The Historical Relationship of Russia and Ukraine

By Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos and Agiou Vlasiou 

 

Prologue

Almost three years ago, in the year 2019, I read an interesting book that referred to the relations between Russia and Ukraine in history and I wrote an article to present it.

This article titled "Russia and Ukraine" was then posted on the website of our Sacred Metropolis, from where other websites took it.

Because this issue is very relevant nowadays, due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, I bring it up again to show the negative relations between Russia and Ukraine over time to our days.

However, the resistance of the Ukrainian people to the Russian invasion confirms the research carried out by the author of this book, as well as its conclusions.

Explanations and Clarifications of Ecclesiastical History and the Deontology of the Ukrainian Issue (Part 13)

...continued from part twelve.

* Only the fact of the mutual kiss between Onufry and Epiphanius, and the smiles from both sides, on an official Ukrainian national holiday, shows that direct channels of communication and mutual communion are maintained. I do not know to what extent the two current local Churches communicate. However, I was surprised by this obvious indication of communion.

Ecclesiastical History has a number of strange examples that are not compatible with the canonicity of the Apostolic Tradition and the Apostolic Succession. They are well known, but it is worth listing a few.

Explanations and Clarifications of Ecclesiastical History and the Deontology of the Ukrainian Issue (Part 12)

 ...continued from part eleven.

* By the late Germanos Verykopoulos, a Bishop of the Old Calendarists, was ordained the late Elder Ephraim of Katounakia, a submissive of two zealots of Mount Athos, but of the stature of the venerable Joseph the Hesychast. In the 42 years of his priestly life, he always saw with his sense of sight divine Grace cover over the Holy Gifts (only once he did not see it). When, with the help of God, they returned to communion with the Ecumenical Patriarchate and commemorated the Patriarch, he began to see more clearly this mystery of the perceptible presence of divine Grace. Previously, as long as he was attached to the zealots, he saw it dimly, as he himself said and catechized.

Explanations and Clarifications of Ecclesiastical History and the Deontology of the Ukrainian Issue (Part 11)

...continued from part ten.

* Let us proceed to the recent "threats" of the political arrogance of our Russian brothers. Indirectly they are talking about the appropriation of the Old Calendarist factions of Greece. This was not directly said by Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, but inferred, in an interview with a Russian channel, which was immediately published in a Greek website, on the eve of our own Hierarchical Session. For so long this was not said, because other more elitist methods of pressure were being employed by the Metropolitan among the Greek Hierarchy and the ecclesiastical body. Now, on the verge of a discussion and a possible decision, this intimidation by the Russian Metropolitan and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Muscovite Church is also being planted!

Explanations and Clarifications of Ecclesiastical History and the Deontology of the Ukrainian Issue (Part 10)

Archbishop Petru of Bessarabia

...continued from part nine.

* Let us proceed to some of their other movements, which show a purely political and secular sense of the mystery of the Church. They recently awarded Irinej of Bačka of the Serbian Patriarchate the title of Honorary Doctor at the Theological Academy of St. Petersburg. They have published numerous photographs on the internet, insisting in every way to influence the public opinion in Greece that they also have theological academies, which are accepted by the other Churches, and that they have something that measures a mature scientific theological education in their country.

* The bearers of the Muscovite ecclesiastical policy (from 1948 onwards, as the Metropolitan of Nafpaktos writes) do not hesitate to cooperate even with Catholic priests. Initially, the Minister of Foreign Affairs presented a distinguished Catholic theologian clergyman at the Theological Academy of Moscow as a distinguished scientist (until this point, I present no blame), and the next day at the Divine Liturgy he was received as a protopriest who co-liturgized with Orthodox clerics. In other words, they promote advanced practices in inter-Christian relations without fundamental barriers.

Explanations and Clarifications of Ecclesiastical History and the Deontology of the Ukrainian Issue (Part 9)

...continued from part eight.

* Russianism is slowly "gnawing" at the historical course of Orthodoxy, by any means of communication. This is how the obsession with maintaining the "Minister of External Affairs" of the Russian Patriarchate is explained, something that began in the Stalinist period and today is entrenched.

