UOC-MP head shall be elected with participation of laity, says religious expert
Election of the Primate of the UOC (MP) should take place with participation of the faithful, says religionist Lyudmila Filipovich, Ph.D., professor, head of the Department of religious processes in Ukraine of the NAS Institute of Philosophy, Vice-President of the Ukrainian Association of Religious Studies, Executive Director of the Center for Religious Information and Liberty, reports Religion in Ukraine with a reference to Gazeta.ua.
“Kyiv Metropolis had been based on the principle of counciliar rule up to 1686, when it was absorbed by the Moscow Patriarchate. The counciliar rule means that the Church is governed by all its members: hierarchs, clergy and laity. This is one of the features of the Ukrainian church tradition”, says Lyudmila Filipovich. “The metropolitan’s elections in our church were carried out in a very strict manner. During the tenure of the Russian Tsar there was a different system of relations between the government and the church leadership, the so-called symphony, when a secular leader decides the fate of the church.”
The scholar points out that when in 1917 the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church appeared, the voice of the laity was decisive. “At that time the pro-Ukrainian bishops were few. Similarly, in 1991, when the Ukrainian Orthodox Church restored, the laity also participated in it”, says Lyudmila Filipovich.
In her view, the Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church should have initiated participation of parishioners in voting for the candidate Metropolitan of Kyiv and declare how it should proceed. “It is not fair when 76 bishops decide the fate of 12500 parishes. Each parish has its elder and its council of twenty people. They choose delegates at its meeting, representing the point of view of the parish. The decision of the parish to move from the Moscow Patriarchate to the Kyiv Patriarchate shall be taken in the same way. This is not a solution of a priest, but a collective unanimous decision of the whole parish,” argues Ludmila Filipovich. “When there is a laity representation, a number of issues embarrassing for the hierarchy arise. But Ukrainian parishioners have always intervened in the life of the church in difficult political conditions. The same should be done now as well.”
One hundred and twenty-one Metropolitans have chaired the Kyiv Throne since the Baptism of Rus by Prince Vladimir the Great in 988. The first was Anastasias of Korsun. Before coming to Kyiv he lived in Chersonesos – Korsun, as it was called in Rus, which was the center of Byzantine possessions in the Crimea. Now it lies within the borders of Sevastopol. Anastasias became a bishop and first rector of the Church of the Tithes in Kyiv. He participated in the baptism of Kyiv. He died after 1018.
The first Patriarch in the Church of Moscow appeared in 1589. Peter I abolished the patriarchate in 1721, and till 1918 the Church was governed by the Synod. The current title of “Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia” for the head of the Russian Orthodox Church was adopted in 1943 at the suggestion of Joseph Stalin.
Until recently the patriarch’s elections were conducted with participation of the laity.
