Church of God News

St Sophia’s Cathedral in Kyiv, Ukraine
(Photo by Paweł ‘pbm’ Szubert)

COGwriter

CBS reported the following:

Orthodox Church Row Threatens US Aid to Ukraine

December 25, 2023

Ukrainian Orthodox Christians attended services on Sunday as the country for the first time celebrated Christmas on December 25, after the government changed the date from January 7, when most Orthodox believers celebrate, as a snub to Russia.

“All Ukrainians are together,” said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in a Christmas message released Sunday evening. “We all celebrate Christmas together. On the same date, as one big family, as one nation, as one united country.” …

“We believe that we really should celebrate Christmas with the whole world, far away, far away from Moscow. For me, that’s the new message now,” said one smiling parishioner, Olena, whose son is a medic on the front line.

“We really want to celebrate in a new way. This is a holiday with the whole of Ukraine, with our independent Ukraine. This is very important for us,” she told AFP.

Notice that the government of Ukraine made the change.

While this is portrayed as a snub against Russia, it is also a snub against the rest of the Eastern Orthodox Catholics who use the January 7 date.

This attitude of Ukraine’s government towards religion is not a new one in 2023. Notice, for example, two reports from last December;

December 2, 2022

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine on Friday banned the activities of religious organizations “affiliated with centers of influence” in Russia and said it would examine the links between the Ukrainian and Russian Orthodox churches.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed a decree enacting a National Security and Defense Council decision to impose personal sanctions against representatives of religious organizations associated with Russia, which invaded Ukraine more than nine months ago.

Zelenskyy’s decree additionally provided for examining the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, one of two Orthodox bodies in Ukraine following a schism that in 2019 resulted in the establishment of one with independence from the Russian church.  …

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov accused Ukrainian authorities last week of “waging a war on the Russian Orthodox Church.” …

Orthodox Christians are the largest religious population in Ukraine. But they have been fractured along lines that echo political tensions over Ukraine’s defense of its independence and its Western orientation amid Russia’s continued claim to political and spiritual hegemony in the region — a concept sometimes called the “Russian world.” https://apnews.com/article/zelenskyy-kyiv-religion-europe-government-and-politics-7eaf9ac19b000a2147f0204877a0004e

December 12, 2022

Zelensky’s skill at public relations, which has led many to regard any criticism of him or his government as Russian propaganda.

Yet a closer look at life in Zelensky’s Ukraine reveals that it is not the paragon of democracy and Western values that everyone seems to think it is. Ukraine is a deeply corrupt country with wealthy oligarchs playing the same role there as they do in Putin’s Russia. Using the war as an excuse, Zelensky has banned his political opposition and shut down all media not controlled by his regime.

The latest example of his authoritarian style is even more egregious.

Zelensky’s attempt to bar Orthodox churches that answer to the Russian Orthodox Church ought to dispel any notion that Americans are supporting Western values of freedom in this war. …

The discovery of pro-Russia literature in some churches is being proclaimed as proof of treason. Others are dismissing the initial cries of outrage as misinformation. Zelensky hasn’t banned the Orthodox Church, his apologists say. Orthodox Christians are free to worship and attend services, but only in approved Ukrainian Orthodox churches that look to religious leaders in Kyiv rather than Moscow. …

This approach toward the Orthodox Church clearly contradicts those eager to portray this war as a clear-cut conflict between an authoritarian oppressor and a democratic underdog.

While Putin, in his quest to reassemble the old Tsarist and Soviet empires, should not be allowed to extinguish Ukraine’s right to self-determination, the reality on the ground is that many ethnic Russians and Russian speakers living in the country don’t identify with Ukrainian nationalism. So even churches that take no part in the conflict are seen by Zelensky and his cohorts as enemies. …

The apt comparison for Zelensky’s move against the Russian Orthodox Church here is not to democracies under siege but to communist China, which for decades limited Christian worship to only those Catholic or Protestant churches that pledged fealty to Beijing and the Communist Party and not to any independent religious authority. https://www.newsweek.com/zelensky-defender-democracy-opponent-religious-freedom-opinion-1766012

Volodymyr Zelensky  is a secular Jew. Yet, let me point out that it is not just the current government of Ukrainian with that approach or attitude.

Back in 2018, shortly thereafter, leaders in Ukraine met to become independent of the Moscow patriarch. Here is a report:

15 December 2018

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has announced the creation of an independent Ukrainian Orthodox Church, marking a historic split from Russia.

He said national security depended on “spiritual independence” from Russia.

He was speaking at a special council of orthodox priests in Kiev, where a new leader of the Church was selected.

The Russian Orthodox Church cut ties with the spiritual authority of the world’s Orthodoxy after it recognised the Ukrainian Church’s independence.

Russia also fears that its churches in Ukraine could be seized. …

The special council was held in the ancient St Sophia’s Cathedral – one of Kiev’s best known landmarks.

Ukrainian clerics of different Orthodox denominations – including some bishops from the Moscow branch – elected Metropolitan Epifaniy as the leader of the new church.

