An Analysis of the Ukrainian Tomos: What's Typical and What's Specific

[Samn!]

Here: https://orthodoxsynaxis.org/2019/01/08/the-tomos-for-ukraine-whats-typical-and-whats-specific/

The Tomos for Ukraine: What’s Typical and What’s Specific

By Vladimir Burega

Thus, the tomos for Ukraine wasn’t created from scratch. Both its form and its content follow a certain rule. In ecclesiastical documents of this level, there are always traditional, ritual phrases as well as clear, practical, immutable formulations. At the same time, almost every one of these tomoi has its own characteristics, reflecting the specific situation in each local church. We will try to sort out what in the Ukrainian tomos is typical and what is, so to speak, specific.

 

[Samn!]

... [removing an incorrect link]

 

[Sharbel]

Very interesting analysis.  It comes across as a prudent document in all aspects, especially on the transfer of monasteries and other communities, though left unspecified, to the EP.  Hopefully, monastics, especially in the Kievan Caves Lavra, along with other monasteries that were once under the EP, can take a breath soon.

 

[rakovsky]

Very interesting analysis.  It comes across as a prudent document in all aspects, especially on the transfer of monasteries and other communities, though left unspecified, to the EP.  Hopefully, monastics, especially in the Kievan Caves Lavra, along with other monasteries that were once under the EP, can take a breath soon.

I don't think you understand it. How does transferring the Caves Lavra from the UOCMP to the EP or to the new OCU that the UOCMP rejects let the Lavra's monks, who are loyal to the UOCMP take a breath?

 

[Samn!]

I don't think you understand it. How does transferring the Caves Lavra from the UOCMP to the EP or to the new OCU that the UOCMP rejects let the Lavra's monks, who are loyal to the UOCMP take a breath?

Because the analysis is cautious about whether those specific monasteries will be transferred. They may not be. Or at least one can hope.

 

[Gorazd]

The Lavra is state property. Why should the Ukrainian state allow their property to be used by a religious community that blesses people to bear arms against the Ukrainian state?

The UOC-MP does just that by blessing pro-Russian separatists in Donbas and the Russian army and navy in Crimea. Therefore, they have no right to use state property. They should conduct their monastic life and other activities in buildings that are their own property.

 

[rakovsky]

I don't think you understand it. How does transferring the Caves Lavra from the UOCMP to the EP or to the new OCU that the UOCMP rejects let the Lavra's monks, who are loyal to the UOCMP take a breath?

Because the analysis is cautious about whether those specific monasteries will be transferred. They may not be. Or at least one can hope.

Then rather than letting them take a breather, they are still under tension.

From the analysis you posted:

There is no clarity about what will now be transferred to the jurisdiction of Constantinople, but it is quite clear that a certain number of stravropegia will be created in Ukraine.

 

[Iconodule]

The Lavra is state property.

Ah, another Tsarist/ Soviet legacy Ukrainian nationalists are happy to retain.

The monastery belongs to the Church. It was built and hallowed by generations of monks- not bureaucrats, corrupt SBU goons, or Banderist paramilitaries. Why should the Church cede it to a bunch of thugs and demagogues who will only desecrate it?

 

[Samn!]

The Lavra is state property. Why should the Ukrainian state allow their property to be used by a religious community that blesses people to bear arms against the Ukrainian state?

The UOC-MP does just that by blessing pro-Russian separatists in Donbas and the Russian army and navy in Crimea. Therefore, they have no right to use state property. They should conduct their monastic life and other activities in buildings that are their own property.

I mean, if you're going to play that game, the speaker of parliament of the state in question, who was part of the recent hoopla in Istanbul, is literally the founder of a neo-Nazi party...

 

[WPM]

I don't know what the Tomos is

 

[Iconodule]

I don't know what the Tomos is

It is a document issued by a church (in this case, Constantinople) to a previous dependency announcing their independence and stipulating the terms of this independence.

 

[Alpha60]

The Lavra is state property. Why should the Ukrainian state allow their property to be used by a religious community that blesses people to bear arms against the Ukrainian state?

The UOC-MP does just that by blessing pro-Russian separatists in Donbas and the Russian army and navy in Crimea. Therefore, they have no right to use state property. They should conduct their monastic life and other activities in buildings that are their own property.

