Лист інтелігенції до патріарха Варфоломія англійською мовою
Appeal by Ukrainian Intelligentsia
to the Ecumenical Patriarch Vartholomaios
Your All-Holiness,
We are writing you with the feeling of deepest pain and concern about the situation of the Orthodox believers in Ukraine. It has been 22 years since the Congregation of the biggest Orthodox Church in Europe was split divided between the three Orthodox confessions – Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Patriarchate of Moscow, Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Patriarchate of Kyiv and Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church. Only of these Churches was officially recognized in the global Orthodox Community.
Over the past decade, the Orthodox believers of Ukraine were living with the hope that one day they would be united into Single Ukrainian Church. This has not happened because the Russian Orthodox Church, working in close synergy with the Russian government, was more interested in further split within the Ukrainian Orthodox Community.
To prevent any reunification the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Patriarchate of Moscow (UOCPM), which is part of the Russian Orthodox Church, resorted to all possible means, including those incompatible with the Christian ethics and mores. It has instigated hatred between its own Congregation and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Patriarchate of Kyiv, it has openly vilified the Church of Kyiv Patriarchate as illegitimate and graceless. The priests of the Churches of Moscow Patriarchate are not allowed to prey for the believers of the Kyiv Patriarchate. The Patriarchate of Moscow refuses to recognize the holy mysteries, including baptism, served in the churches by the Patriarchate of Kyiv. There is a struggle going on between the two confessions for the buildings of the temples.
This discord and disorder resulted in further alienation of the Orthodox believers from the Orthodox Church of the Patriarchate of Moscow. At the same time, many found it impossible to belong to the unrecognised Orthodox Church of Kyiv Patriarchate. As a result, a great number of believers abandoned the fate of their ancestors and acceded to Catholic, Uniate or Protestant Churches. There is a great number of those who, because of this conflict, lost any interest in ecclesiastical life and presently prefer not to attend Church at all.
Your All-Holiness,
Today the Ukrainian Orthodoxy lives the most dramatic period of its history. The Russian-Ukrainian war is raging in the Eastern Ukraine. Moscow supplies arms, heavy weapons, deploys its own troops, trains and support mercenaries who kill Ukrainian citizens. Now like never before Ukrainians need to pray together in a single voice asking the Lord to help them to protect their land.
This is, however, impossible as long as the Patriarch of Moscow Cyril approves of aggressive policy of Vladimir Putin. In his statements, Patriarch Cyril, manipulates the idea of shared spiritual background of the Orthodox believers, employs artificial and vague concepts as "spiritual bandages" or "Triple Rus" (Russia, Belarus and Ukraine), which allegedly should be preserved. This way, he tries to impose a political agenda on the religious life and promote political union with Russia.
Patriarch Cyril, like Russian President Putin, denies an obvious fact of the Russian aggression against Ukraine, and describes the events in the Eastern Ukraine "civil war". His Eminence Cyril articulates various justification and support any foreign policy decisions of President Putin in regard to Ukraine as well as his doctrine of a "Russian World", which became ideological basis of the current aggression by the Kremlin, occupation of Crimea and terror in Eastern Ukraine.
The most ardent advocates of the doctrine of the "Russian World" deny the existence of Ukraine, an independent Ukrainian nation, the Ukrainian language and culture. In addition to insinuation about the "common roots" of the Russian and Ukrainian people, the Patriarchate of Moscow was directly involved in military operations during the annexation of the Crimean peninsula by the Russian military.
http://www.1plus1.ua/video/ukrayinski-sensaciyi-zaprodanci-kremlya.html
Russian Orthodox Church not only refuses to condemn the terrorist organisation - the Russian Orthodox Army, which acts in Donbass (Eastern Ukraine), but it also supports it by sending to the terrorists icons, blessing and promoting their atrocities as graceful acts.
