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13855
Sat, 07/26/2008 - 13:15
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https://oananews.org//node/13855
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Contradictions btw Russia, Ukraine marring jubilee of Kievan Rus
MOSCOW, July 26 (By Itar-Tass World Service writer Lyumidla Alexandrova) - Common history is not the only thing that Ukraine andRussia turn out unable to share and divide today.
It appears they are equally unable to share and divide the Eastern Orthodox Christianity that came to their ancestral homeland Duchy of Kievan Rus in 988 AD.
Religion has moved to the forefront in a host of the regularlyaggravating problems in the Ukrainian-Russian deadlock.
Ukrainian authorities seek to make a ploy of the festivities dedicated to the 1,020th anniversary since the baptizing of Kievan Rus so as to unite all the Orthodox Christians in their country and to convince the Patriarch of Constantinople and the Universe Bartholomew, who is nominally the supreme hierarch of the entire Eastern Orthodox Congregation, of the importance of recognizing the so-called Kiev Patriarchate, which theChurch authorities in Moscow dismiss as a schismatic organization.
Moscow is doing its utmost to prevent a turn of events like this, and mass media indicate that the secular authorities in both countries havejoined the clerics in this standoff.
The Ukrainian government decided to celebrate the 1,020th anniversary since the adoption of Christianity with a pomp that knows no precedent interms of span and scale.
Mass services on Kiev's streets and squares were held Friday and will continue Saturday. Some of them will be conducted by the Patriarch of Moscow and all Russia Alexy II and Patriarch Bartholomew, and UkrainianPresident Viktor Yushchenko will attend them.
"I do believe that the celebration of 1,020th jubilee since the baptizing of Kievan Rus will give an impulse to unification processes in the Ukrainian Orthodox community," Yushchenko told a news conference Thursday. "I know that the believers and the Ukrainian people yearn for unity, and the very logic of our historical development demands it, too." "By saying this, he confirmed Moscow's worst apprehensions regardingthese festivities," Kommersant daily writes.
It recalls that Ukraine has three Orthodox Churches at a time, but only one of them, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church led by Metropolitan Vladimir and reporting to the Moscow Patriarchate is officially recognizedby the international Orthodox community.
The Ukrainian Orthodox Church with Metropolitan Philaretus at the head reports to the so-called Kiev Patriarchate. It split from the RussianChurch in 1992.
Moscow regards it as a schismatic denomination and Russian hierarchsissued an anathema to it in 1997.
Finally, there is the Ukrainian Autocephalous Church reporting toMetropolitan Methodius. It emerged back in 1917.
Ukrainian authorities try to produce a merger of the three denominations into one, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church that will becompletely independent from Russia.
In the meantime, the only scenario recognized by Moscow suggests thatthe 'dissenters' should repent and revert to the mother Russian Church.
The Russian government recognizes the Ukrainian Orthodox Church reporting to Moscow Patriarchate as one of its bastions in Ukraine, along with the Black Sea Fleet deployed in the Crimea, and is ready to fight forthe maintenance of its current status.
Moscow and Kiev Patriarchates have roughly the same influence in Ukraine, Konstantin Bondarenko, the director of the Kiev-based Instituteof Administration Problems told the Russian daily Gazeta.
While Moscow Patriarchate apparently outweighs its Kiev rivals in the number of parishes, the number of parishioners there may sometimes bebelow 20 or so people.
Kiev Patriarchate cannot boast as much a ramified network of parishesbut it apparently does not have a shortage of disciples either.
"Their forces can be considered as the ones having numerical parity," Bondarenko said. He believes that the Union Church, or the so-called Catholic Church of the Eastern Rite, does not have an especially big influence on Ukraine's territory and it seeks for themselves the role of abridge between the two Orthodox Patriarchates.
As for the Autocephalous Church, it too has a big number of followers /seven million people in western regions of Ukraine and a small number in the Donetsk region/, but it does not pursue expansive policies, Bondarenkosaid.
Officials in Moscow fear that the current festivities will kick off the process of unification of Orthodox Churches under Kiev's scenario, and Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople may play a key role in this, sincehe may legalize the unrecognized Churches as a first step.
Archimandrite Cyril, the head of external relations department at the Ukrainian Church reporting to Moscow Patriarchate said the heads of the two schismatic Churches, Metropolitan Vladimir and Metropolitan Methodius visited Istanbul to discuss the details of a future recognition andunification.
Effectuation of this project will mean a double victory for President Yushchenko. First, it will deal of blow to Russia's influence in Ukraine and, second, he himself will obtain a much-desired image of the unifier of the nation, which is crucial for him in the run up to a presidentialelection due next year.
His political adversaries have largely different positions in thisreligious dispute.
