The Three-Body Problem: How the Ecumenical Patriarch Can Preserve the Division in Ukrainian Orthodoxy

A delegation from the Ecumenical Patriarch came to Ukraine immediately after the law banning the UOC-MP was passed, as if waiting for a shot from the starting pistol. In light of this visit, the 9-month deadline given to the UOC-MP to bring its status in line with the new law, i.e., to make a clear break with the Russian Orthodox Church, was filled with meaning and became an occasion for memes. Let’s see, they say, what will be born as a result of this meeting. We mean, of course, a meeting with the leadership of the Kyiv Metropolis of the UOC-MP. Although the list of those with whom Patriarch Bartholomew’s envoys meet is unusually long.

It is this very fact — the many meetings and the rather long duration of the visit — that makes observers suspicious (or hopeful).

The first venue the guests visited was the Kyiv Metropolis. Not only did not they comment on the law in any way there, but they also did not give any official information about the meeting at all. According to observers, if the delegation had managed to agree on a clear plan of action with Metropolitan Onufriy of Kyiv, they would not have needed to linger in Ukraine. They should have returned to the Phanar and prepared for the next round. Instead, the delegation went to visit everyone they could, from Greek Catholics to the President of Ukraine.

This was interpreted as “mission failure.” But the judgment of “failure” (or, on the contrary, of impending success) is subject more to emotions than to facts: what is desirable for someone is what is true for him. The fact that the delegation of the Phanar finally reached Ukraine can already be considered a moderate success. This visit had been talked about since at least the beginning of summer, various dates were named, but they were always postponed, the impression being that this visit was undesirable for no one but the visitors themselves.

However, the adoption of the law banning the UOC-MP has somewhat changed the position of the pieces on the board. Now at least two players need help: the UOC-MP and the Ukrainian authorities.

Credit must be given to the latter: it has never protested against the Phanar’s involvement in Ukrainian religious affairs. On the contrary, the participation of the Ecumenical Patriarch is highly desirable. Especially now, after the adoption of the law banning the UOC-MP, when headlines in the Western media are once again all about “persecution of the church.” Pope Francis in his turn has spoken in the sense that “it is impossible to ban any religious organizations.” In other words, he has stood up for the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine.

In fact, the authorities have found themselves doing the splits. They need to implement the announced “spiritual independence” and show the public the liquidation of the “Moscow Church” at least at the declaratory level, whilst avoiding the real liquidation of specific religious organizations, which will surely cause resistance in the West.

The best way out is to make the UOC-MP “crawl away” itself from the Moscow Patriarchate at a distance noticeable to the eye of the viewer. In any direction, in any canonical status, in any form. Towards the Ecumenical Patriarch, for example.

Negotiations with the Phanar on this matter have been under way for a long time. However, resistance in Ukraine — both on the part of the UOC-MP and the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) — was too strong. That said, the law banning the UOC-MP forced the Kyiv Metropolis to soften its stance and made possible, at least, a meeting between the leadership of the UOC-MP and the delegation of the Ecumenical Patriarch.

Two or three months ago, such a meeting was considered impossible. The UOC-MP held too many grudges against Patriarch Bartholomew (the UOC-MP always has many grudges against everyone but itself — this is its trademark style), the main ones being, of course, the Tomos for the OCU, as well as rehabilitation of and communication with “schismatics.”

The difficulties of dialog are also connected with the fact that the UOC-MP was out of communion — in fact in schism — with the Ecumenical Patriarch after the granting of the Tomos of autocephaly to the OCU. The decision to split was made in Moscow, and the Kyiv Metropolis vehemently supported it. Many insults were expressed at that time against Patriarch Bartholomew, including by those representatives of the UOC-MP who are now laying carpets at the feet of the delegates from Constantinople.

This is understandable. The Ecumenical Patriarch is now their main hope to stay afloat. It does not matter whether it will be the format of a Ukrainian exarchate “for those unwilling to join the OCU” or the format of “dialog between the UOC-MP and the Ecumenical Patriarch.” Only two things are fundamentally important: to preserve its structure (i.e., to freeze parish transfers from the UOC-MP to the OCU) and to exclude the OCU from the equation in general.

But in the light of recent legislative initiatives, it is proving quite problematic for the UOC-MP to retain its structure in its true canonical status. It is necessary to break off relations with Moscow, and this must be done loudly and unambiguously. Only in this case the UOC-MP falls into a canonical trap: it will find itself in schism. In the same terrible and criminal schism that its priests have been frightening Ukrainians with for thirty years, poking at the “Philaretovites” with their toil-worn index fingers (something they continue to do even now).

