Bridging the Ecclesial, the Academic, and the Political
by Nicholas Sooy When Napoleon executed Louis Antoine in 1804, a decision which turned the European aristocracy against Napoleon, an advisor reportedly quipped “It’s worse than a crime, it’s a mistake.” Former US Secretary of State Dean Acheson, an architect of the War in Vietnam reportedly quipped the same thing about Vietnam. A full-scale invasion…
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Rev. Dr. Nicholas Denysenko | български | ქართული | ελληνικά | Română | Русский | Српски Much has happened in the time that has elapsed since Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople granted autocephaly to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) in 2018-19. The world continues to struggle through the pandemic. Natural disasters are destroying lives at…
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by Fr. Bohdan Hladio | български | Ελληνικά | Русский | Српски Much breath and ink continues to be spent castigating the Patriarchate of Constantinople for its “uncanonical” bestowal of autocephaly upon the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU). Characteristic are the words of newly-elected Patriarch Porfirije of Serbia: “The actions of Constantinople in Ukraine are…
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by Regina Elsner During a conference on the crisis in Orthodoxy caused by the establishment of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, several participants used the concept of a “frozen conflict” to describe the “stable unresolved conflict” (Georgij Kovalenko). Given that the term is commonly used for several deadlocked conflicts on the territory of the former…
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by Rev. Dr. Nicholas Denysenko The creation of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) has inspired a number of hypotheses on who initiated the event. Past president Petro Poroshenko, Patriarch Filaret, and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew are usually identified as the architects of Ukrainian autocephaly. There is also a chorus of voices that attributes the creation…
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The following are excerpts from the intervention of His Eminence Metropolitan Ignatius of Demetrias, Chairman of the Synodal Committee for Inter-Orthodox and Inter-Christian Relations, during the Extraordinary Session of the Holy Synod of the Church of Greece (12th October 2019). The Synodal Committee for Inter-Orthodox and Inter-Christian Relations, which I am honored to chair, explicitly…
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“Evil is erroneous judgment concerning the conceptual images of things.” – Saint Maximus the Confessor (Chapters on Love, 2.17) The decades-long schism in Ukrainian church life has created polarization not only between ecclesiastical jurisdictions, but also in the hearts of the people. Saint Maximus described erroneous judgment concerning the conceptual images of things as evil….
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by Rev. Dr. Nicholas Denysenko In the four months that have elapsed since the Ecumenical Patriarchate (EP) granted autocephaly to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU), the process of adjusting to the new situation has been challenging for both the OCU and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP). The OCU has been enduring the growing…
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“No earthly joy exists unmingled with sorrow” —St. John of Damascus We are all no doubt aware of the controversy surrounding the recent proclamation of autocephaly for the Orthodox Church of Ukraine by the Patriarchate of Constantinople. As a Ukrainian Orthodox priest, I cannot help but see how St. John’s words are an apt description…
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by Rev. Dr. Nicholas Denysenko Among the sister Churches that are now called upon to either recognize or refuse recognition of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU), a common refrain is intoned: a conciliar and synodal process needs to take place to resolve this issue. Some would like a synaxis of primates, and others have…
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by Anthony J. Limberakis, MD It is one of the most vexing and important questions confronting the Church in our time, and one of the least understood: the granting of autocephaly to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church by His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople has rocked the Church more than any event in the last…
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by Rev. Dr. Nicholas Denysenko In the last few days, a number of announcements appeared about the Ukrainian Church controversy. After President Poroshenko announced that the unification council will take place at St. Sophia Cathedral on December 15, a spurious text that appeared to be some version of the statute for the Church drafted by…
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by Nicolai N. Petro | ру́сский On the eve of national elections in 2019, the President of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko, has set himself the ambitious task of dismantling the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church, an autonomous and self-administered part of the Russian Orthodox Church, and creating a new, single national church out of the many Christian denominations…