For instance, former Prime Minister Viktor Yushchenko openly supports the Ukrainian Orthodox Church reporting to Moscow Patriarchate, while the incumbent Prime Minister, Yulia Timoshenko who also considers herself adisciple of the latter Church, tries to stay outside of this row.
"Considering the knottiness of the situation, Kiev Patriarchate will not take part in any official functions so as to prevent any charges with provocations that may be made against the Ukrainian state," hegumenEustratius, the Patriarchate's press secretary said.
However, hierarchs from a number of foreign Orthodox Churches havedecided to abstain from the festivities in Ukraine.
The Cyprian Orthodox Church was the first one to say it would not delegate its representatives to Kiev "due to an amassed interference of the state with the festivities." Georgia's Patriarch-Catholicos Elijah II will not come either, and Russian mass media claim he cancelled his visit at Moscow Patriarchate'srequest.
Apart from Bartholomew and Alexy II, Archbishop Anasthasius of Albania and Archbishop Hieronymus of Athens may be the only two other foreignhierarchs to come.
However, experts voice the apprehensions that a flop of thefestivities may prompt the authorities to take even more energetic steps.
Archimandrite Cyril warned Thursday that a unification of the Churches according to Kiev's scenario will be fraught with triggering a new spaceof violence like the one that occurred in the early 1990's.
Last preparations for the celebration in Kiev were somewhat disturbed, Nezavissimaya Gazeta writes. Most believers whom its correspondents spoke with in the famous Monastery of the Caves (Moscow Patriarchate) and the St Vladimir's Cathedral (Kiev Patriarchate) said they would not take part in the festive functions as they had the misgivings that all of this mightturn into a fistfight unacceptable for God.
While Russian historians believe that Duke Vladimir, the baptizer of Kievan Rus was one of the forerunners of Muscovite statehood, Ukrainian historians view him as the founder of Ukraine, saying nowadays Russiasimply branched out of Kievan Rus.
Russian politicians denounce the Ukrainians' fiddling around the problem of the history of Kievan Rus and the desire to make the UkrainianChurch independent.
"Kiev is the mother of all Russian cities and the Russians and Ukrainians are brotherly peoples," says Sergei Ivanenko, a members of thepolitical council of the liberal party Yabloko.
"All the nations living on the territories of our two countries makeup a single historical community," Gazeta quoted him as saying.
"Unfortunately, a wedge is being driven between our peoples in many fields, including religion, but this is a short-sighted policy that doesn' t meet the strategic interests of either Russia or Ukraine." -0-kle
It appears they are equally unable to share and divide the Eastern Orthodox Christianity that came to their ancestral homeland Duchy of Kievan Rus in 988 AD.
Religion has moved to the forefront in a host of the regularlyaggravating problems in the Ukrainian-Russian deadlock.
Ukrainian authorities seek to make a ploy of the festivities dedicated to the 1,020th anniversary since the baptizing of Kievan Rus so as to unite all the Orthodox Christians in their country and to convince the Patriarch of Constantinople and the Universe Bartholomew, who is nominally the supreme hierarch of the entire Eastern Orthodox Congregation, of the importance of recognizing the so-called Kiev Patriarchate, which theChurch authorities in Moscow dismiss as a schismatic organization.
Moscow is doing its utmost to prevent a turn of events like this, and mass media indicate that the secular authorities in both countries havejoined the clerics in this standoff.
The Ukrainian government decided to celebrate the 1,020th anniversary since the adoption of Christianity with a pomp that knows no precedent interms of span and scale.
Mass services on Kiev's streets and squares were held Friday and will continue Saturday. Some of them will be conducted by the Patriarch of Moscow and all Russia Alexy II and Patriarch Bartholomew, and UkrainianPresident Viktor Yushchenko will attend them.
"I do believe that the celebration of 1,020th jubilee since the baptizing of Kievan Rus will give an impulse to unification processes in the Ukrainian Orthodox community," Yushchenko told a news conference Thursday. "I know that the believers and the Ukrainian people yearn for unity, and the very logic of our historical development demands it, too." "By saying this, he confirmed Moscow's worst apprehensions regardingthese festivities," Kommersant daily writes.
It recalls that Ukraine has three Orthodox Churches at a time, but only one of them, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church led by Metropolitan Vladimir and reporting to the Moscow Patriarchate is officially recognizedby the international Orthodox community.
The Ukrainian Orthodox Church with Metropolitan Philaretus at the head reports to the so-called Kiev Patriarchate. It split from the RussianChurch in 1992.
Moscow regards it as a schismatic denomination and Russian hierarchsissued an anathema to it in 1997.
Finally, there is the Ukrainian Autocephalous Church reporting toMetropolitan Methodius. It emerged back in 1917.
