This presentation was delivered on April 29, 2025, during the Round Table “Contemporary Ukrainian Orthodoxy: Debunking Myths for the Sake of Reconciliation and Social Consolidation in Ukraine,” organized by the “Sofiyske Brotherhood” with the support of the Renovabis Foundation. The Sofiyske Brotherhood may not necessarily share the views of the speakers; likewise, individual opinions expressed within the project may not reflect the consolidated position of the Brotherhood.
Alla Vaisband, Philosopher, musicologist, art historian
I would like to begin my presentation by referring to the paper “Faith in the One Church: Myth or Reality?” presented by Dr. Sergiy Bortnyk, Professor of Theology at the Kyiv Theological Academy, during the webinar “Myths and Prejudices that Hinder the Unity of Ukrainian Orthodoxy.”
The speaker acted here as an advocate for his (our) Church. Among other things, he sought to demonstrate that the silence of the UOC leadership, which consistently avoids dialogue with Ukrainian society, is “Christianly motivated,” which, in his opinion, transforms this silence from a “political question” into a “theological question.”
To this end, he cited Christ’s answer to Pilate and a number of biblical passages that “set the disciples of Christ in opposition to the world.” According to him, this idea of “opposing the faithful to the world” “in fact finds its parallel in the opposition between the flesh and the spirit in the writings of the Apostle Paul.” “The current isolation and silent resistance of the faithful of the UOC can be seen through the theological prism of such an opposition: Church and world, spiritual and carnal.”
At the end of his presentation, Sergiy Bortnyk expressed the belief that the “full-scale” war is “an unconditional reason for deep reflection and the rejection of the political as something extraneous to Church life.” According to the theologian, this rejection is the prerequisite for “constructive changes in Ukrainian Orthodoxy.”
The theologian’s interpretation of the “opposition between Church and world, spiritual and carnal” as a purely Christian phenomenon prompted me to recall one of my favorite texts by the brilliant scholar and Christian thinker Sergiy Averintsev. I mean his text “Toward Understanding Biblical Literature,” which was published in 1990 in one of the editions of the New Testament. There we read these key words:
“At one time, Greek philosophy developed the doctrine of the ‘impassibility’ of the divine principle, which in ethics corresponded to the ideal of ‘ataraxia’—that is, absolute imperturbability. Christianity, having become acquainted with this tradition of Hellenistic idealism, adopted it, but for Christianity, the divine ‘impassibility’ appears ‘without confusion and without division’ with the sufferings of Christ on the Cross. The divine glory of Christ is real not somewhere above His human humiliation, but inside this humiliation, at its very core. Therefore, the most universal form of Christian thought and perception—alive both in New Testament texts and in Orthodox iconography, and in the lines of Dante—is the symbol that neither mixes thing and meaning (as in pagan myth) nor separates them, but presents both ‘without confusion’ and ‘without division.’”
And further:
“This formula provides a universal Christian model for the relationship between the divine and the human, the spiritual and the material.”
The author stops there, but I believe that the “doubly paradoxical” (in Averintsev’s words) formula of the Council of Chalcedon can be applied to the Christian understanding of all other fundamental oppositions, including the Christian understanding of the relationship between Church and world, religious and political.
If we accept this thesis, then the prerequisite for “constructive changes in Ukrainian Orthodoxy” would not look like Professor Sergiy Bortnyk presented it—namely, not as a “rejection of the political as extraneous to Church life,” but as a search for a fragile balance between the political and the spiritual as one of the constitutive dimensions of Church life.
A few more points can be added to this conclusion.
At the beginning of our project, one of its team members asked Artificial Intelligence to gather myths and stereotypes common among Ukrainian Orthodox believers. AI identified, among others, the following:
“The UOC is too prone to fundamentalism. The OCU is prone to modernism and Western liberal values that threaten ‘true Orthodoxy.’”
These views are actually myths, because they offer a simplified, generalized interpretation of complex, diverse phenomena: in both the UOC and the OCU there are healthy, adequate centers seeking a balance between conservative and modern, spiritual and political dimensions, and there are peripheries that absolutize one side of these oppositions.
Nevertheless, we can still talk about certain dominant tendencies.
The UOC tends to be more conservative, focused on tradition, authority, obedience, the mystical and eternal, the salvation of the soul, and so on.
The OCU tends to be more liberal, valuing freedom and human dignity, and is more open to societal, civic, and political matters.
If we recognize that the essentially Christian formula is the “without confusion and without division” combination, this opens the possibility to say that both these churches—which today often deny each other’s canonicity or Ukrainianness—are, at least potentially, canonical and legitimate Ukrainian churches. The existence of these two churches—provided they do not wage a war of extermination against each other—can be seen as a great gift and opportunity for Ukrainian Orthodoxy. After all, these churches, in a “more–less” mode, embody phenomena that, from the perspective of authentic Christianity, are equally necessary. (In this context, Father Kyrylo Hovorun and Daryna Morozova have spoken of “two wings” and “two lungs.”)
Of course, this interpretation is to some extent also a myth, because it is based on broad generalizations. But this myth, unlike the destructive exclusivist myths prevalent in both jurisdictions, is constructive because it promotes dialogue and understanding, to which we are called as Christians and as citizens of Ukraine.
A few more words about potential canonicity and legitimacy. According to Sergiy Averintsev’s interpretation, the “doubly paradoxical formula of the Council of Chalcedon” can also be extended to the interpretation of the relationship between the literal and metaphorical (i.e. the spirit and the letter) in key New Testament concepts.
I would venture to suggest that this interpretation should also be extended to the Christian understanding of the concept of “grace.” That is—that the grace of the Church is determined not only by certain documents that recognize its canonicity and not even exclusively by its apostolic succession, but also by how closely the life of the Church aligns with the Spirit of Christianity—i.e. the truly Christian “without confusion” and “without division” of the key oppositions of religious culture.
Finally, during one of the preparatory online meetings of this roundtable, Lyudmyla Oleksandrivna Filipovych insisted on the urgent need to move from words to deeds and to develop a concrete strategy—a clear action plan aimed at reconciliation and understanding.
This strategy, of course, cannot at present include holding open dialogues and roundtables with representatives of both churches, since such dialogues do not currently have the blessing of Metropolitan Onufriy. But in terms of preparation for such dialogues, we can and should already work to expand and strengthen the healthy, adequate centers of both churches that seek to balance the traditional and the modern, the mystical and the political, and other opposing elements—thus facilitating future reconciliation and understanding. (I see that these centers are much closer to each other than to their own peripheries.) One important point of this work, in my opinion, should be to debunk the myth that treats the “opposition between spiritual and carnal, Church and world” as a purely Christian phenomenon.