Metropolitan Vladimir of Kiev and All Ukraine sends a letter to Pope John Paul II
29.01.2001 · English, Архив 2001
METROPOLITAN VLADIMIR OF KIEV AND ALL UKRAINE SENDS A LETTER TO POPE JOHN PAUL II
At its session on January 22, 2001, at the Kiev Monastery of the Caves, the Holy Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church considered the planned visit of Pope John Paul II to Ukraine and recommended that Metropolitan Vladimir write a letter to the Primate of the Roman Catholic Church. The letter was approved by the Bishops’ Council of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which took place on the same day, and handed over to the Apostolic Nuncio in Ukraine, Archbishop Nikola Eterovic. Here is the full text of the letter:
TO HIS HOLINESS JOHN PAUL II
THE POPE OF ROME
Your Holiness,
First of all, allow me to thank you cordially for the congratulation you sent me on the occasion of my 65th birthday. From your message I received for the first time, though indirectly, a confirmation from Rome about a planned visit of Your Holiness to Ukraine.
We knew about the invitations to visit our country that have been sent to you by the President and Government of Ukraine as well as by the Ukrainian Roman-Catholic and Greek-Catholic hierarchs. Certainly, we can understand the Catholic flock in Ukraine who wish to see the head of their Church at their home. We also understand the stand of the Ukrainian state leaders who seek to pursue a more open policy and thus elevate the prestige of our country on the international arena.
At the same time, it is necessary to recall that the majority of the population in Ukraine have always been and remain Orthodox by their confession. The whole historical way of life of our people, their culture and traditions have been bound up with Orthodoxy. Ukraine belongs organically to the Orthodox East. The overwhelming majority of the Orthodox in Ukraine comprises the flock of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. In this regard, it is bewildering that the visit of Your Holiness to our country should begin to be planned and arranged without an official notification given to our Church and without any invitation from her.
This situation has been considered by the hierarchs of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church who decided unanimously to ask Your Holiness to postpone your visit to Ukraine so that it could be made at a time more favourable for relations between our Churches and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church could officially participate in inviting Your Holiness and arranging your visit.
The main reason for this decision lies in the unsettledness of relations between the Greek Catholics and the Orthodox in Western Ukraine. Of course, nobody today commits overt violence. With this in the background, an illusion has been created, not without the involvement of the official Vatican, that this problem is settled and that your visit will contribute to a definitive peaceful resolution of the interconfessional conflict in Western Ukraine. This view, however, appears to be a grave error. Even in the absence of outbursts of violence, the relations between the Orthodox and the Greek Catholics in that region continue to be extremely strained. In many places in Western Ukraine, the Orthodox are still unable to use the church buildings seized by the Greek Catholics. None of the agreements reached on this problem between the Moscow Patriarchate and the Vatican has been fulfilled. In this connection, there is a fear that your planned visit will only seal the existing state of affairs, very unfavourable for our Church.
Your Holiness will know that during the last decade the Greek Catholics have seized over one thousand churches. As a result the three dioceses of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, those of Lvov, Ivano-Frankovsk and Ternopol, have been smashed. A full-fledged life in these dioceses has not been restored to this day. The semblance of peace in relations between the Orthodox and the Greek Catholics in Western Ukraine, which can be created with help of your visit, will mean an attempt to build peace without justice, which is never durable and not the true peace altogether in the Christian understanding of this word.
After such a “peace” is concluded, the suffering of the Orthodox people in Western Ukraine will continue. Will we really reach out our hands to each other by creating an illusion of accord and well-being while the people suffer? Millions of ordinary Orthodox believers will reject this visit, which will put me and the whole episcopate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in a situation where we will not be able to meet you. Therefore, we officially state that in case of a visit of Your Holiness to Ukraine at the proposed date there will be no meeting between us, and no cleric of our Church will take part in the program of the visit.
Another problem that constitutes an obstacle for your visit to Ukraine at present is a lack of clarity in the attitude of the Roman Catholic Church towards the schisms existing among the Orthodox in our country. You are certainly aware of the two schismatic structures existing in Ukraine. They are the so-called “Ukrainian Orthodox Church – Kiev Patriarchate” and “the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church”. All the negotiations held between the Moscow Patriarchate and the Roman Catholic Church referred to the need for the Vatican to recognize exclusively the canonical Orthodox structures in Ukraine. If in the course of your proposed visit Your Holiness meets with any schismatic leader, especially the false patriarch Philaret anathematized by our Church, it will mean that the Roman Catholic Church ignores the principles of canonical relations between our two Churches and interferes blatantly into our internal affairs by supporting schismatics by her authority. This may have most negative implications for relations between the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox.
A refusal to observe the ecclesiological principles of inter-church relations will mean a virtual rupture of any relations between our Churches and therefore a decline of the Vatican II epoch in Orthodox-Catholic relations. We pray to the Lord that it may not happen and that the pontificate of Your Holiness may not destroy the principle of Orthodox-Catholic relations, which have been established through such a great effort and wise actions of both your predecessors and distinguished Orthodox hierarchs.
We hope that Your Holiness will consider all the above for the benefit of further positive development of relations between the two great Churches and put off your planned visit to Ukraine. We are sincerely convinced that if you show a due understanding of the feelings of the Orthodox believers, this will be rightly supported by broad masses in Ukraine and contribute to the achievement of peace and accord between the Christians of the two Churches.
The above represents an official position of the forty two bishops of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
With love in the Lord, hope for understanding and sincere wishes,
+ VLADIMIR
METROPOLITAN OF KIEV AND ALL UKRAINE
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