Ukrainian authorities try to produce a merger of the three denominations into one, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church that will becompletely independent from Russia.
In the meantime, the only scenario recognized by Moscow suggests thatthe 'dissenters' should repent and revert to the mother Russian Church.
The Russian government recognizes the Ukrainian Orthodox Church reporting to Moscow Patriarchate as one of its bastions in Ukraine, along with the Black Sea Fleet deployed in the Crimea, and is ready to fight forthe maintenance of its current status.
Moscow and Kiev Patriarchates have roughly the same influence in Ukraine, Konstantin Bondarenko, the director of the Kiev-based Instituteof Administration Problems told the Russian daily Gazeta.
While Moscow Patriarchate apparently outweighs its Kiev rivals in the number of parishes, the number of parishioners there may sometimes bebelow 20 or so people.
Kiev Patriarchate cannot boast as much a ramified network of parishesbut it apparently does not have a shortage of disciples either.
"Their forces can be considered as the ones having numerical parity," Bondarenko said. He believes that the Union Church, or the so-called Catholic Church of the Eastern Rite, does not have an especially big influence on Ukraine's territory and it seeks for themselves the role of abridge between the two Orthodox Patriarchates.
As for the Autocephalous Church, it too has a big number of followers /seven million people in western regions of Ukraine and a small number in the Donetsk region/, but it does not pursue expansive policies, Bondarenkosaid.
Officials in Moscow fear that the current festivities will kick off the process of unification of Orthodox Churches under Kiev's scenario, and Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople may play a key role in this, sincehe may legalize the unrecognized Churches as a first step.
Archimandrite Cyril, the head of external relations department at the Ukrainian Church reporting to Moscow Patriarchate said the heads of the two schismatic Churches, Metropolitan Vladimir and Metropolitan Methodius visited Istanbul to discuss the details of a future recognition andunification.
Effectuation of this project will mean a double victory for President Yushchenko. First, it will deal of blow to Russia's influence in Ukraine and, second, he himself will obtain a much-desired image of the unifier of the nation, which is crucial for him in the run up to a presidentialelection due next year.
His political adversaries have largely different positions in thisreligious dispute.
For instance, former Prime Minister Viktor Yushchenko openly supports the Ukrainian Orthodox Church reporting to Moscow Patriarchate, while the incumbent Prime Minister, Yulia Timoshenko who also considers herself adisciple of the latter Church, tries to stay outside of this row.
"Considering the knottiness of the situation, Kiev Patriarchate will not take part in any official functions so as to prevent any charges with provocations that may be made against the Ukrainian state," hegumenEustratius, the Patriarchate's press secretary said.
However, hierarchs from a number of foreign Orthodox Churches havedecided to abstain from the festivities in Ukraine.
The Cyprian Orthodox Church was the first one to say it would not delegate its representatives to Kiev "due to an amassed interference of the state with the festivities." Georgia's Patriarch-Catholicos Elijah II will not come either, and Russian mass media claim he cancelled his visit at Moscow Patriarchate'srequest.
Apart from Bartholomew and Alexy II, Archbishop Anasthasius of Albania and Archbishop Hieronymus of Athens may be the only two other foreignhierarchs to come.
However, experts voice the apprehensions that a flop of thefestivities may prompt the authorities to take even more energetic steps.
Archimandrite Cyril warned Thursday that a unification of the Churches according to Kiev's scenario will be fraught with triggering a new spaceof violence like the one that occurred in the early 1990's.
Last preparations for the celebration in Kiev were somewhat disturbed, Nezavissimaya Gazeta writes. Most believers whom its correspondents spoke with in the famous Monastery of the Caves (Moscow Patriarchate) and the St Vladimir's Cathedral (Kiev Patriarchate) said they would not take part in the festive functions as they had the misgivings that all of this mightturn into a fistfight unacceptable for God.
While Russian historians believe that Duke Vladimir, the baptizer of Kievan Rus was one of the forerunners of Muscovite statehood, Ukrainian historians view him as the founder of Ukraine, saying nowadays Russiasimply branched out of Kievan Rus.
Russian politicians denounce the Ukrainians' fiddling around the problem of the history of Kievan Rus and the desire to make the UkrainianChurch independent.
"Kiev is the mother of all Russian cities and the Russians and Ukrainians are brotherly peoples," says Sergei Ivanenko, a members of thepolitical council of the liberal party Yabloko.
"All the nations living on the territories of our two countries makeup a single historical community," Gazeta quoted him as saying.
"Unfortunately, a wedge is being driven between our peoples in many fields, including religion, but this is a short-sighted policy that doesn' t meet the strategic interests of either Russia or Ukraine." -0-kle
