Newsletter No 23 2016
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Keston Newsletter No. 23, 2016 Bishop Borys Gudziak of the Ukrainian Catholic University The Ukrainian Catholic University by Robert Brinkley This talk was given at the Keston AGM the territory of the former Soviet Union, on 7 November 2015 by Robert Brinkley, indeed between Poland and Japan. a member of Keston’s Council of Man- When I became British Ambassador to agement and a former British Ambassa- Ukraine in 2002, I soon got to know dor to Ukraine. UCU. The then Rector, Fr Borys Gudzi- Since 2013 I have been a member of the Ukrainian Catholic University’s (UCU) Also in this issue: . governing body, the Senate, which Anniversary of Fr Men’s Murder . p.13 means that – at least at UCU – I can Musicians & Religion Persecuted . p.18 answer to the title ‘Senator’! I am Nursing in Lithuania . p.25 proud to be associated with and to repre- My Week in Ukraine . p.33 sent this dynamic young institution, Catholic-Orthodox Relations . p.37 which is the only Catholic university on Home News . p.41 Keston Newsletter No 23, 2016 ak (now a bishop), showed me around indoctrination and propaganda, have the university building in Lviv. On my given this term a pejorative nuance. first visit I was particularly struck by the The Christian heritage is dominant in the little one-room museum commemorating Ukrainian religious tradition. It has a the martyrs of the Ukrainian Greek Cath- documented history of more than one olic Church in the 20th century. Items thousand years. In 988 Prince Vo- like a suitcase with a false bottom to lodymyr the Great – whose statue can be hide sacred vessels and vestments re- seen in London opposite Holland Park minded me of similar things I had seen tube station – established Christianity in as a boy at Stonyhurst in the collection its Eastern (Byzantine-Slavic) rite as the of artefacts from the underground Eng- state religion of Kyivan Rus’. The Ky- lish Catholics of the 16th century. But at ivan Metropolitanate was created as a UCU I came face to face with much single hierarchical structure for the East- more recent history, still within living ern Slavs. This Baptism of Rus’ oc- memory of people who had grown up in curred before the Great Schism of 1054 the underground church. that divided the Christian East and West. It also came over 150 years before Mos- In this talk I shall first set the context by cow was founded, in 1147. The Rus’ sketching the history of the Ukrainian church was an integral part of the Patri- Greek Catholic Church. Then I will archate of Constantinople and followed trace the development of UCU within the traditions of the Byzantine East, even that context, before I describe UCU as it though it remained in full communion is today and its vision for the future. with the Latin West. Even after the The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Schism of 1054, the Kyivan Metropoli- Church tanate remained open to mutual relations with its Western neighbours and seldom For this first, historical, part of my talk, I entered directly into the disputes be- have drawn on the work of Dr Oleh tween Constantinople and Rome. Turij, now a Vice-Rector at UCU. First, a word about terminology. It is true that the arguments between the Ukrainian Catholics of the Eastern rite Christian East and West were keenly felt call their church the Ukrainian Greek in the Ukrainian lands from the very Catholic Church. You may be more beginnings of its Christianisation. This, familiar with the term ‘Uniate’. This has however, was much more evident after a negative connotation for modern Greek the lands of the former Kyivan Rus’ lost Catholics, rather as the term ‘Papist’ has their national independence and most of for the Catholic Church as a whole. As I its territory passed under the domination will explain, the Union of Brest of 1596, of the neighbouring nations of Hungary, which the hierarchy of the Kyivan Poland and Lithuania. The majority of Metropolia established with the See of the ruling élite in these countries was Rome, is only a part of the identity of Roman (Latin) Catholic and the faithful Catholics of the Eastern rite. But centu- of the Eastern rite suffered discrimina- ries of Russian imperial repression of the tion. With the support of the civil au- Uniates, followed by decades of Soviet thorities Latin parallel hierarchical struc- Keston Newsletter No 23, 2016 2 tures arose in the 14th century alongside desire to bring the church out of a seri- the ancient episcopacy of the Kyivan ous internal crisis and because of their Metropolitanate. This spread the Latin concern about the aggressive challenges influence and catholicised and polonised of the Protestant Reformation and Post- portions of the local population. Tridentine Catholicism (the Counter- Reformation) in the Polish-Lithuanian Though geopolitical conditions discour- Commonwealth. aged it, the Rus’ hierarchy made serious efforts at restoring Christian