“This day will go into history as a sacred day… the day of the final independence from Russia,” President Poroshenko told a crowd of thousands outside the cathedral. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-46575548

Years back, the Russian church was concerned about this and asked for international assistance. And while the Vatican and the World Council of Churches were sympathetic to the Russia position, the Patriarch of Constantinople made a ruling in favor of the nationalistic Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

There was not some new doctrinal change in the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) that caused Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople to recognize the Ukrainian Orthodox church as independent of the ROC.

Basically, that schism was due to politics. And since Jesus was not born on December 25th, the shift in date by the government of Ukraine was also about politics. Those in Western Europe and the USA — the suppliers of most of the funds and military equipment to Ukraine, observe Christmas on December 25th.

Notice also the following about the split between Ukraine and the Russian Orthodox Church back in December 2018– and the particular words of which I bolded:

A council of Orthodox bishops has created a new Ukrainian church, marking an historic split from Russia which its leaders see as vital to the country’s security and independence.

The announcement on Saturday came after Ukrainian priests held a synod in capital Kiev’s 11th-century Saint Sophia Cathedral to establish an Orthodox church independent from Moscow. …

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko announced that 39-year-old Metropolitan Epifaniy of the Kiev Patriarchate church is the head of the new church. His secular name is Sergiy Dumenko. …

“Ukraine was not, is not, and will not be the canonical territory of the Russian church,” Poroshenko said, adding that an independent Ukrainian Orthodox Church was now a “matter of national security”. …

In Moscow, the Russian Orthodox Church protested vigorously and dismissed the synod as uncanonical.

Vladimir Legoida, a spokesman for the Moscow church, told Russian state television that the Kiev synod had “no church, religious or evangelical meaning” and that it will have “no canonical consequences”.

Representatives of Ukraine’s three Orthodox Churches attended the synod, but only two from the branch loyal to Moscow showed up.

Russian bishop Metropolitan Hilarion in Volokolamsk on Saturday compared the two representatives of the Moscow-backed church to Judas. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/12/ukraine-creates-orthodox-church-independent-russia-181215171220016.html

Like the old Roman Emperors Constantine and Theodosius, rulers of Ukraine place their government over religion.

Actually, it was the sun god worshiping Emperor Constantine who wanted the December 25th originally as it was celebrated as the birthday of the sun god Mithra.  The Catholic Encyclopedia notes:

Constantine the Great… Constantine can rightfully claim the title of Great, for he turned the history of the world into a new course and made Christianity…the religion of the State… it is easy to understand that many of the emperors yielded to the delusion that they could unite all their subjects in the adoration of the one sun-god who combined in himself the Father-God of the Christians and the much-worshipped Mithras; thus the empire could be founded anew on unity of religion. Even Constantine…cherished this mistaken belief… Could not Sol Deus Invictus, to whom even Constantine dedicated his coins for a long time, or Sol Mithras Deus Invictus, venerated by Diocletian and Galerius, become the supreme god of the empire?  Constantine may have pondered over this. Nor had he absolutely rejected the thought even after a miraculous event had strongly influenced him in favour of the God of the Christians… It is true that the believers in Mithras also observed Sunday as well as Christmas. Consequently Constantine speaks not of the day of the Lord, but of the everlasting day of the sun.  (Herbermann C., Georg Gp. Constantine the Great. The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 4. Nihil Obstat. Remy Lafort, Censor. Imprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York.  New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1908).

Mithraism A pagan religion consisting mainly of the cult of the ancient Indo-Iranian Sun-god Mithra. It entered Europe from Asia Minor after Alexander’s conquest, spread rapidly over the whole Roman Empire at the beginning of our era, reached its zenith during the third century, and vanished under the repressive regulations of Theodosius at the end of the fourth century…Helios Mithras is one god…Sunday was kept holy in honour of Mithra, and the sixteenth of each month was sacred to him as mediator. The 25 December was observed as his birthday, the natalis invicti, the rebirth of the winter-sun, unconquered by the rigours of the season (Arendzen J. Mithraism. The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume X. Nihil Obstat, October 1, 1911. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor. Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1911).

This is not new, but this has been a factor in the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

Back in December 2018, I also posted:

The schism between Constantinople and the ROC has the potential to cause Ukraine to split with part supporting Russia. (Thiel B. Ukrainian Orthodox meet to become separate: Russian Orthodox ask for the UN to intervene. COGwriter, December 15, 2018)

That has since happened. The Donbas region is in support of Russia, aligned with it, and last year was annexed by Russia.

That being said, yes politics plays a role in what is happening between Russia and Ukraine.

But religion is also involved as political leaders have long invoked it when it comes to military conflict.

While there will, at some point, be a temporary acceptance of the Ukrainian and Russian Orthodox churches with each other (as there will be temporal success of the interfaith and ecumenical movements), the current situation has been a factor in the shedding of blood in Ukraine and territories it once controlled.

Pray to the Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:6) for God’s kingdom to come (Matthew 6:10).

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This entry was posted on Monday, December 25th, 2023 at 8:00 am and is filed under Religious News.

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