Justice wrote:The situation in Ukraine has slowly gotten worse over the years. The Kyivan Patriarchate under Patriarchs Mstyslav and Volodymyr was a short, but a great few years for the True Orthodox Church.
Also, the issue of Ukrainian Sovereignty from Russia needs to stop influencing the minds of clergy, both World and True Orthodox. It simply doesn't belong in the church.
Metropolitan Mstyslav Skrypnyk was not a traditional bishop, but an ecumenist. I know his history fairly well going back to the 1940s or earlier. He was a Ukrainian patriot, but never an anti-ecumenist like Saint Philaret or the Genuine Orthodox in Greece. The recent history released by the American Metropolia of Metropolitan John LoBue claims that Mystyslav was in communion with Archbishop Auxentios. Not true. There were bishops (Serbs and West Europeans) who abandoned Auxentios and True Orthodoxy in order to be in communion with Mystislav, but that was a betrayal of any identity as True Orthodox and a move toward heretical-ecumenist World Orthodoxy. (I can give the exact chronology in another posting.)
Concerning autocephaly, there is an apostolic canon that states that each nation/place should recognize a "first" (protos) among its bishops. However, the modern distinction between autocephalous and autonomous is not in the canons. So, Constantinople and Moscow are arguing about something that is not in the canons.
The Serbian Patriarch Irinej wrote a strong letter opposing Bartholomew's actions in Ukraine and supporting the MP. Irinej's real motive is that he does not want Bartholomew to support autocephaly for North Macedonia, and especially not for Montenegro. Macedonia was independent in the past under the Ohrid Archbishopric, but the area also has churches built by the Serbian Nemanjich dynasty, which the Serbian Patriarchate considers "theirs." In Montenegro, historically, most Montenegrin Orthodox have also called themselves Serbs in a broad sense. This includes the past historical heroes of the current Montenegrin Independentists/Separatists/Autocephalists. Such historical heroes include Bishop Petar II Petrovich Njegosh (the poet know simply as Njegosh) and King Nikola Petrovich Njegosh (also a poet), who both headed an independent Montenegrin state, but who saw themselves as part of a greater Serbdom in a religious and spiritual sense. Today's self-proclaimed Autocephalous Church of Montenegro is something of a joke, religiously, since it is so secularized. It excluded universally recognized Orthodox saints from it church calendar, such as Saint Sava of Serbia, for secular-political reasons. Historically, all of the Montenegrin saints and bishops (especially Saint Basil of Ostrog and Saint Peter I Petrovich Njegosh of Centinje-Montenegro) were absolutely devoted to the memory of Saint Sava of Serbia (who may have been born in Montenegro). So, there are some precedents for Montenegro being within the Church of Serbia, and some precedents for it being independent; but today's autocephalists are very anti-traditionalist.
The case is similar with Ukraine. There are some precedents for it being under Constantinople and some for it being under Moscow; but the current Ukrainian autocephalists have many anti-traditionalist tendencies. The dilemma in Ukraine is that, whereas the current independent Ukraine is now fully distinct from Russia, except for some Russian-militarily-occupied areas in the East, the idea and reality of Ukrainian autocephaly has historically been tied to nationalization-localization, westernization, modernization, and secularization---not traditional Orthodoxy. In one sense Ukrainian autocephaly makes sense, but in the current reality it will clearly contribute to the secularization of the Ukrainian people, which is fast underway, maybe even more so than under communism. What we really need is an autonomous or autocephalous synod of True Orthodox bishops in Ukraine who minister equally and without discrimination to Ukrainian-speaking and Russian-speaking Orthodox faithful on the territory of Ukraine.
Going back to the topic of the potential for a historic schism: The MP has used some threatening and extreme language in several official statements over the last few days. The MP may not follow through, as it failed to follow through over Estonia, but the threats to divide World Orthodoxy are now official threats, and the Western media are taking them seriously. Examples of official MP threats include:
[first block quotation]
In the event that Constantinople carries through its cunning plan of granting the autocephaly, it will mean that a group of schismatics will receive it. The canonical Church will not accept this autocephaly. The Russian Church will not recognize this autocephaly, of course. We will have no other choice but to break the communion with Constantinople. It means that the Patriarch of Constantinople will no longer have the right to call himself, as he is doing now, “the leader of the 300 million Orthodox Christians worldwide.” At least half of the Orthodox Christians will not recognize him at all. By his actions he will, in fact, split the world Orthodoxy. .... By acting on its own, without the consent of the Local Churches, destroying the canonical order that has been established for centuries, the Patriarchate of Constantinople places itself outside of what we call the canonical field, that is, outside of the legal framework of Universal Orthodoxy. http://orthochristian.com/115613.html
[second block quotation]
Thus the Patriarchate of Constantinople is now openly on the warpath. And it is a war not only against the Russian Church, not only against the Ukrainian Orthodox people; it is a war actually against the unity of the whole world Orthodoxy.
Because if this, I would say mean and perfidious, project is carried out, most of the Orthodox faithful in Ukraine will reject this autocephaly. The Russian Orthodox Church will not accept this decision. We will have to break off communion with Constantinople, and then Constantinople will no longer have the rights to claim leadership in the Orthodox world. Now the Patriarchate of Constantinople pose as a sort of leader of the 300 million-strong Orthodox population of the globe and the Patriarch of Constantinople is perceived as almost the Orthodox pope. But at least a half of this 300 million-strong population will no longer recognize him even as the first in the family of Orthodox Churches.
I think that Patriarch Bartholomew will bear personal responsibility for this action before the judgement of God and the judgement of history. https://mospat.ru/en/2018/09/08/news163543/