that they would agree to decide anything without the participation of Patriarch Kirill…
Under these circumstances, in my view, there is only one obvious path for the UOC — the immediate restoration of relations with the See of Constantinople. This does not at all mean an instant unification with the OCU — His All-Holiness Patriarch Bartholomew has already openly acknowledged that unification is not yet possible. And in my view, this does not necessarily presuppose an exarchate status for the UOC.
Personally, I interpret the recent words of the Ecumenical Patriarch about the Ukrainian church issue as follows: the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and the Orthodox Church of Ukraine are parts of the autocephalous Most Holy Church of Ukraine. For the UOC all that remains is to recognize this fact, beginning with the restoration of Eucharistic communion with the Ecumenical Patriarchate. And after that a multitude of unexpected developments may follow.
Is Metropolitan Onufriy prepared, for the sake of the good of his Church, to retire? Is Metropolitan Epiphaniy prepared to do so? Is it possible that the rights to the Kyiv see could be restored to Metropolitan Onufriy, if he recognizes autocephaly from the Ecumenical Patriarch?
In any case, one thing is clear: the further future of the UOC depends on how ready it is to restore as quickly as possible full Eucharistic communion with the Ecumenical Patriarchate, because today only the Ecumenical Patriarch can rectify the current extremely complex and dangerous situation of the UOC from every point of view.