Unholy politics

Jul 30, 2008 at 18:51 | Editorial
As president, Yushchenko should not be leading the charge for a single Ukrainian Orthodox Church

cy of religious views, it’s hard to maintain distance when it comes to the politically splintered Orthodox Church.

President Victor Yushchenko used the 1020th anniversary of Kyivan Rus’ conversion to Christianity to assert the need for a single Ukrainian Orthodox Church. His cause is justifiable. But as president, he should not be leading the charge. We also question why the Orthodox faith should take precedence, given that almost half of Ukrainians have other beliefs.

Still, given the historical subservience of the Russian Orthodox Church to the state, a unified Orthodox Church in Ukraine – independent from Moscow and recognized as a separate entity by all – is a worthy aim. Instead, Ukraine has three competing Orthodox churches. One is the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Moscow Patriarchy, headed by Metropolitan Vladimir and subordinate to the Russian church. Another is the Ukrainian Orthodox of Kyiv Patriarchy, which split from the Russian church in 1992 and is led by Patriarch Filaret. And the smallest of the trio is the Ukrainian Autocephalous Church led by Metropolitan Mefodiy.

We cannot accept Russian Patriarch Alexei II’s description of Ukraine's other two Orthodox churches as “dissenters” who need to come back into Moscow’s fold. As Bishop Paul Peter Jesep of the Autocephalous church said: “Ukrainians don’t need anyone’s permission to be a church.”

Yushchenko asked Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople, nominal leader of the world’s Orthodox, to recognize a single Ukrainian church. Public opinion seems to lean that way. About 40 percent of Ukrainians, according to a poll by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, want the nation to have its own church.

Regrettably, this debate seems to be more about nationalistic pride and control of 11,000 parishes than any theological principle. Maybe the followers’ shared faith will bring unity and end these base conflicts.