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by Davor Džalto I tried to stay away from publicly expressing my thoughts on the current church/autocephaly crisis in Ukraine, for many reasons. First of all, there are much more competent people who know the situation better than I do. Second, the issue of autocephaly of the church in Ukraine has, by now, escalated so…
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by Sotiris Mitralexis | ελληνικά Most observers are growing increasingly more worried about the drifting apart of Constantinople and Moscow on the basis of Ukraine’s imminent autocephaly. I would like to make a case to the contrary. There are indications that the possibility of a full-blown schism between two halves of the Orthodox world (rather than…
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by Thomas Bremer and Sophia Senyk In early September 2018, the gathering conflict between the Patriarchates of Constantinople and Moscow around the status of Orthodoxy in Ukraine escalated. The Ecumenical Patriarchate, in response to a request by the Ukrainian president and the parliament, announced the preparation of a tomos which would grant autocephaly for the Orthodox…
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The death of Patriarch Alexei II marked the end of the “cold era” contacts between Moscow and Constantinople and started a new epoch in inter-Orthodox relations. Kirill’s first foreign visit since his January 2009 election as Patriarch of Moscow was to Constantinople and the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew. Unity and ecumenism were priorities for Patriarch…
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by Evagelos Sotiropoulos | ру́сский Ukraine achieved independence in 1991, and since then (and before, as well, dating back one hundred years) there have been efforts among the Orthodox faithful and their leaders—political and religious—to establish an independent (autocephalous) Ukrainian Orthodox Church. And since 1991, the Moscow Patriarchate has been unable or unwilling to settle the…
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by Evangelos Razis The Kremlin has a long history of interfering in the life of the Orthodox Church. Tsars, General Secretaries, and Presidents have seen in the Church a partner, a source of legitimacy, and a threat to their authority. We learned last week that Vladimir Putin has brought this Russian tradition into the digital…
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by Rev. Dr. Nicholas Denysenko “A Tomos of autocephaly from the Ecumenical Patriarchate would legitimize the schism in Ukraine. We must support the canonical church.” “Autocephalists are not ‘church people’. They are nationalists who seek to exploit the Church, and autocephaly will sever communion with the Orthodox Church.” “The schism in Ukraine began in 1992…
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by Rev. Dr. Nicholas Denysenko Last week, news circulated that Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew is expected to issue a Tomos of autocephaly to the Orthodox Church in Ukraine. This news appeared on the heels of a meeting that took place between Patriarch Bartholomew, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and his delegation after Pascha on April 9, 2018….
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by Anatoliy Babynskyi The problem of conversions between religious communities has existed in Ukraine since the late 1980s and early 1990s, when the country was struggling for independence and its religious map was being formed. The rise from the underground of the Ukrainian Greco-Catholic Church (UGCC) raised questions about the restitution of property lost as…
Continue readingby Rev. Dr. Nicholas Denysenko On the eve of the Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Churches, Ukraine’s Parliament approved and issued an urgent appeal to Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew. The Ukrainian Parliament asked Patriarch Bartholomew to nullify the transfer of jurisdiction of the Kyivan Metropolia from Constantinople to Moscow in 1686, to convene an…
Continue readingby Nicholas Denysenko In my previous post, I introduced the Ukrainian problem and its significance for the forthcoming Great and Holy Council to be held in Crete in June 2016. Having argued that the movement for autocephaly in Ukraine originated nearly one-hundred years ago and is beginning to mature only in this post-soviet period, a…
Continue readingby Nicholas Denysenko As the Orthodox Churches continue preparations for the Great and Holy Council, which will take place June 16-27, 2016, in Crete, one of the primary unresolved problems is the schism of the Church in Ukraine. While the council itself did not formally address the Ukrainian matter, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow stated that…
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We live in historic times. About a week ago, the leaders of the Orthodox Churches announced their commitment to hold the Pan-Orthodox Council on the island of Crete in mid-June 2016. The failed attempts to organize such a council for more than fifty years have been attributed to a variety of factors, most notably the…
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Public Orthodoxy is a publication of the Orthodox Christian Studies Center of Fordham University
