Posted by Yash on July 25, 2002 at 16:49:07:
Excerpt from The Day ’ s Klara Gudzyk interviews Patriarch Filaret of Kyiv and All Rus’-Ukraine
¹24 July 22 2002 "http://www.day.kiev.ua"
How does Your Holiness visualize the political steps to be taken by the KP on its way to recognition and to the unification of Ukrainian Orthodoxy within a single local church?
Filaret: There is no denying that the Kyiv Patriarchate has grown stronger and gained in public influence. Polls indicate that it is currently supported by 10 million Ukrainians. It is actually the most powerful church in this country. It includes 29 eparchies, over 3,500 parishes, six seminaries, a theological academy, theological department at the Chernivtsi University, and thirty cloistered communities.
Those same polls show that a mere 9% respondents acknowledged their affiliation to UOC MP; 3-4% declared their belonging to the Russian Orthodox Church. Official statistics pointing to the prevalence of UOC MP, therefore, are not correct. In actuality, three of ten thousand UOC MP parishes exist only on paper. There are cases on record when KP communities end up included in UOC MP. There are numerous Moscow-affiliated parishes wishing to join the Kyiv Patriarchate, but they lack the courage, among other reasons because local authorities (district and oblast state administrations, mostly in the south and east of Ukraine) sometimes tendentiously support the Moscow church, contrary to the law on the equality of all religions and confessions. In particular, they officially register its parishes and monasteries without any obstacles, while constantly erect obstacles to the work of the Kyiv Patriarchate. The same applies to the restitution of temples. For example, we have for a number of years been waiting for the Chernihiv authorities to hand over St. Catherine’s Church which stands empty, while the Moscow church has long been using several historic churches in the area. Another example is found in Kharkiv where the Kyiv Patriarchate does not have a single religious structure. And the same is true of Dnipropetrovsk.
It is true, however, that in many administrative regions the attitude toward all Orthodox churches is equally fair, and there are such indications at the highest level, including from the president. He even went so far as to almost simultaneously commemorate two such polarized dates as the tenth anniversary of the Kharkiv gathering and our Unification Church Council. However, I would like to point out that what we need from the government is not help or privileges but noninterference in our efforts.