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Rev. Heorhii KOVALENKO: Churches must cooperate, for the sake of serving your neighbor

15.12.2011, 11:40
This time around the guest of My Word is press secretary for the Primate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Archpriest Heorhii KOVALENKO. Although the column is meant for interconfessional interviews, covering a range of issues important for the believers of all churches (and even non-believers), politics also was present here to a certain extent.

This time around the guest of My Word is press secretary for the Primate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Archpriest Heorhii KOVALENKO. Although the column is meant for interconfessional interviews, covering a range of issues important for the believers of all churches (and even non-believers), politics also was present here to a certain extent. It is quite understandable, given the recent religious developments in the country. And the spokesman for His Beatitude Metropolitan Volodymyr (Sabodan) is a most appropriate person to inquire about this.

“SPEAKING OF THE GENERAL CRISIS, IT SHOULD BE TAKEN AS A FAST”

How is Metropolitan Volodymyr feeling?

“Thank you, he is better now. But he has to go through a long rehabilitation treatment.”

By the way, recently I happened to be present at a Roman Catholic mass. They prayed, among other things, for the health of the primate of the UOC.

“You see, even in this way His Beatitude is performing his function.”

The website of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church has a rubric Primate’s Press Secretary’s Office. What questions worry your believers most often?

“The eternal ones. Sometimes, interconfessional or political issues. Speaking of the Internet users, they are a very curious audience, different from the parish. On the one hand, they are less associated with church, but on the other, they are more intelligent. Via the worldwide web such people are actually trying to find answers to the questions (often existential ones) that worry them.”

What shall we do with such virtues as, for instance, forgiveness and love, when life itself does not presuppose Christian piety and is becoming increasingly cynical and harsh?

“Ukraine’s history has seen tougher times than ours. For one, the 20th century, with its revolution, civil war, Holodomors, and Great Patriotic war. Remaining HUMAN in such times is a real challenge, but Christians proved that it is possible. And if it was possible in the 11th, 17th, or 20th centuries, then one can just as well be human and Christian in the 21st century.”

His Beatitude Liubomyr (Huzar) remarked once that everyone witnesses little and big miracles during one’s life. Yet it is not miracles but hardships that change us for the better. What will you say, given the political and economic crisis we are now experiencing?

“Unfortunately, we have unlearnt to rejoice and be happy with God’s smiles (I mean His big and little gifts), and to thank Him for everything. Instead, we think a lot about the world in general, but too little about our own lives. We spend way too much time in front of the TV, watching all manner of talk shows, but give too little time to our parents or children. And I can go on and on.

“Speaking of the general crisis, it should be taken as a fast. The way out of a crisis is through self-restriction. There is no other way out – the more so if the crisis results from the ideology of consumption. By the way, sometimes you don’t need to be rich in order to be happy.”

Now we have just entered a fast. What advice can you give to those who keep it?

“The Nativity Fast differs from Lent. The latter is associated with commemorating Christ’s sacrifice and is considered to be a period of repentance, whereas the Nativity Fast has an enlightening and charitable character. It includes St. Nicholas Day, when we must do good turns. And not only for our own children, but also for those who the saint himself took care of: orphans, children with special needs, big families, gravely ill people, or prisoners.

“As far as its enlightening component goes, we are preparing for the Nativity. In practice it means not only to celebrate Christ’s another birthday, but to have Infant Jesus born in our hearts.

“Speaking of modern peculiarities of the Nativity Fast, there is a problem with the New Year’s Day. The fasting does not stop on that day, but Church does not call upon the believers not to celebrate it. However, we should remember that Nativity is the climax of the winter festivities. We should remember that we have decorated a Christmas tree, and not a New Year tree, and crowned it with the star which is not a replica of the Kremlin star, but reminds us of the one that brought the Magi to the cave where Infant Jesus was. By the way, in olden days Christmas trees were decorated with fruit and candy, which wealthy citizens put up on community trees in public places. The children from poor families took them and were happy to have such presents.”

Treating the New Year’s Day as the major holiday of the year is a Soviet tradition. Before 1917, Orthodox Christian families celebrated Easter and Christmas as the main feasts. However, now we have a generation which did not have to go through atheistic persecution at school, university, or work. How do you see it?

“For a certain part of this generation faith is now something natural. For example, such boys and girls do not shun making a sign of the cross when they pass a church. Yet while the older generation suffered from militant atheism, the younger suffers from militant secularism and consumption ideology. Thus we have the same situation as in the parable of the sower: the grain of faith, which is being sown today, falls on different soil. Sometimes it grows. But sometimes it is smothered by everyday routine, money-making, and false values.