unity. Rep- This model of church reunion was con- resentatives from Rus’ took part in the firmed at the Council of Brest in 1596 – Western councils in Lyon (1245) and the beginning of the institutional exist- Constance (1418), and the Union of ence of the church reunited with Rome Florence (1439) was positively received and known as Uniate or Greek Catholic. in the Ukrainian and Belarussian lands. Not all the hierarchs and faithful of the Kyivan Metropolitan Isidore was himself Kyivan Metropolitanate supported this; one of the creators of this union. Politi- some were dissatisfied with the Roman cal struggles and religious prejudice, vision of union and insisted on maintain- however, prevented the desired union ing canonical dependence on the Patriar- from occurring. chate of Constantinople. They demand- ed the ordination of a parallel hierarchy Refusal to accept the Union of Florence, (1620) and its official recognition by the together with other factors, led the secular authorities of the Polish- Church of Moscow to separate from the Lithuanian Commonwealth (1632). The ancient Kyivan Metropolitanate, and in result was the confessional division of 1448 it announced its autocephaly (self- the Rus’ Church into two jurisdictions. governing status). In 1589, taking ad- vantage of the subjugation of Greek Throughout the following centuries bit- Orthodoxy to Turkish domination, the ter polemics took place, and continue to Church of Moscow became a Patriar- this day, between supporters and oppo- chate. This supported the plans of Mos- nents of the Union of Brest. Socio- cow’s secular leaders for political rule economic, ethno-cultural and national- over the lands of the ancient Kyivan political conflicts manifested themselves state and also advanced its claims to the in the form of religious disputes. As a leading role as the ‘Third Rome’ in the result, in 1654 the central and eastern Christian world. regions of Ukraine passed under ‘the high hand of the ruler of Moscow, which The episcopate of the Kyivan Metropoli- had a single faith’. The Orthodox Ky- tanate at the end of the 16th century, ivan Metropolia was soon under the however, had a very different orienta- authority of the Moscow Patriarchate tion. Its synod decided to pass under the (1686). From this time on, the Russian jurisdiction of the See of Rome, provid- civil and ecclesiastical authorities used ed that its traditional Eastern rite was all their efforts to root out any distinctive preserved and its own ecclesial and eth- features of the Ukrainian Orthodox tradi- nic-cultural existence was guaranteed. tion, to unify the religious life of the This came about because of the bishops’ faithful and to transform the Church Keston Newsletter No 23, 2016 3 itself into an instrument for russifying serving the cultural and religious inde- the Ukrainians. pendence of the Ukrainian population. Increasingly, these features of the state When the Western Ukrainian lands and church politics of Russia were evi- passed under Austrian rule, the Greek dent in dealings with the united (Uniate) Catholic hierarchy received the support Church. Each time the Tsarist Empire and the protection of the imperial gov- extended its power in the adjacent ernment. It was under this Habsburg Ukrainian land, it began repressions rule that the former Uniates began to be against the Uniates and forced their con- officially called Greek Catholics. The version to Russian Orthodoxy (1772, civil authorities encouraged the for- 1795, 1839 and 1876). mation of an ecclesiasti- The close connections of cal administrative struc- the Russian Orthodox ture for the Greek Cath- Church with the imperial olics. In 1771 the inde- power and Great Russian pendence of the Muk- national interests led to achiv eparchy in Trans- dissatisfaction among the carpathia was declared Orthodox clergy and laity and in 1807 the Metro- of Ukraine and the birth of politanate of Galicia in Ukrainophile movements Western Ukraine was at the end of the 19th cen- restored. tury. The educational reforms After the 1917 revolution of the Habsburg rulers a movement arose in fa- Metropolitan Andrei Sheptytsky Maria-Teresa and vour of autocephaly for Joseph II gave Ukrainian Orthodoxy. But attempts to Ukrainians access to education in their proclaim autocephaly in the 1920s and native language. Greek Catholics were 1940s were severely opposed by the given equal legal status with the faithful Moscow Patriarchate and repressed by of the Latin rite and their spiritual lead- the Soviet authorities. ers were provided with a minimal mate- rial subsistence. This led to the close The Western section of Ukraine, howev- integration of the Greek Catholic Church er, remained a part of the Polish- with the national political structure and Lithuanian Commonwealth, and with the social life, and the active participation of support of the civil authorities by the end the clergy in the Ukrainian national of the 18th century the Church united movement.