Moscow church won’t be forced to relinquish control of holiest sites

The Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Moscow Patriarchate will
not be forced to relinquish its control over the Pochayiv Monastery, among
Ukraine’s holiest Christian sites, said on Nov. 28 Andriy Yurash, the director
of the department on religion and ethnicities at Ukraine’s Ministry of Culture.
“There won’t be any seizures,” he said, as reported by Radio Free Europe/Radio
Liberty. “There aren’t supposed to be violent actions and there won’t be. The
president and interior minister have said this many times. There will be an
evolution and a real expression of the will of the faithful.”

On Nov. 23, a Justice Ministry commission decided to
cancel a 2003 decision by a state register to grant the right of use of the
Pochayiv Monastery to the Moscow Patriarchate for 50 years. The ruling was
reached ahead of an expected decision by the synod of the Ecumenical
Patriarchate of the Orthodox Christian Church, which met Nov. 27-29, to issue a
tomos – or ecclesiastical document – that grants canonical recognition to an
autocephalous Orthodox Christian Church of Ukraine. The Ukrainian Orthodox
Church-Kyiv Patriarchate is currently the largest in the world without
canonical recognition.

The tomos for canonical recognitionwill be officially
granted following a national meeting of Orthodox Christian leaders in
Ukraine to form the newly recognized Orthodox Church of Ukraine, which is
scheduled for December, said Rostyslav Pavlenko, an adviser to the president.
It’s possible that the monks of the Pochayiv Monastery will decide to
voluntarily join the newly formed church, Yurash said. Besides the Pochayiv
Monastery, the Moscow Patriarchate also controls the Caves Monastery in central
Kyiv, which is considered to be among the holiest sites in both Russian
Orthodoxy and Ukrainian Orthodoxy.

Zenon Zawada: It’s a
relief to see that the government won’t be forcing any religious people out of
their properties in creating the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church. Patriarch
Filaret had made statements this summer saying the Caves Monastery and Pochayiv
Monastery would become part of the newly created church, despite the clearly
expressed resistance of the clergy controlling these sites.

Nonetheless, we expect conflicts to occur throughout
the country as parishes decide to join the new church, which will be resisted
by other parish members and clergy. We also expect attempts by radicals,
including nationalists, to provoke conflicts at these two leading monasteries.
This religious tension will merely add to the turbulence created by escalated
Russian military aggression.

President Poroshenko expects that the process of
creating a national canonical church, as well as challenges to Russia’s
military aggression, will help his prospects of getting re-elected. We think
that’s possible as the presidential vote draw nearer and these processes
intensify. However, so far he has yet to get much of a boost in his poll ratings
from all the turbulence. And those calling for stability and peace with Russia
at any cost have significant support.