“It does not matter what political system or economic circumstances a person lives under: the soul is Christian by nature, and certain processes take place in it. In order to comprehend these processes, one must listen not only to the television, radio, and newspapers, but most of all, to one’s heart. This is where God speaks in a very low voice.”

The recent crowded veneration of the Belt of the Holy Theotokos, with a lot of VIPs making an appearance, was called an outward attribute rather than live faith by a Russian publicist Anton Orekh. According to him, a part of the same belt is kept in St. Petersburg, just as a piece of the Life-Giving Cross is kept in Moscow, but for some reason, believers do make such a tumult there. What do you think of this?

“Acts of faith are not always subject to rationalizing. A man can walk into a church on an impulse from the outside, but God uses it to touch his heart – via the words from the Gospels or venerating the holy relics. The rest is up to the individual to decide whether to respond to God’s call or not.

“No one could predict such long lines before the belt of the Holy Theotokos. But the Mother of God is our intercessoress and patroness. We appeal to her when we are in trouble. Maybe, the crowds of people who came to bow to the shrine, were the evidence of the hard times we are living in. The Almighty says: where two or three are gathered in His name, there is He among them. And who reveres the Mother of God, will also revere the One born of her.”

“THE MORE UKRAINIANS ARE TRUE AND NOT NOMINAL BELIEVERS, THE LESS GROUND WILL REMAIN THERE FOR THE SO-CALLED POLITICAL ORTHODOXY”

Recently the UOC became more open for a dialog with other Churches. A proof of this can be seen, for example, in your presence at the enthronement of the new primate of Ukrainian Greek Catholics, a joint service in memory of the victims of the Holodomors and political repressions, and a joint statement (together with the UOC-KP and UGCC representatives) on the current social and political situation in Ukraine. What was it predetermined by?

“It seems to me that our standpoint has not changed.

“Unfortunately, at the start of Ukraine’s independence politics broke into church gates and produced divisions, conflicts, misunderstandings, and the treatment of churches, based exclusively on political motives, without regard to their service. This is wrong. We have never assigned primary importance to politics. Moreover, we have been trying to unite people of various political standing. However, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church always had a certain political image imposed on it. Maybe, today we were able to disown it, and now we are no longer treated as a politically engaged organization.

“On the other hand, the revival of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church was also conducted under political slogans, among others. Perhaps, the Greek Catholics have also overcome that political trend. When we talk to them like Christians, we realize that we face challenges which we have to handle together. For the more Ukrainians are real believers, rather than only nominal Orthodox Christians or Greek Catholics, the less ground will remain there for the so-called political Orthodoxy or Catholicism, since it will be free for dialog. We need the dialog not in order to unite all in one church. Every believer should belong where they were baptized, where his parents or family go, and where their heart takes them. But churches should cooperate, for the sake of serving our neighbor.”

Next year we have a parliamentary election. If a political force turns to you for support, what are you going to do?

“Church does not support any political forces. And yet it can pay attention to someone’s good turns, including politicians’ as well. However, I would not recommend that clerics publicly express their political standpoint. Because when a man in a cassock tells about his political tastes, it is perceived as Church’s standpoint.”

Moreover, many people take your “patron” Patriarch Kirill’s visits [to Ukraine] as political ones.

“Our society is excessively politicized. Sometimes we hear what we actually long to hear. Patriarch Kirill is a Russian citizen. He lives in a certain information space and probably has a certain political standpoint. But when he comes over hear and speaks, he can reach millions via mass information media. And if you listen to him in the light of the Gospels, you will hear that he is saying nothing that can offend anyone in Ukraine.”

But most would like to hear Metropolitan Volodymyr instead, wouldn’t they?

“This is a question for the domestic mass media. His Beatitude Metropolitan Volodymyr has been speaking for two decades already, while he was able to speak loudly and emotionally. If you recall any violent events in our society, he would always make extensive statements, and the press and television would reproduce a phrase or two without taking a lot of trouble to comprehend the whole. Why don’t we get any newspaper or magazine columns, or air time on television? Because for our mass media, the guest is always more interesting than the host.”

And one last question: how do you think interdenominational peace can be secured?

“When everyone decides which church they belong to. Also, when a person starts attending this or another church not only because they were baptized there, but to answer the call of their heart, this will remove one of the foundations for interdenominational confrontation. On the other hand, if we succeed in keeping politics outside the church gate, we will have a lot fewer misunderstandings. And perhaps time has to pass to let the wounds heal. After all, new generations should come, which did not take a direct part in the conflicts. It is the young people in all the churches who demonstrate great readiness for a dialog and cooperation. They live with the future, not with the past.”

Nadia TYSIACHNA

15 December The Day