The Moscow Patriarchate has already repeatedly made it clear to Metropolitan Onufriy that in this case the UOC-MP will have problems with recognition by the world’s Orthodox centers, no smaller than those faced by the OCU. And although in the case of the UOC-MP it will be more difficult to do so, Moscow will spare no time, effort and means. Therefore, the leadership of the UOC-MP is in desperate need of canonical guarantees from the Ecumenical Patriarch. The UOC-MP cannot go canonical anywhere: the status for it must be ready by the time (and if) it announces its split from Moscow.   

                                     

Such a guarantee could be the status of an exarchate for those who “want to be neither with Moscow nor with the OCU.” It could be a temporary status — this would be even better for the UOC-MP, as it is still unclear what the future holds, and it is better to have ways to retreat. 

It is this path that the leadership of the UOC-MP seems to be thinking about first and foremost. From their point of view, the best way to preserve the path to retreat is not to rush to attack. That is why they talk and write a lot about the status of the exarchate for the UOC-MP, but the elder bishops themselves are in no hurry to say the word out loud. It would be enough for them just to negotiate. It is “negotiations” that is the optimal status for the UOC-MP. And it is not even very important what exactly is going to be negotiated. Negotiations are a kind of indulgence that allows everything to be frozen and left as is.

There are two things that need to be “frozen”: the pressure of the Ukrainian authorities on the UOC-MP to change its canonical subordination and the transfer of parishes from the UOC-MP to the OCU. The situation with the transfer is particularly dramatic. The structure of the UOC-MP suffers considerable losses. If the current dynamics of parish transfers from the UOC-MP to the OCU (as well as from the UOC-MP to the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) in the occupied territories) continues, very soon one of the main arguments in favor of the UOC-MP — “the largest denomination” — will become untenable.

Therefore, we can expect that one of the conditions for dialog with the Ecumenical Patriarch will be a moratorium on transitions. This, of course, is easier said than done, since transfers are not regulated by the Ecumenical Patriarch in any way. But they often depend on the position of local authorities and the State Department for Ethnic Policy and Freedom of Conscience, which, according to the new law, will give expert opinions on the affiliation of religious organizations with the ROC. The UOC-MP may hope that, for the sake of dialog, the Ecumenical Patriarch will put in a good word for them with the Ukrainian authorities.

Thus, the Ecumenical Patriarch can help the UOC-MP to fulfill its main task in Ukraine: to preserve its structure and, therefore, to preserve the situation in which there are two Orthodox churches in Ukraine, which compete and feud with each other. If it is possible to obtain the support of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, the UOC-MP will be able to distance itself from Moscow convincingly enough (at least for the duration of active hostilities) and at the same time be “more canonical” than the OCU. That is, to occupy its favorite niche in the Ukrainian religious field.

The Ecumenical Patriarch can go for it, since the story of the Ukrainian church has not been resolved for him: the church division has been preserved, and it is cultivated by both sides, both the UOC-MP and the OCU. In turn, in world Orthodoxy, Patriarch Bartholomew is criticized for the fact that his interference in Ukrainian affairs not only did not solve “the most important problem” — the split of Ukrainian Orthodoxy — but also did not fulfill his political program, which is to remove the Ukrainian Church from the influence of the Moscow Patriarchate. At the same time, the local Orthodox churches are in no hurry to help either the Ecumenical Patriarch or the Ukrainian sister church. They are comfortably seated on the stands and mostly keep their fingers parallel to the ground until it becomes finally clear which of the heavyweights — the Moscow Patriarch or the Ecumenical Patriarch — will win the battle.

For Patriarch Bartholomew, to solve the Ukrainian canonical equation is a matter of honor and political influence. And since the Ukrainian authorities are interested in his participation in church politics, he will partake in it. Even if he does not bring everything to a common denominator — a united Ukrainian church — he can try to solve the political problem: to “take away” from the Moscow Patriarchate its most weighty and precious part, the UOC-MP. Even if for this purpose he has to create in Ukraine a structure parallel to his own stubborn brainchild, the OCU.

Having parallel structures has certain advantages. Competition for souls, which makes the churches (ideally) work harder. It becomes problematic for the authorities to “bend” the church to their political interests. This system is as good as any other system of checks and balances.

The UOC-MP has gotten used to the fact that their main mission is to keep the schism alive. This is what they are used to, what they know how to do, and what they are ready to sell to foreign audiences. The only thing where one can try to budge them is to offer them new markets for this product. Not only Moscow may be interested in parallel structures in Ukraine. The Phanar and even Kyiv may also be interested in this.

But the vagueness of the political outlook makes this scheme risky. Our ecclesiastical struggle is a particular case of the general struggle against the imperial and Soviet heritage that devours us from within and without. The main goal of the imperial and Soviet structures throughout the years of independence has been to persist. At any cost, in any form, under any pretext. They preserved themselves as best they could: in the education system, state administration, culture and under the church domes. When the active hostilities are over and, perhaps, ties with Moscow will no longer seem so toxic, the “structure that was preserved” under the wing of the Ecumenical Patriarch will have a chance to return to its usual Moscow stall.