Posted by Yash on August 24, 2003 at 23:35:18:
In Reply to: Freedom From Russian Tyranny posted by Happy Ukrainian Independence Day on August 24, 2003 at 18:29:45:
Excerpt from “The Day” 12-3-02:
The Moscow Patriarchate’s attitude toward the independence of the Ukrainian church is absolutely clear to everyone: the separation of the Ukrainian church would mean many — perhaps too many — losses. Consider the figures, perhaps unknown to some. Today, there are 11,000 Russian Orthodox Church parishes on the territory of Russia, while the total number of Orthodox parishes in Ukraine is 15,000, i.e., more than in Russia or, incidentally, in any other Orthodox country of the world. Out of these 15,000 parishes, more than 10,000 are part of the UOC MP. In other words, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church MP accounts for almost half of all the Moscow Patriarchate patrimony (excluding some small foreign Russian churches and parishes). Consider also that about 60% of today’s Russians have been baptized and 2% actually practice Orthodoxy. According to a well-known French Orthodox theologian Olivier Clement, “Russia is now a more secularized country than France.”
This is why the Moscow Partiarchate is trying so hard and desperately, with no holds barred (the end justifies the means), to retain its “Ukrainian Orthodox colony.” For when (if?) Ukrainian Orthodoxy stands unites and gains independence, this could shake Moscow’s historically coveted status as the Third Rome, for its quantitative Orthodox advantage will no longer be so unambiguous. It will be recalled that the idea of the Third Rome idea has been Russia’s leading religious (and lay) policy since the fifteenth century. The emergence on the world stage of such a large denomination as a Ukrainian Local Church is likely to upset the balance of forces, shift the accents and links in Ecumenical Orthodoxy, and undoubtedly be of considerable foreign political importance to Ukraine.
That Ukraine badly needs an independent unitary Orthodox church of its own is beyond doubt. It has every — historical, political and canonical — right to this, no matter how hard we are being charmed with the words canonical and uncanonical. It is common and old knowledge that it took almost all (except the four so-called historic partiarchates) Orthodox churches decades and sometimes even centuries of non-recognition, i.e., noncanonicity, to attain autocephalous status. Thus we should not hope that the Orthodox world will recognize the Ukrainian Local Church quickly and unanimously. It cannot be ruled out that this recognition will be celebrated by our remote descendants. But this is a different issue. Our duty is to form such a church.
¹38 December 03 2002 "http://www.day.kiev.ua"