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Opinion
February 8, 2019 www.intellinews.com I Page 20
COMMENT:
Ukraine’s long-awaited religious independence is a matter of national security
Nicholas Kaufmann in Brussels
The fallout continues to grow daily from Ukraine’s momentous religious split from Russia. Earlier this month, 150,000 people in Kyiv celebrated Orthodox Christmas by descending on St. Sophia Cathedral to catch a glimpse of a single precious document: the tomos, issued just days earlier by Bartholomew, the ecumenical patriarch of Con- stantinople. The elaborate tomos, inscribed in Ukrainian, Greek and English, held the words that the Ukrainian Orthodox Church has yearned after for centuries: the declaration that the Kyiv-based church is autocephalous, meaning the Ukrainian body of believers is now fully independent from the Moscow Patriarchate.
A centuries-old dream
The move has certainly been a long time coming. Many Ukrainians have long cherished the no-
tion of an independent church, and the decision
in December to ordain a new Ukrainian Orthodox Church was the culmination of countless years of activism by religious leaders and politicians alike. The event has been judged by some pundits — only marginally hyperbolically — as bearing the same importance as the achievement of Ukrainian political independence in 1991.
Since Ukraine claimed political independence almost three decades ago, there has been a trinity of religious bodies fighting for dominance: the first, the Moscow Patriarchate, boasts the largest number of parishes in Ukraine and a link to the Russian Orthodox Church. The other two, the smaller Kyiv Patriarchate and Ukrainian
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko was one of the major instigators of the break with Russian oversight and influence.
Autocephalous Orthodox Church (UOC) have operated in parallel without formal recognition.
It has been the latter two bodies, along with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, that have been the major instigators of a break with Russian oversight and influence, calling instead for the establishment of an independent, unified, distinctly Ukrainian church. The granting of autocephaly, then, represents the long-awaited fulfilment of nationalist dreams forged in the aftermath of the disintegration of the Soviet Union.
Renewed importance in the face of Russian aggression
The issue of Ukraine’s religious institutional landscape has gathered new importance in recent years in the midst of mounting Russian aggres- sion, from the seizure of Crimea to fermenting unrest in Ukraine’s east. Amid the tension, it has been impossible for Ukraine’s competing religious authorities to maintain neutrality. Rather, they have been bolstered in their separate corners by shifting political forces.
Indeed, the question of ecclesiastical autonomy has now become a question of national security. Ukrainian President Poroshenko has been explicit in his vision for the new church, claiming that “the creation of an independent Ukrainian Orthodox church is a necessary attribute of nation-building,” with this latest shot at religious independence an “opportunity that arises once in a millennium.”