* This is how the propaganda is explained in the Western world and in America, with publications in English that advertise the strange Pan-Slavic idea that Greek-speaking Orthodoxy has long since been extinguished as a language, and that Orthodox spirituality is expressed today by the Slavic language and especially in the Russian world. It is at least one wretched action (which fights against the mystery of the Incarnation and Pentecost and makes useless the last lines of the Creed). In these English-spoken publications of the foreign policy of the Russian side, Alexandros Papaderos gave a reply in English.

Explanations and Clarifications of Ecclesiastical History and the Deontology of the Ukrainian Issue (Part 8)

 

...continued from part seven.

* Regarding the deposing and excommunication of Filaret, these double convictions were imposed in excess of all canonical sensitivity. He did not violate matters of faith, but matters of order. Why then did they impose an excommunication? For the same canonical offense that they imposed his deposing, and (because Filaret insisted) they also imposed the excommunication. However, an excommunication is imposed on matters of faith, not on matters of canonical and moral deviance. How then did they impose double penalties for the differentiation of Filaret?

This is somehow aimed at the ecclesiastical fullness of 15,000,000 people who followed Filaret - bishops, clergy, monks and laity. It was done in order to force either him or his ecclesiastical faction to bow their necks, for reasons of pastorally fencing off the rest of the people of Ukraine, and for the exaltation of the splendor of Moscow. We have everywhere an authoritative rationale and practice, as I emphasize again and again. A rationale and practice of new Regulations in the ecclesiastical space, outside and above the Holy Synods of Orthodoxy. And they rest on the compulsorily granted autocephaly and patriarchal value of the 16th century, which they expand at their pleasure in extent and depth. We have something like a new Orthodoxy, as if the inter-patriarchal ancient Apostolic Orthodoxy had disappeared, and they are rebuilding a new structure and rational Orthodoxy. It is similar to a secular political change.

Explanations and Clarifications of Ecclesiastical History and the Deontology of the Ukrainian Issue (Part 7)

...continued from part six.

* As is confessed by the Bishops of the Patriarchate of Alexandria (Nikephoros of Kinshasa), the Russians in various African countries are seeking the right of Russian priests to liturgize in the Russian Embassies of Africa. This is a stark demonstration of unbridled hegemonism and expansionism. They achieved the authorization of the Patriarch of Alexandria for a few countries of Africa, something like exarchies, and now they want to expand more, something like a Super-Patriarchate!

It seems that they succeeded in Cyprus, with the authorization of the Church of Cyprus, they spread even into occupied Cyprus, even though they solemnly lie and deny any connection with some Russian missions of clergy to the land of occupied Cyprus. However, they also have a relationship and they promote the action of such groups on Cypriot soil.

Explanations and Clarifications of Ecclesiastical History and the Deontology of the Ukrainian Issue (Part 6)

 ...continued from part five.

I will now dwell on some other historical facts, in order to give rest, or rather strain, to your frustration.

* The Ukrainian titular patriarch Filaret (who co-ordained Kirill), who was a fellow candidate for Patriarch with the late Patriarch Alexy, was punished two or three times by the religious policies of the Russian Patriarchate, which serves the Russian Federation policies. Regardless of the much-publicized Russian "other", primarily and mainly the dynastic political-religious criteria prevailed.

On the other hand, if such a prominent executive hierarch proved - always against the Russians - to be so prone to an obsession with power, surely this is taken into account in the origin/quality of his ordination, in the origin/quality of his theology, the origin/quality of the beginning of his ecclesiastical rise, the origin/quality of his piety: by the Russian Patriarchate, the Patriarchate that "dominates the clergy" from within and is attempting to fearlessly export its merchandise of religious authoritarian goods in Ukraine and in so many arbitrary autocephalies and autonomies and finally in all of Orthodoxy.  

Explanations and Clarifications of Ecclesiastical History and the Deontology of the Ukrainian Issue (Part 5)

... continued from part four.

