5 years of the "Unification Council": interim results

"There is no good tree that brings forth bad fruit, nor is there a bad tree that brings forth good fruit, for every tree is known by its fruit. For men do not gather figs from thorns, nor do they pick grapes from a bramble bush" (Luke 6:43,44). Remembering these words of the Lord Jesus Christ, one can determine what the so-called "Unifying Council" was, as its fruit is already evident.

Brief backstory

Before 2018, the Orthodox landscape of Ukraine was as follows: there was the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), which was recognised by all the Local Orthodox Churches in the world, and there were two schismatic denominations: the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (UAOC) and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate (UOC-KP). The latter two were not recognised by anyone in the world as the true Church, their "clergy" were not considered to be grace-filled and canonical, and their "sacraments" were not recognised as valid.

Within Ukraine, the state authorities periodically made attempts to unite them in some way but they did not push too hard. With some reservations, it can be said that the state as a whole treated all confessions roughly equally. All of them existed within the same legal framework, the state allocated land plots for the construction of churches, registered communities and built separate church buildings. For example, St. Michael's Golden-Domed Monastery was restored for the UOC-KP and the Dormition Cathedral of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra - for the UOC. The mentioned reservations concerned cases of forceful seizure of churches. Compared to the present times, these cases were isolated. And all of them were exclusively one-sided. Schismatics seized the churches of the UOC, and not vice versa. And as a rule, these seizures remained unpunished. Also, in public rhetoric, preference was given to the UAOC and UOC-KP, which were positioned as more "patriotic" denominations.

When Poroshenko came to power, or rather in the last year of his tenure, when his headquarters decided to make religion the main highlight of his election programme for the 2019 presidential elections (in the economy and other areas his presidency was unsuccessful if not to say a failure), the situation changed dramatically. The former president planned to unite all Orthodox denominations and create a single autocephalous church in the interests of the state of Ukraine.

His intention coincided with the desire of international players: the United States and the Patriarchate of Constantinople. The latter was just engaged in the practical implementation of the concept of "first without equals", according to which the Patriarch of Constantinople is such an "Orthodox pope", who fulfils the role of a leader in Orthodoxy, has exclusive powers, can independently grant autocephaly to any church structure and make final decisions on church issues. Nor did this desire to establish a new ecclesiology exist in isolation. It developed in the context of Phanar-Vatican negotiations on unification.

One of the main points of this unification was the question of primacy: who would become the head? By indirect signs, we can assume that they agreed on the following concept: the Pope has unconditional primacy in the Catholic Church, and the Patriarch of Constantinople – the very "primacy without equals" in Orthodoxy. However, not all Local Churches were ready to accept this new Phanariot ecclesiology. And now, in solving the Ukrainian church issue, the Phanar saw an opportunity to prove its power in practice. The Phanariots decided that if, with the help of American diplomacy and the Ukrainian authorities, they managed to unite all Ukrainian confessions, to grant this union autocephaly and then make all the Local Churches recognise it, it would mean that the Local Churches in fact recognised the exclusive authority of the Phanar and submitted to its power.

So, on 11 November 2018, the Patriarchate of Constantinople held a meeting of its Synod, at which it made decisions unprecedented in their non-canonicity and absurdity:

• to accept without repentance into communion the UAOC and UOC-KP, previously considered graceless schismatics;
• to recognise the holy orders of their "clergy" and "episcopate" retroactively,
• to return the Kyiv Metropolis to its jurisdiction after 300 years in the Moscow Patriarchate,
• to declare all Orthodox denominations of Ukraine under its jurisdiction to further grant the unified structure "autocephaly".

Certainly, when making such decisions, the Phanar did not coordinate them with anyone: neither with the Local Churches nor with the UOC. Not surprisingly, the UOC bishops sent letters from Patriarch Bartholomew ordering them to appear at the "unification council" on 15 December 2018 back to the Phanar unopened. Only two metropolitans, Alexander (Drabinko) and Simeon (Shostatsky), appeared at the Council held at the St. Sophia of Kyiv. However, they were no longer bishops of the UOC at that time. Subsequently, they admitted that a few days before the Council they secretly sent letters to the Phanar with a request to accept them into the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, which Patriarch Bartholomew did not fail to do, promising them protection in case of imposition of canonical reprisals on the part of the UOC clergy.

This is the backstory of the "Unification Council". The Council dissolved the UAOC and the UOC-KP, and in their place created the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU), electing Serhiy (Epifaniy) Dumenko as its Primate. Now we will skip the details of its holding and proceed directly to the results after 5 years.

Fruits of the "Unification Council"

Let's start with the fact that the Council was not indeed unifying. It was supposed to unite all Orthodox denominations, but it united only the UAOCP and the UOC-KP, and even then with reservations.

