Andrew Sorokowski's column

A latter-day Meletii?

08.05.2015, 10:49
In terms of complexity and confusion, as well as the intrusion of political factors, our times resemble those of Smotryts’kyi and Mohyla. They require religious leaders of subtle intelligence and diplomatic skill – and followers who can appreciate them.

In terms of complexity and confusion, as well as the intrusion of political factors, our times resemble those of Smotryts’kyi and Mohyla. They require religious leaders of subtle intelligence and diplomatic skill – and followers who can appreciate them.

In early April, the council of the Kharkiv-Poltava autocephalous Orthodox eparchy, under Archbishop Ihor (Isichenko), asked Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Major Archbishop Sviatoslav and his Synod of Bishops for “fraternal advice” on achieving eucharistic communion and administrative unity with the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church (Interview with Archbishop Ihor, RISU, April 9, 2015). While asking advice is a long way from entering into negotiations, the measure was greeted with enthusiasm from some quarters and alarm from others. In the complex constellation of Ukraine’s major churches – the Kyivan Patriarchate, the Moscow Patriarchate, the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (UAOC), and the Greek-Catholic Church – could a lone hierarch and his eparchy contemplate independently entering into union with Rome? How would this affect attempts to unite the Ukrainian Orthodox into a single Church under the Patriarch of Constantinople? How would it affect relations between the UOC (Kyivan Patriarchate) and the UAOC? Would such a partial and premature union with Rome prejudice or even foreclose the chances of eventual union of the other Orthodox jurisdictions with the See of St. Peter? Some even compared Archbishop Ihor with the seventeenth-century churchman Meletii Smotryts’kyi. It was not meant as a compliment. And yet, there is some truth to the comparison.

Meletii Smotryts’kyi was born around 1577 into a prominent and active Ukrainian Orthodox family. He was, like Archbishop Ihor, a scholar and man of letters. As a monastic priest and later archbishop of Polotsk, he was one of the foremost defenders of Orthodoxy against the Union of Brest of 1596. He published a number of polemical works. But around 1627 – first secretly, then openly – he converted to Catholicism and endorsed the Union. Smotryts’kyi died in 1633, evidently disappointed at the failure of attempts to re-unite the Uniates and the Orthodox. To many Catholics, he was a hero who had seen the light of true Christian teaching. To many Orthodox, he was an opportunist and a traitor.

While finding that there is evidence for both views, the American philologist David Frick concludes that Smotryts’ky’s attitudes were much more broad, complex, and difficult to pin down. To Professor Frick, who published a monograph on Smotryts’kyi in 1995, it appears that the churchman favored an independent Rus’ patriarchate that would preserve the Orthodox spiritual, liturgical, and cultural heritage while achieving union with Rome. Some of his “ecumenical” ideas were shared by Orthodox metropolitan Peter Mohyla (in office 1633-1647). Unfortunately, Archbishop Meletii failed to convince either side in the Catholic-Orthodox controversy that this was the best solution.

Today’s situation is of course very different from that of the 1620s and 1630s. Then Ukraine was part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth; today it is independent. Then, the Patriarchate of Moscow (established in 1589) was a looming presence; today it controls Ukraine’s canonical Orthodox Church. The split between Uniates (today’s Greek-Catholics) and Orthodox is long established, while the Ukrainian Orthodox are themselves splintered into three churches. But in terms of complexity and confusion, as well as the intrusion of political factors, our times resemble those of Smotryts’kyi and Mohyla. They require religious leaders of subtle intelligence and diplomatic skill – and followers who can appreciate them. Thus, it may well be that Archbishop Ihor can be compared to Archbishop Meletii. But not in the sense in which his detractors intend.

Andrew Sorokowski

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