On the Canonical Situation in the Ukraine

His All Holiness, the Ecumenical Patriarch, +Bartholomew, the Patriarch of Moscow, +Kyrill, and the Patriarch of Kyiv, +Filaret 

Yesterday, we saw an outline of the Ecumenical Patriarchate’s (referred to after this as the “EP”) argument against the Moscow Patriarchate (referred to after this as the “MP”) in our Clericus. This was not meant as an endorsement, but merely as a counterbalance to the overwhelmingly anti-EP argument that dominates Orthodox airwaves online, hurting the Orthodox Communion worldwide and making reconciliation an increasingly improbable outcome. 

While some of the EP’s arguments hold weight, especially in regards to the invalidity of the MP to exercise universal jurisdiction in the Ukraine, we have also extensively debunked the papal view of the EP, which are essentially the rights the EP is claiming in the Ukraine. If the Moscow Patriarchate, the largest and most powerful Orthodox Church in the world, is canonically limited and cannot unilaterally declare what is and is not salvifically efficacious through canonical declarations, then the Ecumenical Patriarchate, a tiny local Church of less than three hundred faithful, supported by American and Australian money, and ruled for the exclusive purpose of self-preservation and maintaining a position of canonical power, also cannot rule the Orthodox world through episcopal fiat. There is no canonical mechanism that leaves the Ecumenical Patriarchate at the “head of the Orthodox world” merely because this was the (hotly contested) traditional claim of Rome, and Rome is now in schism. In order for these rights to come to her through the principle of “Primus Inter Peres” and the presidency that this implies, it would have to be granted by a synod of all the Orthodox bishops of the world, not assumed or maintained, based upon its previous importance as the capital of a previously Orthodox empire. If secondary rights only come to Constantinople because “she is the city in which the emperor resides”, how much less of a canonical consideration are those rights now that the Byzantine Empire has been extinct for over 500 years? The schism of the First Rome does not transfer these claims to the Second Rome, except by the declaration of an Ecumenical Council, and, as the Orthodox maintain, the rights of the First Rome were always honorary at best, and so, therefore, primacy does not flow to “next in line” in a list of Patriarchates from the Chalcedonian diptychs. If anything, if primacy could ever be assumed (and we must maintain that it cannot), it would belong to the largest and most politically influential Orthodox Church in the world, which is Moscow’s Patriarchate. The best way to repair the lack of primacy within Orthodoxy is to restore the Roman Patriarchate back to its traditional conciliar role of "First Among Equals," facilitating the West’s jettisoning the last one thousand years of heresy and innovation, and returning to the core deposit of the Apostolic Faith preserved within the Orthodox Church. 

Based on the previous flawed argument for primacy, the Ecumenical Patriarchate erroneously believes that, once it grants autocephaly, it may retract said “agreement” at any time, essentially making itself the only truly “self-headed” and “independent” Patriarchate, an eastern version of a medieval papacy. It has played this canonical card in the Ukraine three times now - retracting the Russian’s Tomos inherited from Kyiv in the 1600’s, reckoning the Tomos of Autocephaly granted by Patriarch Gregorios VII to the Polish-Lithuanian-Ukrainian Church (which is the Kyivan Patriarchate today) as invalidated by the loss of their recognition, and also reneging upon the initial agreements that they had with Patriarch +Filaret and establishing yet another “Canonical Orthodox Church” in the Ukraine, under the much younger and more obedient “Metropolitan” Epiphany, depriving the Ukraine of an actual “Patriarchate.” The canonical principle that ties all of these decisions together is not the historical formation or regularization of canonical order for the salvation of people of Orthodox Faith, as we see in the initial formation of all the Ancient Patriarchates, but the self-preservation and opportunistic advantage of a system that believes itself to be infallible and indispensable, both ideas that the Orthodox world has always known to be foreign to true synodality. 

We believe that there are a few things we are doing as the Archdiocese that are unique and valuable in the midst of all of this canonical chaos, and which may help to heal the schisms taking place throughout the whole Orthodox world - 

Firstly, we are calling all parties back to honesty and a real re-appropriation of the Ancient canonical standards, which are based on faith and mutual submission, rather than upon imperial claims to worldly power and authority. The way that both the EP and the MP have acted is, quite frankly, the product of a broken canonical system, which empowers the worst impulses of people doing church for the purposes of political power, not for the salvation of Christian people. This abuse must be challenged, and all Orthodox bishops of goodwill must maintain that the way canons have been forced to serve secular, nationalistic and ideological purposes is lamentable and not a manifestation of God’s grace. 

Secondly, by maintaining that these recent canonical actions are illegal and unfair, we advocate for a re-assessment of our recent Orthodox history and a return to the ancient paradigms of canonical enforcement - the equality of all Orthodox bishops, truly local, non-overlapping ecclesial jurisdictions, and communion based on Nicene Faith, rather than upon the foibles of local synods that reckon their authority to be universal. By returning to these standards, Orthodoxy can become missional again, and we can survive and thrive in a post or pre-Christian environment. Without this re-orientation, we risk bifurcating into two papal factions that hold that either the EP or the MP are the ultimate sources of God’s grace, and that, depending on where one finds themselves, the other faction of Orthodox are completely “graceless.” If synodality is not restored, the result will be increasing alienation from this ever-increasing self-aggrandizing and aggressive Orthodox polity, and many will respond in a Protestant rejection of all episcopal authority and tradition. 

Thirdly, our Church does not believe in or uphold schism with any of these Patriarchates, even though they are in schism themselves. We openly invite and commune both partisans of the EP and the MP. We do not believe that the role of the local Synod is the exclusion of God’s grace from other fellow Orthodox Christians, and we invite both sides back to the Table of the Lord. In this way, we are actively working to end schism, and regardless of the “recognition” of either patriarchate, we are manifesting the fruit of God’s grace amongst us and showing ourselves to be members of God’s One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic and Orthodox Church. This is the grace that must flow through the canons and manifest in the giving of life and in a ministry of good works, rather than the legalism and abuse that comes from the law of the Scribes and the Pharisees. 

Finally, please pray for His All Holiness, +Bartholomew of Constantinople, His Holiness, +Kyril of Moscow, His Holiness +Filaret of Kyiv, and all other Orthodox hierarchs, remembering to pray for their wisdom and health as they try to pastorally lead through the difficulties on the road ahead. The path forward is long and ends in all of our deaths. We have to run this race well, not compromising or falling into spiritual traps, all the while attempting to guide through humility, mutual submission and godly love. While the MP and the EP has unfortunately filled the airwaves with partisan “fake news” about each other and about Patriarch +Filaret, we are confident that prayer, brotherly love, and a refusal to play political games will help to end the unfortunate Schism that now paralyzes a dysfunctional Orthodox Communion and threatens to destroy our Christian witness in the world. 

“...For the peace of the world, for the unity of the holy churches of God, and the end of all schisms, let us pray to the Lord. And, having prayed for the unity of faith and for the communion of the Holy Spirit, let us commit ourselves, and one another, and our whole lives to Christ our God. Lord, have mercy!”