http://www.nakanune.ru/news/2014/7/28/22362437/,
The priests of the Patriarchate of Moscow stored stockpiles of weapons, hosted the bases of militia in the monasteries. Some priests of the Moscow Patriarchate in Donbass and other regions openly supported terrorists and call the parishers to revolt against the legitimate government of Ukraine, act as provocateurs and saboteurs, and sometimes take part in the fights as combatants. Often during the current hostilities in Donbass, pro-Russian terrorists deploy their artillery in church courts, which shells the Ukrainian troops from those locations. The counter-strikes by the Ukrainian artillery against the terrorists are then used in propaganda war to claim that the Ukrainian army of "deliberately destroys churches".
http://mskod.com/opium-dlya-naroda-ili-tserkov-v-slavyanske-s-privkusom-dnr/
http://risu.org.ua/ru/index/all_news/community/scandals/56624
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKlulHJGLXc
http://risu.org.ua/ru/index/all_news/community/religion_and_policy/57112
http://risu.org.ua/ru/index/all_news/community/religion_and_policy/57101/
Ukraine-Rus is one of the biggest Orthodox countries. Christianity had arrived to the Ukrainian land back in the 2nd century. At that point it had been Skythian Eparchy whose members had taken part in the first Ecumenical Congresses. The Kievan Rus had bee baptaized in 988, long before Moscow Tzardom or Russian Empire were founded.
Historically, the Diocese of Kiev had always been subordinate to the Patriarchate of Constantinople. The Diocese of Kiev had been translated from the Patriarchate of Constantinople to the Moscow Patriarchate illegally, through bribery and threats, in 1686. This illegal decision was cancelled a year later.
Ukraine's subordination to the Patriarchate of Constantinople was confirmed by the Orthodox Tomos in 1924 and by the letter by your predecessor, Patriarch Dimitrios of Constantinople, to the late Patriarch of Moscow Aleksiy of 1990 whereby he stated "we recognise the canonical territory of the Russian Orthodox Church as it was defined at the moment of installation of Patriarchy", i.e. as it was defined in 1589 without the territory of the Diocese of Kiev. In 2005 at the meeting with Ukrainian President Yushchenko, archbishop Vsevolod on behalf of the Patriarch of Constantinople stated that Ukraine is a canonical territory of Patriarchate of Constantinople
Today in Ukraine, there are 13.000 parishes of the Moscow Patriarchate, 5.000 parishes of the Kiev Patriarchate and 1200 parishesof the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church . Altogether it is 19.000 Orthodox parishes. If united the Ukrainian Orthodox Congregation will be as big as that of the Russian Orthodox Church. This is why the Moscow Patriarchate opposes the unification of the Ukrainian Churches. Despite the strong military aggression and unprecedented by its cynicism information war Russia wages against Ukraine our country is successfully defending its territorial integrity. Our people get united and stand up to defend our land. For further unification of the Ukrainian Churches we need support of the Ecumenical Orthodoxy.
We want a Unified Ukrainian Orthodox Church, where we would pray for our Ukraine, the Ukrainian Army, people and rulers, for victory over the aggressor, for peace and concord in our land and the entire world. Today the Orthodox believers no longer trust the deceptive statements by the Moscow Patriarchate about their readiness for dialogue about the re-unificaiton with the Kyiv Patriarchate. It has been clear that this is nothing but manipulation of the Kremlin propagandists. Today, we have have realised that the Russian Orthodox Church is going to do its best to prevent unification of the Ukrainian Churches It will not even heed to the opinion of its own in Ukraine, which strongly supports re-unificaiton.
In the view of the above, we beg Your All-Holiness to recognize the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Kiev Patriarchate as the local Orthodox Church in Ukraine, which will become a platform for unification of all the orthodox believers in our country. Save the Ukrainian people, the Ukrainian Orthodox Congregation from the aggressive "Russian world" and aggressive "political Orthodoxy" which is promoted by Kremlin through the Russian Orthodox Church and Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Moscow Patriarchate!
We beg Your Holiness to prey for Ukraine.
President of Ukraine Victor Yushhenko
Evhen Holovaha, President of Kyiv International Institute of Sociology
Oksana Zabuzhko, Writer
Mykhailo Gonchar, President of the Centre of Global Studies "Strategy-21"
Viacheslav Bryuukhovetskiy, Emeritus President of National Academy "Kyiv Mohyla Academy"
Oleksandr Paliy, Historian, Institute of History
Ebhen Yakunov, publicist
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