[Examples of Some Newer Errors]

* In the vast Russian Federation, in Ukraine, in Moldova, in Belarus, in the Russian parishes of the Diaspora, in every place where an "altar of Russian worship" to God (sic!) is erected, it is mandatory for the name of the Russian Patriarch to be commemorated first and then the local Hierarch! We thus have a demise of Eucharistic theology, of Orthodox liturgical theology, of the unity of the ecclesiological and the Synodical-Hierarchical sacredness of the Church. Even in the mystery of the eucharist of God, the Patriarch of Moscow is projected as a national and world ruler, something like an absolute Pope. With such practices, which are recorded in a customary way in their subconscious, how can our diplomatic friends not be taken by Russian ecclesiology?

Explanations and Clarifications of Ecclesiastical History and the Deontology of the Ukrainian Issue (Part 4)

...continued from part three.

[5th Great Historical Error]

Within the Russian hegemony (politically justified, but ecclesiastically problematic and theologically ill) stands the ecclesiastical question of Ukraine. The Ukrainian issue has many roots, but it is treated by Russia as their own field of action.

The Russians, who have caused so many autocephalies, have for many decades refused to take such a step in Ukraine (albeit anti-canonically). This is because they want besides vast Ukraine also neighboring Moldova and beyond this Abkhazia and Ossetia as an ecclesiastical space of power, because they ultimately serve political plans, the Russian policy of expansion, the Great Russian Idea.

Explanations and Clarifications of Ecclesiastical History and the Deontology of the Ukrainian Issue (Part 3)

...continued from part two.

[4th Great Historical Error]

In the second half of the 19th century we have a gigantic growth of Pan-Slavism, in the Balkans and in Eastern Europe, which is gradually spreading to the West (as official organizations and formal consular tools throughout the West). Pan-Slavism was and is a "tool" of Russian expansionism, a tool of foreign policy.

The small Permanent Russian Synod (and from 1941/42 the new Moscow Patriarchate together with the Small Synod) was inoculated with Pan-Slavism. What the ecclesiastical Kremlin diplomats are now trying to attribute to the suffering Ecumenical Patriarchate of All Orthodoxy with a thousand and two methods is, in essence, their expansive Russian selves, it is a "self-confession".

Explanations and Clarifications of Ecclesiastical History and the Deontology of the Ukrainian Issue (Part 2)

...continued from part one.

Let us look very briefly at some very erroneous historical steps that have gradually provoked a genetic mentality of bigotry and fueled expansionist tactics in our Russian brothers.

[1st Great Historical Error]

The Russians took the autocephaly by blackmailing (almost imprisoning) the then Ecumenical Patriarch for a year, in times of suffering of the Mother Church. This is the first big error of their ecclesiastical history. We had a test of power and coercion of the daughter against the Mother Church. And this error the self-appointed judges do not want to admit publicly.

Explanations and Clarifications of Ecclesiastical History and the Deontology of the Ukrainian Issue (Part 1)

 By Metropolitan Demetrios of Goumenissa, Axioupolis, and Polykastron

An artificially-made great tension has been incited in regards to Ukraine. Ukraine, however, within Inter-Orthodoxy is something like a smokescreen. In our humble opinion, as a Body of Hierarchs in the Holy Spirit, we must definitely clarify in our consciences two things: behind the Ukrainian issue there is hidden (1st) the hegemony of the Russian Church, and (2nd) its steadily expansive actions (the "Great Idea" of the Russians and its applications in the depths of time). And, instead of our Russian brothers apologizing for these two, they are turning towards regional issues (where the responsibility lies primarily with themselves).

Metropolitan Alexis of Moscow and the Healing the Tatar Queen Taidula from Blindness

In August 1357, Metropolitan Alexis of Moscow was summoned by Jani Beg, the Khan of the Golden Horde, to cure his mother Taidula Khatun of blindness. The Metropolitan's success is held to have prevented a Tatar raid on Moscow, and the Russian Church was freed from all tributes, extortions and violence from the secular authorities.

 

 

The Russian Church Fulfills the Theory of "First Without Equals"

 

Concelebration of Primates at the Holy and Great Synod (June 2016)

By Panagiotis Andriopoulos

 

The "traditionalists" in Greece associate Ukrainian Autocephaly with a "new Ecclesiology of the Phanar", as they characterize it, which wants the Ecumenical Patriarch "first without equals". In fact, they characterize it as an "ecumenistic theory".

