| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
__________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
UKRAINE
Orthodox-Catholic conflict?
Questions whether Vatican or Moscow is real problem
Some religious leaders in western Ukraine have questioned why the Vatican does not leap to the defense of Eastern-rite Catholics in response to Russian Orthodox Patriarch Aleksei’s accusations of their “occupation” of western Ukraine.
Some argue that the Vatican has little enthusiasm for the Eastern-rite Catholic Church, while others believe the Vatican does not want to annoy the Moscow Patriarchate by recognizing that other Ukrainian Orthodox, especially those of the Kiev Patriarchate jurisdiction, are a major force and should become a legitimate partner in dialogue with the Catholics. A number of Autocephalous Orthodox leaders and government officials even said that the “Greek” Catholics, frustrated by the Vatican’s stance, might seek to join one of the Orthodox jurisdictions.
Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Kiev Patriarchate) Bishop of Lviv Andrei (Horak), asked why he thought that the Vatican did not counter Patriarch Aleksei’s accusations, replied, “The Vatican never complained in 1946 either [when Catholic churches were seized by the Soviets]. Maybe because it is the promoter of them.” Patriarch Filaret (Denisenko) of the UOC (KP) explained, “The Vatican’s current policy is to leave the Greek Catholics alone. They are a barrier to dialogue with the Moscow Patriarchate, and therefore the Vatican is not supporting Uniatism.” Maintaining links with Moscow, he thought, was the motivation behind not highlighting the UOC (KP)’s activities in Galicia: “That would mean recognizing that the UOC (KP) is the largest Orthodox jurisdiction in west Ukraine and upsetting the Moscow Patriarchate.” The Moscow and Kiev branches of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church are at odds over which branch should hold the allegiance of the 80 percent of Ukrainians who identify themselves as Orthodox.
Catholic Bishop Yulian Gbur confirmed the Vatican’s reluctance to involve other Orthodox jurisdictions in the dispute over west Ukraine: “Rome allows us to talk only to the Moscow Patriarchate because the others are not canonical—although they are closer to us.” This tentative approach towards the Moscow Patriarchate was confirmed by Father Andrzej Legowicz who said that the Vatican would have to come to an official agreement with the Moscow Patriarchate that the conflict with the Greek Catholics was over before it could make a public statement to that effect.
Several observers felt that the Greek Catholics had been abandoned by Rome. Igor Ozhiyevsky, head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church’s Department for External Church Relations, cited the absence of direct financial support for his Church from the Vatican. The funding that had permitted the extensive church construction in Lviv and Ternopil regions, he said, had come from two German-based Catholic charities, Aid to the Church in Need and Renovabis, as well as the US Catholic Bishops’ Conference—not Rome. The Vatican, he maintained, was terrified “that we will destroy the system which has formed within the Catholic Church,” since in effect the Greek Catholic Church represented a local Church, and the Catholic Church “does not recognize local Churches.”
In Patriarch Filaret’s view, the Greek Catholics already sensed that “Rome does not need them any more,” and the union with the Vatican has become merely symbolic. Patriarch Filaret and Bishop Andrei were the only leaders who seriously thought that Greek Catholics might leave the Catholic Church as a result of the Vatican’s stance. However, vice premier of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine Nikolai Zhilinsky has said that Greek Catholics were currently “looking to possible integration into one local Ukrainian Orthodox Church.”
Other church and government representatives thought the Vatican was trying to curb the Greek Catholic Church with a conscious policy of latinization, although this was frequently confused with polonization. The UAOC’s Bishop of Lviv Makari (Maletych) claimed that Rome was indeed exerting a latinizing influence on the Greek Catholics, or “nurturing them in Jesuit fashion.” Ozhiyevsky noted that the latinizing influence was supported by the westward-looking Basilian order, which—perhaps as a result—was significantly stronger and richer in the region than the staunchly eastern-rite Studites.
The relative lack of complaints about Catholic activity in central Ukraine were seen to stem from the fact that most of the Catholics were ethnic Poles and not Ukrainian or Russian, while in the west the Church is seen as reaching out to Ukrainians.
Back to Catholic World Report November 2000 Table of Contents