The principle of separation of church and state would seemingly require the transfer of such structures to their posessors, or at the very least the use of a French model in which ownership remains with the state but usage rights attach to those who posess the property (which is how the SSPX managed to obtain for itself a disused RC parish church owned by the government).

In the Common Law, which is the prevailing legal system in the English speaking world and something of a gold standard when it comes to fairness (albeit at the expense of increased legislative power de facto posessed by judges who issue binding opinions which persist on the legal basis of precedent, rather than the lower civil law standard of “constant jurisprudence”), there is a related doctrine that provides the same obvious utilitarian benefits of the French system but without state ownership, that being the concept of adverse posession of Land.  And indeed something like this could normalize the UOC-EP’s posession of St. Andrew’s Cathedral in Kiev and other important churches, which is something that requires normalization.

Justice, to be just, is a two way street, and the ideology-based appproach you outlined is not justice but rather politics, and was indeed the basis for jurisprudence under Soviet law in any case where the cause of socialism was involved, or stood to gain by ruling one way or another.  In other words, a Soviet court could be reckoned to be just when the cause of International Communism was not relevant to the case, for example, in a simple case of murder, or for that matter when three Americans were caught smuggling vast quantites of opium by the KGB border guards in the transit lounge at Moscow Sheremetovo in the 1970s and were sent to a Siberian gulag of sorts, a just ruling for admitted drug smugglers by Soviet and American standards.  Conversely, if the case involved the interests of Communism or more especially the power of the ruling General Secretary, one could rest assured of injustice, such as in the Stalinist Show Trials of the 1930s.

Thus, under both European (the codes of Justinian, Napoleon and the German Empire, for example) civil law, and under the Common Law to the UK, the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and other realms pertaining, the continued posession of the various churches and monasteries by their current posessors is something likely to be upheld, and I think Ukraine would deservedly attract scorn if it acted otherwise.

 

[LizaSymonenko]

The Lavra is state property.

Ah, another Tsarist/ Soviet legacy Ukrainian nationalists are happy to retain.

The monastery belongs to the Church. It was built and hallowed by generations of monks- not bureaucrats, corrupt SBU goons, or Banderist paramilitaries. Why should the Church cede it to a bunch of thugs and demagogues who will only desecrate it?

If it does, and it should, belong to the Church, it belongs to the original Church that worked to build it.... and that would be the Church of Kyivan Rus, of Ukraine, under the EP.  The MP is the daughter of the EP, therefore....

 

[Iconodule]

The Lavra is state property.

Ah, another Tsarist/ Soviet legacy Ukrainian nationalists are happy to retain.

The monastery belongs to the Church. It was built and hallowed by generations of monks- not bureaucrats, corrupt SBU goons, or Banderist paramilitaries. Why should the Church cede it to a bunch of thugs and demagogues who will only desecrate it?

If it does, and it should, belong to the Church, it belongs to the original Church that worked to build it.... and that would be the Church of Kyivan Rus, of Ukraine, under the EP.  The MP is the daughter of the EP, therefore....

The old church of Kyivan Rus' is now called the Moscow Patriarchate and has been independent of the EP for centuries.

 

[LizaSymonenko]

The Lavra is state property.

Ah, another Tsarist/ Soviet legacy Ukrainian nationalists are happy to retain.

The monastery belongs to the Church. It was built and hallowed by generations of monks- not bureaucrats, corrupt SBU goons, or Banderist paramilitaries. Why should the Church cede it to a bunch of thugs and demagogues who will only desecrate it?

If it does, and it should, belong to the Church, it belongs to the original Church that worked to build it.... and that would be the Church of Kyivan Rus, of Ukraine, under the EP.  The MP is the daughter of the EP, therefore....

The old church of Kyivan Rus' is now called the Moscow Patriarchate and has been independent of the EP for centuries.

...it may be so called by the MP.... but, those who are part of Kyivan Rus might disagree with that. 

 

[Iconodule]

The Lavra is state property.

Ah, another Tsarist/ Soviet legacy Ukrainian nationalists are happy to retain.

The monastery belongs to the Church. It was built and hallowed by generations of monks- not bureaucrats, corrupt SBU goons, or Banderist paramilitaries. Why should the Church cede it to a bunch of thugs and demagogues who will only desecrate it?

If it does, and it should, belong to the Church, it belongs to the original Church that worked to build it.... and that would be the Church of Kyivan Rus, of Ukraine, under the EP.  The MP is the daughter of the EP, therefore....