This is not, of course, an invention on behalf of those who are anti-patriarchate's in Greece. They embody the theory developed by Moscow and is constantly being reproduced by the representatives of the Russian Church: from Hilarion of Volokolamsk to - recently - the rector of the Theological Academy of Kiev, Bishop Sylvestor of Bilogorodsk, who told us: "Representatives of the Patriarchate of Constantinople today are guided by the teaching of the special status and rights of the Patriarch of Constantinople. Among the followers of this teaching, one can name, for example, Metropolitan John Zizioulas and Archbishop Elpidophoros (Lambriniadis)."

Commentary on the Opposition of the Russian Church to the Ecumenical Patriarchate on the Occasion of the Interview of Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk

 

 

By Kostas Karakotias

The establishment in the public sphere, but also in the minds and lives of people, of the pandemic and its tragic consequences does not cancel or suspend the efforts of many and various opposing social and ideological forces to consolidate and expand their political and cultural rule. Often this effort is manifested along narrow roads and in oblique ways. Suddenly in the [Greek] newspaper "Kathimerini", on Sunday 12/13/2020, a long interview of the Russian Metropolitan Hilarion, a close associate of the Patriarch of Moscow, was published. The exclusive topic of the interview was the secession of the Ukrainian Church from the Russian one and the recognition of its autocephaly by the Patriarchate of Constantinople. The interviewee was a strong complainant towards the Patriarchate of Constantinople and even directly and personally against Patriarch Bartholomew himself, whom he even accused of "knowingly violating ecclesiastical canons to harm the Russian Church." Of course, even the most ignorant of the ecclesiastics realize that the Russian Church, which is completely connected to the Russian state and its international political interests, under the pretext of some alleged ecclesiastical reasons, is trying to maintain its influence in Ukraine and prevent its Church from being independent. Especially when the relations between Russia and Ukraine are extremely disturbed and whole areas of the latter have been almost annexed by the former. It is easy to understand the enormous benefit for Russia of the religious/ideological disciplining and subordination of the Ukrainian faithful to all forms of dictates of the Russian Church.

The Scandal of (Divine?) Revenge

 

 

By Metropolitan Joseph of Buenos Aires

To my surprise I read a transcript of an interview with the Patriarch of Moscow on the Russian channel Россия-1 on the occasion of the recent Christmas celebration according to the Old Calendar. In this interview, His Holiness assures that "the conversion of Hagia Sophia into a mosque last July is a punishment from God to Patriarch Bartholomew for granting the autocephalous tomos to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church."*

I re-read this sentence, which summarizes the whole interview, and the surprise turned into frustration and discomfort.

The Soviet Exhumation and Autopsy of the Relics of Saint Philaret of Moscow in 1939

 

 

 

Why the Relics of the Saint Were Disturbed

In 1939, Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow was exhumed on the territory of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra

Red Corner on the Grave

On the territory of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra in Soviet times, several autopsies were carried out on the burials of famous historical figures. One of the most dramatic is the opening of the grave of Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow.

The Saint, who died on November 19, 1867, was buried on the tenth day after his death in a chapel specially built near the Church of the Descent of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles on the feast of Saint Philaret the Merciful. The construction of the side-altar, begun during the life of the Metropolitan, in the place designated by the Metropolitan himself, was completed after his death - on June 30, 1868.

Saint Hilarion, Metropolitan of Kiev and All Russia (+ 1053)

 

St. Hilarian of Kiev (Feast Day - October 21)

Saint Hilarion, Metropolitan of Kiev, lived during the era of the Great Prince Yaroslav the Wise (+ 1054), son of Saint Vladimir. In the history of the Russian Church he is remembered as the first Russian installed as Metropolitan by a Council of Russian Bishops. The Russian Church up to that time had been a Metropolitan See, under the Patriarchate of Constantinople. Russia’s first Metropolitans were Greeks, and they were appointed by Constantinople.

Saint Hilarion, priest of the prince’s village of Berestovo near Kiev, was the spiritual father and companion of Prince Yaroslav. Saint Nestor the Chronicler relates: