Ukraine’s pressing ecclesiastical issue has provoked a fierce rift between the Orthodox churches of Russia and Constantinople, with the powerful Patriarchate of Moscow warning the Ecumenical Patriarchate that the latter’s decision to grant Ukraine’s Orthodox Christians autocephaly, or self-governing status, by way of a patriarchal decree known in Greek as a ‘tomos’, has the potential to undermine the unity of the Orthodox Church and even create a new schism.
Relations between Moscow and Constantinople began to sour last April, when the Holy Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate announced, through an official communiqué, that it had accepted a request from Ukrainian religious and political authorities, including president Petro Poroshenko, seeking its initiative in addressing Ukraine’s decades-long ecclesiastical problem, according to which three separate Orthodox churches are active in the country. Of these, only one enjoys recognition among the world’s established Orthodox churches, and this is none other than Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, which claims a significant number of Ukraine’s Christian faithful.
According to recent reports, the tomos is in its final stages and concerns the establishment of a single, self-governing Orthodox church in Ukraine to which all the country’s Orthodox Christians will belong, just like in other Orthodox-majority countries. Yet for this new church to form, the other two of the three existing churches, the so-called Kiev Patriarchate and the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church, will have to merge, something Moscow will never accept, given it considers these two churches schismatic and hostile towards the Russian church. Thus, any recognition from Constantinople, and subsequently from the other Greek-speaking churches, will be viewed by Moscow as an unmerited gift to Ukraine’s unrepentant schismatics, who since 1992 have clashed with the Russian church and spread division among Ukrainian Orthodox Christians.
Despite Moscow’s warning regarding the emergence of a new schism between the Greek-speaking churches, on the one hand, and the Slavic-speaking and so-called Russophile churches (Patriarchates of Antioch and Georgia), on the other, the Ecumenical Patriarchate appears determined to satisfy the request of the Ukrainians by year’s end. Indeed, several days ago, just one week after the visit of a small Russian delegation headed by Patriarch Kirill of Moscow to Istanbul, the Holy Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate announced the appointment of two bishops, Daniel of Pamphilon and Hilarion of Edmonton, both serving Ukrainian Orthodox communities in North America under the jurisdiction of Constantinople, as its exarchs (or representatives) in Ukraine, assigned with the task of examining the ecclesiastical situation there in order to determine the timing of the impending patriarchal decision’s implementation. Should they succeed in establishing a new, autocephalous church, it is expected that the current canonical church in Ukraine dependent on Moscow will be relegated to a mere dependency of the Russian church, effectively curbing Russia’s influence in its neighbour’s ecclesiastical affairs.
One last point worth noting is that a change of the ecclesiastical status quo in Ukraine is likely to have an impact on the Greek church in Australia. The parish of St Savvas of Kalymnos in Sydney, established only a few years ago, claims to be under the jurisdiction of the schismatic Kiev Patriarchate. The Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Australia does not recognise the church of St Savvas, as its parish priest was defrocked by the Ecumenical Patriarchate in 2001. If, however, in the coming months an autocephalous church is declared in Ukraine recognised by Constantinople (which the Archdiocese answers to) and absorbing the Kiev Patriarchate, then St Savvas in Sydney will technically have the right to consider itself canonical and on equal footing with the churches of Australia’s other recognised Orthodox jurisdictions, including the Greek Archdiocese. This is something that without doubt will create a major problem for the Archdiocese, for it cannot recognise the existence of a canonical Greek-speaking parish in Australia not under its spiritual authority.