The old church of Kyivan Rus' is now called the Moscow Patriarchate and has been independent of the EP for centuries.

...it may be so called by the MP....

Patriarch Bartholomew admitted as much in his address from Saturday:

Already from the year 1325, when the see of the Metropolis of Kyiv finally was transferred permanently to Moscow, the faithful people of Kyiv desired its ecclesiastical independence...

So even Patriarch Bartholomew agrees that the original see of Kyiv was transferred to Moscow, necessitating the creation of a new metropolis.

but, those who are part of Kyivan Rus might disagree with that.

Russians are just as much the heirs of Kyivan Rus as Ukrainians.

 

[Gorazd]

Ukraine has never has "Common Law", which is something you can find in Britain and its former colonies, including the United States.
The issue has to be handled under Ukrainian law. And if an outside standard applies to that, it is international treaties of human rights.

But think of it like this: A religious group, let's call it "Muslim Prayer Group Worldwide" (MPGW) is being granted free usage of a room in a public building in the US for their friday prayers. The same building also houses a state-run museum of American history.
Now there are some political issues, and MPGW groups in Iraq and Afghanistan start blessing terrorism against US forces. The MPGW-USA leadership refuses to issue a clear condemnation of that, rather stressing spiritual unity of the MPGW. The public is outraged, many call for a ban of the MPGW. That doesn't happen, because of freedom of religion.

However, a Muslim Prayer Group in America (MPGA) splits off, condemns terrorism and the MPGW's implicit support of it. Who should be allowed free usage of the prayer room in that American history museum, MPGW or MPGA?

 

[ICXCNIKA]

Ukraine has never has "Common Law", which is something you can find in Britain and its former colonies, including the United States.
The issue has to be handled under Ukrainian law. And if an outside standard applies to that, it is international treaties of human rights.

But think of it like this: A religious group, let's call it "Muslim Prayer Group Worldwide" (MPGW) is being granted free usage of a room in a public building in the US for their friday prayers. The same building also houses a state-run museum of American history.
Now there are some political issues, and MPGW groups in Iraq and Afghanistan start blessing terrorism against US forces. The MPGW-USA leadership refuses to issue a clear condemnation of that, rather stressing spiritual unity of the MPGW. The public is outraged, many call for a ban of the MPGW. That doesn't happen, because of freedom of religion.

However, a Muslim Prayer Group in America (MPGA) splits off, condemns terrorism and the MPGW's implicit support of it. Who should be allowed free usage of the prayer room in that American history museum, MPGW or MPGA?

If someone has a lease you honor the lease. Period. This charade has blown up in the phanar's face.

 

[SolEX01]

Ukraine has never has "Common Law", which is something you can find in Britain and its former colonies, including the United States.
The issue has to be handled under Ukrainian law. And if an outside standard applies to that, it is international treaties of human rights.

But think of it like this: A religious group, let's call it "Muslim Prayer Group Worldwide" (MPGW) is being granted free usage of a room in a public building in the US for their friday prayers. The same building also houses a state-run museum of American history.
Now there are some political issues, and MPGW groups in Iraq and Afghanistan start blessing terrorism against US forces. The MPGW-USA leadership refuses to issue a clear condemnation of that, rather stressing spiritual unity of the MPGW. The public is outraged, many call for a ban of the MPGW. That doesn't happen, because of freedom of religion.

However, a Muslim Prayer Group in America (MPGA) splits off, condemns terrorism and the MPGW's implicit support of it. Who should be allowed free usage of the prayer room in that American history museum, MPGW or MPGA?

At least in the USA, neither MPGW nor MPGA because the state cannot sanction religion by allowing religious groups to practice their religion in state-run entities.

Not even a benediction is allowed at US and UK (and the rest of the world) sporting events.

 

[Gorazd]

If someone has a lease you honor the lease. Period.

Ukrainian law, like many other legal systems around the world, provides for leases to be terminated under certain conditions.

At least in the USA, neither MPGW nor MPGA because the state cannot sanction religion by allowing religious groups to practice their religion in state-run entities.

Not correct. See Westside Community Board of Education v. Mergens

 

[rakovsky]

A religious group, let's call it "Muslim Prayer Group Worldwide" (MPGW) is being granted free usage of a room in a public building in the US for their friday prayers. The same building also houses a state-run museum of American history.
Now there are some political issues, and MPGW groups in Iraq and Afghanistan start blessing terrorism against US forces. The MPGW-USA leadership refuses to issue a clear condemnation of that, rather stressing spiritual unity of the MPGW. The public is outraged, many call for a ban of the MPGW. That doesn't happen, because of freedom of religion.

However, a Muslim Prayer Group in America (MPGA) splits off, condemns terrorism and the MPGW's implicit support of it. Who should be allowed free usage of the prayer room in that American history museum, MPGW or MPGA?

I think typically if as in your example the group has withstood attempts at banning because of freedom of religion, then the government is going to say that they are still entitled to their free, reasonable practice of their religion in public spaces where religious practice is allowed. In your example, the government must have found enough difference between the affiliates over in Asia and the ones in America to uphold their right to continue full functioning. If your example was that government investigations had shown that the organization had posed a major present national security risk that the government was shutting down its activities, that would be a different story. But even in the Cold War when it came to non-religious political meetings, the government let the CPUSA function and hold meetings in public spaces because it was not organizing or inciting to a direct uprising etc. So it would be a high bar to meet. You would probably have to prove actual direct involvement of whatever group in the illegal foreign conflict activities in order to ban it.

It seems a bad example though. US "Prayer groups" affiliating with organizations in Asia blessing terrorism, not rejecting the Asian groups' incitement, and remaining legitimate in the US does not sound realistic. For one, prayer groups are small enough that if they affiliated with a foreign group they would share their views and cooperate with them in activities. Second, US Muslims are typically against terrorism, and would tend to make statements against terrorism. If we were talking about some fringe small Muslim prayer group affiliated with Muslim terrorists over in Asia, if they were cooperating with them in a way that posed a real security risk I think the FBI would be all over them. So I think it's a bad, unrealistic analogy.

 

[SolEX01]

At least in the USA, neither MPGW nor MPGA because the state cannot sanction religion by allowing religious groups to practice their religion in state-run entities.

Not correct. See Westside Community Board of Education v. Mergens

Not the same case.  MPGW and MPGA are not bible study groups.

 

[Gorazd]

Not the same case.  MPGW and MPGA are not bible study groups.

Religious groups meeting at schools also hold prayers. But that's not the point. You may replace prayer group with Qur'an study group.
The point is that terminating the lease with the MP has a secular purpose: Preventing a group that engages in treason from using state property.

 

[SolEX01]

Not the same case.  MPGW and MPGA are not bible study groups.

Religious groups meeting at schools also hold prayers. But that's not the point. You may replace prayer group with Qur'an study group.

If MPGW and MPGA were so easy to establish, why hasn't anyone done so in US public spaces?

 

[rakovsky]

The point is that terminating the lease with the MP has a secular purpose: Preventing a group that engages in treason from using state property.

One really would have to prove that the UOC-MP is actually engaging in treason in Ukraine, or else it looks like one is throwing around garbage slander based on politics, phyletism and cultural identities.

 

[Iconodule]

So at Christmas liturgy Metropolitan Epiphany bit the bullet and commemorated Patriarch Kirill: https://orthodoxie.com/le-patriarche-cyrille-de-moscou-a-ete-commemore-lors-de-la-liturgie-de-noel-a-kiev/

 

[Samn!]

This is Romfea, so to be taken with a grain of salt, but it's attributed to their reporter directly contacting the office of the Archbishop of Cyprus, who quite unequivocally states that he does not and will not commemorate Epifany.

In Greek: https://www.romfea.gr/epikairotita-xronika/26319-arxiepiskopos-kuprou-auti-tin-stigmi-den-proexei-i-autokefalia-alla-na-min-dixastei-i-orthodojia

 

[Iconodule]

I don't know much about Romfea. Are they generally anti-EP in their attitude?

 

[Samn!]

I don't know much about Romfea. Are they generally anti-EP in their attitude?

More or less, though they usually pretend to play nice with each other.

 

[StanislavU]

If someone has a lease you honor the lease. Period.

Ukrainian law, like many other legal systems around the world, provides for leases to be terminated under certain conditions.

No one will even have to do that. Under Ukrainian law, maximum duration of a lease is 10 years. It will run out in about a year.

 

[StanislavU]

So at Christmas liturgy Metropolitan Epiphany bit the bullet and commemorated Patriarch Kirill: https://orthodoxie.com/le-patriarche-cyrille-de-moscou-a-ete-commemore-lors-de-la-liturgie-de-noel-a-kiev/

Good.

I like Met. Epiphany so far. Much less ego. Perhaps there was higher Providence behind Patr. Emeritus Philaret's machinations at the Sobor.

 

[StanislavU]

The point is that terminating the lease with the MP has a secular purpose: Preventing a group that engages in treason from using state property.

One really would have to prove that the UOC-MP is actually engaging in treason in Ukraine, or else it looks like one is throwing around garbage slander based on politics, phyletism and cultural identities.

Well, that's what the Security Service of Ukraine is for. There's this:
https://risu.org.ua/en/index/all_news/community/religion_and_policy/73848/

ROC is very much used as key element in Russian Federation's ideological policy, with ROC's active collaboration. Patr. Kirill gladly appear with Putin and Shoygu, two war criminals. So unfortunately for ROCinU, optics are really, really bad. They do not help their case by not censuring priests and bishops refusing funeral services for fallen servicemembers (for the sin of "fratricidal war"), or refusing to observe the moment of silence for the fallen in the Parliament, or not sending any chaplains to the military, or distributing propaganda booklets, or...
https://www.alamy.com/russia-19th-sep-2018-moscow-region-russia-september-19-2018-patriarch-kirill-of-moscow-and-all-russia-russias-president-vladimir-putin-and-russias-defence-minister-sergei-shoigu-l-r-at-the-foundation-stone-laying-ceremony-for-the-russian-armed-forces-main-cathedral-in-patriot-military-park-the-cathedral-is-to-be-built-by-2020-the-year-of-the-75th-anniversary-of-the-victory-in-the-great-patriotic-war-of-1941-1945-alexei-nikolskyrussian-presidential-press-and-information-officetass-credit-itar-tass-news-agencyalamy-live-news-image219365770.html

Also, this is Lavra, and Met. Pavel (Lebed'). You'd be hard pressed to find another hierarch with reputation as low as his.

 

[Iconodule]

The SBU is just as much an heir of the KGB as the FSB/GRU. The idea that it is in any way a credible source of information on the Ukrainian Orthodox Church is pretty laughable.

https://www.kyivpost.com/ukraine-politics/sbu-officials-boast-extravagant-wealth-refuse-declare.html

 

[StanislavU]

The SBU is just as much an heir of the KGB as the FSB/GRU. The idea that it is in any way a credible source of information on the Ukrainian Orthodox Church is pretty laughable.

https://www.kyivpost.com/ukraine-politics/sbu-officials-boast-extravagant-wealth-refuse-declare.html

It's a security service of a country at war, so it'd have to do. It would be better if they had a link to that booklet though.

We are trying to argue whether or not RF uses ROC and its dependencies in foreign policy, including spycraft and war. Of course it does. Case in point: many, many pictures of smiling Patr. Kirill at that "Camouflage Cathedral"'s presentation, with Putin and Shoigu. You can't find anyone more disreputable for a sane Ukrainian than Putin; not even crooked SBU honchos.

 

[Shamati]

The Lavra is state property.

Ah, another Tsarist/ Soviet legacy Ukrainian nationalists are happy to retain.

The monastery belongs to the Church. It was built and hallowed by generations of monks- not bureaucrats, corrupt SBU goons, or Banderist paramilitaries. Why should the Church cede it to a bunch of thugs and demagogues who will only desecrate it?

If it does, and it should, belong to the Church, it belongs to the original Church that worked to build it.... and that would be the Church of Kyivan Rus, of Ukraine, under the EP.  The MP is the daughter of the EP, therefore....

There never was a ‘Kievan’ Rus. The people called themselves Rus & saw themselves, Minsk & Moscow as belonging to the same 1 nation, even if they had different ‘princes’. Kievan Rus is a modern invention, just like Byzantines.

 

[Samn!]

There never was a ‘Kievan’ Rus. The people called themselves Rus & saw themselves, Minsk & Moscow as belonging to the same 1 nation, even if they had different ‘princes’.

Not to mention Novgorod...

 

[Antonis]

I don't know much about Romfea. Are they generally anti-EP in their attitude?

No, they just aren’t unquestioningly pro-EP.

An example of a generally anti-EP publication would be Orthodoxos Typos.

 

[Mor Ephrem]

Thread locked pending review.

 

[Mor Ephrem]

Thread locked pending review.

Thread locked.