Firstly, a few months later, Filaret Denisenko, the former head of the UOC-KP, who calls himself the Kyiv Patriarch, left the OCU with a great scandal, claiming that P. Poroshenko and S. Dumenko had deceived him. They promised that he would be the de facto head of the OCU under the nominal Epifaniy, but it turned out the other way round: he was stripped of his powers, avoided in communication and so on. He slammed the door loudly, saying that the OCU was not truly autocephalous but, in fact, subordinate to the Phanar. Several dozen parishes of especially loyal supporters left with him.

Secondly, the UAOC and the UOC-KP did not unite but merged, as a real unification presupposes a single organisational structure while the two structures merged to form the OCU preserved their structures. Thus, in many eparchies, there were two or even three (together with Drabinko and Shostatsky) "bishops". Not only does this contradict the canonical rule, according to which there can be only one ruling bishop in one town but also these "bishops" are often in conflict with each other. From time to time the media report scandals when subordinates of one "bishop" take away parishes from another, when "priests" of the former UOC-KP oppress "priests" of the former UAOC or vice versa, when some "bishops" make ultimatums to others, demanding the prohibition or expulsion of one or another "priest". All of this bears little resemblance to a unified church.

The Council of 15 December 2018 became not unifying but dividing as it split Ukrainian society and became a powerful catalyst for hatred within the Ukrainian people and categorical rejection of one part of society by the other. Even according to the UOC's enemies, about five to six million citizens of Ukraine are members of the UOC. This is a huge part of our society. Today these people are being persecuted, and their constitutional rights to freedom of conscience are being blatantly violated. Both radicals and law enforcement agencies are directly involved in this.

Just look at the raid by armed soldiers on the Bancheny Monastery. Ukrainian military men, who are supposed to protect the citizens of Ukraine, came out with automatic rifles against orphans, the disabled, and monks who live in the monastery and its orphanage. One cannot think of a greater disgrace for the state and the military. This is just one example.

Throughout Ukraine, hundreds of churches have been seized from UOC communities. Many of them are empty because people remain faithful to their Church and do not go there. Many such seizures have been accompanied by violence and even bloodshed as in Cherkasy when the police enacted seeing the believers beaten, insulted, trampled on and offended. The state is holding concerts and other secular events in the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, from which the UOC monks are being expelled. Where there used to be prayer, today songs and dances are organised. There are practically no "services" of the UOCU at all. Practically no one comes to the "divine services" of the OCU. All this was facilitated by the "unifying", and in fact dividing, Council of 15 December 2018.

And the worst thing is that this Council contributed to the division of Ukrainian citizens into "right" and "wrong", patriotic and less patriotic, first-class and second-class citizens. This Council sowed enmity and hatred among supporters of different denominations in Ukraine. Instead of promoting unity and harmony, the Council provoked an attempt by one confession (the OCU) to destroy another (the UOC). This has nothing to do with the idea of national unity and harmony, nor with respect for the constitutional rights of man and citizen. And who knows how much more time and effort it will take to overcome this disunity in our society.

To make matters worse, the Council of 15.12.2018 sowed enmity and disunity in Orthodoxy. The anti-Canonical actions of the Phanar regarding the Council divided the Local Churches along their attitude towards these actions.

If the Phanar's decisions on Ukraine had been correct and canonical, then the OCU establishment and the granting of "autocephaly" to it was immediately recognised by all the Local Churches. But the opposite happened. Not a single Local Church immediately recognised the newly founded structure. It took the intervention of American diplomats, who carried out the relevant work (the media reported about all these meetings), for the Churches of Alexandria, Cyprus and Greece to recognise the OCU. But even in these Churches, the episcopate was divided. In the Cypriot Church, some of the bishops still do not recognize the OCU and even refuse to co-officiate in the Liturgy if Serhiy Dumenko is commemorated.

It cannot even be said that the Cypriot Church recognised the OCU because the relevant decision of the Bishops’ Council of this Church essentially stated that the Council did not object to commemorating Dumenko by the Primate of the Cypriot Church. In the Greek Church, the decision of the Bishops’ Council to recognise the OCU was made with procedural violations. The hierarchs who were against it were simply not given a possibility to speak. In the Alexandrian Church, no vote was held at all. Patriarch Theodore II of Alexandria, by his decision, recognised the OCU, while the rest of the bishops remained silent. It was only after the ROC established its African Exarchate that the Alexandrians held a council and recognised the OCU by a synodal decision. The Phanar claims that eventually, they will be able to secure recognition of the OCU by all the Local Churches, but it's been already five years, and this does not seem to be on the horizon. The delay itself strongly suggests that the creation of the OCU was non-canonical.

