Vitaly Portnikov. Dad goes to Kyiv

Dad goes to Kyiv
Vitaly Portnikov

Publication date: November 10, 2000

The Vatican and the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry have officially confirmed that John Paul will visit Ukraine in June 2000. If health conditions do not prevent the pontiff from making this visit, it could turn out to be one of the most important trips in the history of the Polish pope's many journeys.

Official Kyiv has been inviting dad for a long time. During the last meeting with the pontiff in the Vatican, President Leonid Kuchma extended an invitation to him, clearly counting on the possibility of John Paul's arrival ╡╡ before the presidential elections in the country. The appearance of the head of state next to the Catholic high priest somewhere in Lvov could significantly improve Leonid Kuchma’s already good election chances in the western Ukrainian regions. However, dad was delayed in his arrival. And, of course, not because he was guided by the principle of non-interference in the Ukrainian election struggle. Most likely, John Paul still expected that his trip to Ukraine would be preceded by a visit to Russia. However, the Moscow Patriarchate has taken a rather tough position regarding the possible visit of the pope: as is known, on the eve of the first meeting of the new Russian President Vladimir Putin with the pontiff, which took place during Putin’s stay in Italy, the patriarchate called on the head of state not to confirm the invitation to visit Russia previously made by President Boris Yeltsin . Putin did not aggravate relations with the patriarch, and the Vatican realized that the new Russian leadership, preoccupied with the search for a national idea to a much greater extent than the previous administration, would, at least in the near future, listen to the wishes of its priests. Meanwhile - and this is no secret to anyone - the health of the Roman high priest leaves much to be desired. So each new visit of the pope is a kind of symbolic gesture designed to demonstrate the Vatican’s interest in contacts with the power chosen for the visit.

Why Ukraine? For the pope, this country is important not only from a political point of view - as the first Slavic pontiff, he visits the second most populous Slavic state, the territory of which was also one of the centers of baptism of Slavic tribes even before the formal break between Byzantium and Rome. The Pope is visiting a state that has become not just the border of the spread of Catholicism to the East, but also the center of the embodiment of the Vatican’s long-standing idea of ​​​​unifying churches under the leadership of the Pontiff of Rome, but while preserving the Eastern rite where it was adhered to before the conclusion of the union. A strong Uniate church has survived only in Ukraine, in its western regions. Despite the defeat after the Second World War, it not only restored its influence as a religious institution, but also regained its functions as a leading social and often political authority in the western regions of Ukraine. Therefore, being in the East and West of Ukraine will undoubtedly be different for dad. In the East, people gathering for his sermons will be a formally Orthodox, but actually indifferent to religion audience, who will simply be interested in looking at one of the largest figures of the outgoing century, a pope from a neighboring country, who knows Ukraine well, is able to understand Ukrainian and even speak it. There are very few Greek Catholics in the East - they are mainly from the western regions of the country. But there are small Catholic communities here, although famous for their traditions, for which the pope's visit promises to be a special event. In the West, the pope will be perceived as a welcome guest, a spiritual shepherd, a priest, whom all the previous decades of the “church in the catacombs” had been waiting for. The pope's arrival in Lviv will be a magnificent conclusion to the pastoral work of the seriously ill head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, the elderly Cardinal Miroslav-Ivan Lyubachivsky, and a tribute to the memory of his outstanding predecessors - Cardinal Joseph Slipyj and Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky. And at the same time, one should not discount the fact that the UGCC has a very difficult position in the Catholic world; even in its relations with the Vatican, a certain tension has always been felt, which was smoothed out a little only during the years of the liquidation of the church by the Stalinist regime. Pope John Paul ╡╡ became the first pontiff who was seriously concerned about the elimination of all the layers that had accumulated over the centuries after the signing of the Union of Brest, and perhaps his arrival in Lviv will be a demonstration of a new mutual understanding between Catholics and Greek Catholics - an understanding that was violated even in recent years, when Property conflicts broke out around Greek Catholic churches in the Pope's native Poland.

But, if we talk about the problems that may arise during the pontiff’s visit, the main ones, of course, are associated not with the Greek Catholic, but with the Orthodox hierarchs. The leading Orthodox Church in Ukraine, at least in terms of the number of parishes and parishioners, remains the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, which has not received autonomy. As you know, the Moscow Patriarchate itself has an extremely negative attitude towards the pope’s visit - it is obvious that, conditioning the pope’s arrival in Russia on the change in the situation in the Western Ukrainian regions, the Moscow Patriarchate would least like the pontiff to visit these very regions. However, for the head of the UOC-MP, Metropolitan Vladimir, to completely ignore the pope’s visit or treat it with outright hostility means creating tension in relations with the Ukrainian authorities. The Metropolitan does not need this tension: the government of Viktor Yushchenko turned out to be the first cabinet seriously concerned about the creation of a national Orthodox Church that has a status recognized in the Orthodox world. Deputy Prime Minister Academician Nikolai Zhulinsky has already met several times on this issue in Istanbul with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, and judging by the results of these meetings, the negotiation process will continue. So the Moscow Patriarchate has yet to take a balanced position, which, on the one hand, would be reminiscent of its previous conditions, and on the other, would not turn Metropolitan Vladimir into an outcast and... a possible ally of the head of the Kyiv Patriarchate Filaret. The unrecognized patriarch, by the way, is also by no means a supporter of the pope’s visit, but he is unlikely to spoil relations with the authorities. Moreover, the Kyiv Patriarchate has the strongest positions precisely in the western regions and the local leadership is unlikely to understand the priesthood of the UOC-KP if it begins to speak out against the pontiff’s visit. The Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (UAOC), which is under the omophorion of the Ecumenical Patriarch, will most likely take a calm position, especially since so far the ecumenical territory of the UAOC is not Ukraine itself, but the countries of residence of the Ukrainian diaspora.

In any case, even a brief listing of the churches existing in Ukraine demonstrates how complex the religious situation is here. The pope's visit could become a kind of signal of reconciliation not only between the Orthodox themselves, but also between them and the Greek Catholics. In many countries of the world, John Paul managed to accomplish something (call it a miracle, or call it a well-calibrated move by a wise politician) that destroyed the wall of mistrust between the Catholic and non-Catholic populations, bringing people of different faiths closer to each other. For Ukraine, which has been at the crossroads of religious passions for the last decade, this could indeed be very important.