A PUBLISHED COMMENTARY ON THE
HISTORICAL UKRAINIAN AUTOCEPHALOUS ORTHODOX CHURCH
HISTORICAL UKRAINIAN AUTOCEPHALOUS ORTHODOX CHURCH
The Autonomous Ukrainian Orthodox Church in America was known as the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church - Canonical, until it legally changed its name in order to distance itself from the heresy and public scandal caused by its deposed Patriarch, Moisey Kulyk. Its roots, history and Apostolic Succession come primarily from the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church. This article is translated from the original which appeared in Ukrainian, authored by Rev. I. Kutash (Metropolitan Ilarion: Ideology of the Ukrainian Church,Kholm, 1944, pp8-16). The article appeared in "The Herald/Visnik" Sept-Dec 1971 and is titled : "The Ukrainian Orthodox Church is an Autocephalous Church.”
From 988 to 1686 the Ukrainian Orthodox Church was under the canonical jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Constantinople. The Constantinople Patriarchate in 1686 renounced its right to the Ukrainian Church. The Ukrainian Church throughout its ancient life (988-1686) was a canonical (canon 28, Fifth Eucumenical Council) jurisdiction of the Constantinople Patriarchate, but the latter officially renounced it in May of 1686 and gave all authority to the Patriarch of Moscow. Although this transference took place by outright simony and government coercion, from 1686 to 1924 the Constantinople Patriarchs, unfortunately, never officially voiced their protest against the unlawful seizure of the Ukrainian Church by Moscow; they always continued their good, sisterly relations with the Moscow Church, and for this reason they lost their canonical right to the Ukrainian Church by Moscow, for the thirty-year term of ecclesiastical prescription previously established by the Canons for the purpose of protest (Canon 17 of the Fourth and the Canon 25 of the sixth Ecumenical Council) had long passed. (It is true that in 1687 the Constantinople Patriarchate cancelled the decree of 1686 but did not make the appropate official protest to Moscow).
Further, on September 23 1723, the Patriarch of Canstantinople, Jeremias, together with the Patriarch of Antioch by their official Tomas (proclamation), confirmed the so-called synodal system of the Russian Church, of which the Ukrainian Church was a part, as they well knew. By this act, Constantinople openly renounced its rights to the Ukrainian Church for the second time. After all, Canon 28 itself, of the Fourth Ecumenicial Council, upon which the subordination of the Ukrainian Church to the Patriarchate of Constantinople was based, is doubtful and unclear, and was not a universal rule, not being generally accepted by all the Churches of the time. For this very reason the Church of Moscow in 1589 separated from the Church of Constantinople and became autocephalous, electing its own Patriarch.
The joining of the Ukrainian Church to the Moscow Church was grossly uncanonical. The joining of the Ukrainian Church to the Moscow Church in 1686 was done by the coercion of the secular Moscovite and the Turkish governments and by outright simony, against it clergy of the time protested strongly; for this reason this joining was grossly uncanonical (Apostolic Canon 29 and 30, Canon 2 of the Second, Canon 8 of the Third and Canon 3 of the Seventh Ecumenical Councils) and thus invalid. This act is also called uncanonical by the official Canonical Tomos of the Patriarch of Constantinople, Gregory VII, dated November 13, 1924, which reads: "It is written in history that the first seperation from the throne of the Kyiv Metropolia and of the Orthodox Metropoloias of Lithuana and Poland, which belonged to it, and the joining of it to the Holy Church of Moscow was done wholly out of keeping with the directions of the canonical rules.”
By this act, the Ecumenical Church of Constantinople in 1924 publicly and officially proclaimed the joining of the Ukrainian Church to the Church of Moscow to be an uncanonical act; similarly, the Ukrainian Church itself never voluntarily proclaimed its forced union with the Church of Moscow to be canonical, but struggled
ceaselessly against this coercion, that is the Russian czarate, ceased to belong to the Church of Moscow (Canon37 of the Sixth Ecumenical Council). Canon 8 of the Third Ecumenical Council clearly states this: " If anyone has violently taken and subjected (a Diocese), he shall give it up; lest the Canons of the Fathers be transgressed; or the vanities of the wordly honour be brought in under the pretext of sacred office; or we lose, without knowing it, little by little, the liberity which Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Delieverer of men, hath given us by His own Blood.”