Moreover, statements from some hierarchs of the OCU indicate that the structure created at the "Unification Council" has set a course for unification with the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. Yes, the word "unification" is used here, but it is hardly a positive outcome because throughout the centuries, any union with Catholics has been considered a betrayal of Orthodoxy and ultimately led to failure.

Despite persecution and all efforts by the authorities, the UOC has survived. The overwhelming majority of the episcopate, clergy, monks and laity have remained faithful to their Church and do not intend to join the OCU. The fact that the UOC has not been broken over these five years, especially in the last year and a half, is the most eloquent confirmation of the words of Jesus Christ: "I will build My Church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it" (Matthew 16:18).

Why did everything turn out this way?

One can say that the cause of such dire consequences was the lack of political culture among our rulers, who believed they could command the Church as if it were some subordinate state institution. Some may argue that everything would have worked out if not for the persistence of the UOC. Others might criticize the Phanar for not handling matters in Ukraine more diplomatically and considering the interests of all parties.

However, it seems that the main reason the Council of 15 December 2018 bore such bitter fruit lies in the misunderstanding of the nature of the Church. This lack of understanding was demonstrated by all participants in those events: the Phanar, the UAOC and the UOC-KP, as well as the Ukrainian authorities and American diplomats.

The Church is the Body of Christ, living Him and governed by Him. Attempts to treat the Church as a social organisation are doomed to failure. The relationship between Christ and His Church was expressed by the apostle Paul in the following way: "God put everything under His power and made Him the head over everything for the church, which is Christ’s body. The church is filled with Christ, and Christ fills everything in every way." (Ephesians 1:22-23)

There are only two ways of entering the Church. The first is the Sacrament of Baptism when the Lord forgives all the sins of a person and makes him a new, reborn member of His Church. However, if the person later falls into any mortal sin, thus placing themselves outside the Church, there exists a second way – the Sacrament of Repentance. The person confesses that he has realized the sinfulness of his actions, regrets committing them, declares the resolution not to repeat them, and, as a result, receives from God, acting through the hands of the priest, forgiveness of sins and reunion with the Holy Church.

"Reconcile and reunite him with Your Holy Church, o Christ Jesus our Lord...," the priest utters over the head of the repentant. This is truly astonishing because a person may attend the church, pray, and so on, but if they bear unconfessed and unforgiven sin, they stand outside the Church, outside the salvific ark of Christ. This sin may be unknown to anyone but the person, yet before God, they are already estranged from the Church. What about cases where the sin of a person is not only evident to all but also exposed by the divine hierarchs? What if the Church has excommunicated this person? What if She pronounced anathema upon them? What if all the Local Orthodox Churches worldwide acknowledge this anathema as evidence that the person is outside the Body of the Church? What should such a person or even a whole society do?

There is only one answer to this question – repent and confess your sin to God. Only then will God, through the priest ("...what you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and what you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven" (Matthew 18:18)) grant a person remission of sins, reconciliation and union with the Church. This is the only way God has provided for those who have fallen away from the Church. This is the only path that Filaret Denisenko and his followers, supporters of the UAOC and UOC-KP, had to take to be united with the Church. This is the only path that Patriarch Bartholomew should have pointed out to them. Instead, they all decided to go the other way, the way of some behind-the-scenes decisions, florid wordings, vain attempts to justify the sin of schism by considerations of political expediency and so on. But the Lord spoke about such trickery as follows: “Very truly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber. But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep" (John 10:1-2). Repentance is the door, and various tricks like agreements with the Phanar are attempts to get into the Church “by another way”. They have never led to anything good.

What should be done now?

The answer becomes clear from the above. It is necessary to abandon futile attempts to climb "by another way" and enter through the door of repentance. Each person needs to be primarily concerned about the salvation of their immortal soul in the Church. One must ask oneself: does God accept me even if I have a document signed by Patriarch Bartholomew? Have I sinned against Christ? Am I within the salvific enclosure of the Church? If everyone asks themselves such questions and tries honestly, based on the Gospel, to answer them, then the complex situation in the religious sphere of Ukraine will resolve itself. "But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you" (Matthew 6:33) – this is a universal formula for all times and all political and other circumstances. Are OCU members capable of this?

However, to provide more practical advice, the best course of action for the state would be to cease interference in church affairs and allow the denominations themselves to resolve their issues and contradictions. If common sense prevails, and those in power indeed act in this way, then religious motives may well surpass political and social ones in the reasoning of church leaders, meaning that the debate will shift into the religious domain. Beyond that lies a direct path to true unity in the Church of Christ. We may argue about various political and other concepts but if we all base our understanding on the Gospel, we will inevitably arrive at a consensus, as the Gospel provides true answers to all questions.