Besides this, Patriarch Tikon himself on November 20, 1920, by his official decree gave voluntary approval to autocephalous governing of the Ukrainian Church, recognizing that this was essential for the well-being of the Church and acquiescing to the demands of the whole Ukrainian Nation as well as the Clergy and the Episcopate. He confirmed this a second time himself by his document Number 145 dated March 24, 1924. Because of this, the Ukrainian Church today is under no canonical dependence to the Church of Moscow.
The Ukrainian Nation through its governments and through Church Councils lawfully expressed its firm will that its Church be autocephalous. According to the Apostolic Canon 34, each nation has the right the right to its own autocephalous Church. Also, according to Canon 17 of the Fourth and Canon 38 of the Sixth Ecumenical Council, and according to the Apophthegm of Photius ("The laws governing eccesiastical matters should be also govern political and administrative changes") each Church must accomodate itself to new state boundries. For this reason, the lawful Government of the Ukrainian Nation Republic, in the name of all Ukrainian Nations which firmly demanded the autocephaly of its church, solemnly proclaimed the autocephaly of the Ukrainian Church as a law of state on January 1, 1919, in Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine. And on October 7 of the same year (the Government) confirmed this by a degree of the Directory, which was its highest authority, and informed the Patriarch of Constantinople - at the time of this fact - through the Minister of Confessions and the Minister of Foreign Affairs.
In 1920 and 1921 the Patriarch of Constantinople also recieved seperate requests to bless the autocephaly of the Ukrainian Church. These requests were covered with thousands of signatures by the citzens and clergy. Also, Ukrainian Church Councils of the Orthodox Church of all the movements in Ukraine-Councils which were composed of Bishops as well, basing themselves upon Apostolic Canon 34 and upon the approval of Patriarch of Moscow Tikon dated November 20, 1920, and again March 24, 1924 (Number 145) offically proclaimed the Ukrainian Church to be autocephalous on several occasions:
(a) October, 1921, in Kyiv by a Church Council of Clergy and laity, representatives from all Ukraine.
(b) September 5, 1922, the Church Council in Kyiv headed by Exarch of Ukraine, Metropolitan+ Michael Yermakov:
(c) May 21, 1925, a Council of the Ukrainian Church held in Kharkiv, recognized as well by an all-Russian Church in Moscow on October 6, 1925: and
(d) November 25, 1941, a Council of Bishops in the Pochayiv Lavra headed by Archbishop +Oleksiy Hromadsky.
Beside all the above, the constitution of the U.S.S.R. recognized Ukraine as a separate individual state, called the Ukraine Soviet Socialist Republic, and if only for this reason alone, according to the Holy Canons, (Apostolic Canon 34, Canon 17 of the Fourth and the Canon 38 of the Sixth Ecumenical Councils-see above) the Ukrainian Orthodox Church must be autocephalous. Canonically speaking, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church is already an autocephalous Church.
On the basis of the above, because the Patriarch of Constantinople in 1686 and the Patriarch of Moscow in 1920 and 1924 offically gave up the Ukrainian Church, she, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church according to Apostolic Canon 34 and according to the clear and decisive will of her people, lawfully expressed twice in 1919 by its lawful Government, and according to the canonical resolutions of its Church Councils and Episcopal Councils in 1921, was already legally and canonically an Autocephalous Church.
Our Ukrainian Church, as a member of the Universal Church entitled to full rights, no longer needs canonical dispensation from one Church or another, but simply the blessings of its separate sisters, the Orthodox Churches, that is... establishment of canonical unity with them. It is because of this that all interference in the internal affairs of the Ukrainian Church on the part of whoever it may be, and the interference, as well, of the Russian Church, which today does
not want to release our Church (in odedience to its secular government), are unjustifiable and profoundly uncanonical, (for they go against Canon 2 of the Second and Canon 8 of the Third Ecumenical Council).
Today's denial to the Ukrainian Church of the autocephaly that is rightfully hers is based solely on the uncanonical coercion of the Russian secular Government.
On the basis of the foregoing, the full title of the Ukrainian Church is:
THE UKRAINIAN AUTOCEPHALOUS ORTHODOX CHURCH.
Footnote: The Ukrainian Orthodox Church jurisdiction to which this author belonged is now under the Ecumenical Partriarchate.