“Conduct That is Intentionally
Disruptive and Egregious, Longstanding, Willful and Deliberate.”
Judge Roger F. Mahon, Superior Court of New
Jersey
The photograph shows a young woman,
in uniform, with a machine gun strapped over her right shoulder. Maria Krotiuk. The December 15, 2000, issue of Svoboda carried an in
memoriam article about her. It
wrote how she fought with the OUN, making no distinction between the “Melnyk” and
“Bandera” factions, and then how she continued the struggle in the DP camps of
Germany. She started a new life with
her husband in Minnesota, then Colorado, all the while yearning for an
independent Ukraine and Church. She dedicated her new life to those goals,
funding innumerable church and community projects. She died on July 15, 2000, and was buried next to her husband, in
South Bound Brook, N. J., the administrative center of the “Ukrainian Orthodox
Church in the USA” (UOCUSA). Maria had
traveled a tortured path from Ukraine to her final resting place in the
“Ukrainian Jerusalem.”
And
that’s how the center at Bound Brook is known the world over. There’s hardly a Ukrainian in the diaspora
who doesn’t know that its St. Andrew’s Memorial Church was built “in prayerful
commemoration of the heroes and all martyrs of the Ukrainian nation who laid
down their lives for the freedom and
statehood of Ukraine.” And who doesn’t know that the “Pantheon Cemetery” is a memorial
for all Ukrainians, the final resting place for Orthodox, Catholics, and Evangelicals, alike. Buried there are Ukrainian villagers and
laborers. Educators, artists and authors, such as long time director of the
Ukrainian Bandurist Chorus, Hryhoryj Kytastyj, and renown musicologist Wasyl
Wytwytcky. Organizers of Ukrainian life in the Diaspora and in Ukraine, such as
Denys Kwitkowsky and Dmytro Dontsiw.
Former presidents of the Ukrainian National Republic (UNR), Andriy
Levytsky and Stepan Vytvytsky; the
Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the UNR, Borys Martos; the President of
the Ukrainian National Council, Borys Ivanytsky; the Minister of Postal and
Telegraph Services of the UNR, Ivan Palyvoda.
In the middle of the cemetery a
massive granite cross commemorates fighters for Ukrainian freedom. Engraved on the cross is the Ukrainian
national emblem, and the insignias of Ukrainian armies. At its foot is the
first ledger from the grave of Simon Petliura, murdered by a Russian agent in
Paris. Petliura, it will be recalled,
was the head of the Directorate of the UNR that passed the 1919 decree on the
autocephaly (independence) of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. Petliura also was
the uncle of Patriarch Mstyslav. Buried in Bund Brook are other commanders of
the Ukrainian struggle for freedom -- Gen. Oleksander Zahrods’kyj, Gen. Pavlo Shandruk, Col. Petro Diachenko;
Otoman of the Polissian Sich Taras Bulba-Borovetz and his Chief of Staff, Petro
Smorodsky; the chairman of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group, Gen. Petro Hryhorenko;
other officers and soldiers of the Ukrainian National Army and of the Ukrainian
Insurgent Army.
A statue of Metropolitan Vasyl’
Lypkivskyj, the revered primate of the reborn Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church that was reborn in Kyiv in
1921, stands next to the Memorial Church.
A fiery advocate of an autocephalous national church that was rooted in
the laity, Metropolitan Lypkivskyj was
executed by the Russians, as were virtually all the bishops and clergy of the
UAOC. The sole survivor of the Russian
manhunt was the UOCUSA’s own long-time leader, Metropolitan Ioan
Teodorovich. He had been consecrated by
Metropolitan Lypkivskyj’ in Kyiv’s St. Sophia Cathedral at the first Sobor of
the UAOC in 1921, and then sent to the United States and Canada to establish
dioceses for the Mother Church in Ukraine. The Ukrainian Orthodox Word
wrote that Archbishop Teodorovich “brought with him the light enkindled during
the 1921 Sobor held in St. Sophia in Kyiv.” Very symbolically, after the
assassination of Petliura, Archbishop Teodorovich wore his cross, with seven
bullets engraved on it representing the
assassin’s tools.
Metropolitan Teodorovich, who blessed the land for the Bound Brook
cemetery, is buried there, as are other
clergy and bishops. So are the remains
of Oleksander Lototsky, perhaps the foremost lay contributor to the
autocephalist movement of the UAOC and Ukraine’s ambassador to Turkey in
1919-20. An uncompromising patriot and
president of the Ukrainian National Council,
Lototsky played a pivotal role
in securing the release from exile in Russia of the Ukrainian Catholic
Metropolitan Andriy Sheptytskyj, in whom he saw common support for the Ukrainian national movement.) Also
buried there is Olena Chechivska, the wife of the chief ideologue of the UAOC,
Volodymyr Chechivsky. Chechivsky headed
the cabinet of the Directory of the Ukrainian National Republic, and was
executed in the Siberian tundra. And,
of course, buried in Bound Brook is Patriarch Mstyslav, the prime mover in the
establishment of Bound Brook in the first place, and Prime Hierarch of the
Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church in Ukraine and the Diaspora.
In short, Bound Brook is a searing
reminder, on American soil, of Russian despotism in Ukraine.
So who, then, is Jonathan Russin?
Martindale-Hubbell Law Directory
lists Russin as the name partner in the Washington, D. C. international law
firm of Russin & Vecchi, with offices in Moscow, Vladivostok, Hanoi and Ho
Chi Minh City, among others. Listed as
one of his credentials is the “Order of
Prince St. Vladimir” [sic], awarded by the Russian Orthodox Church in
Moscow. It is headed by the same
Patriarch Alexei II, still unrepentant, that Estonian investigators have
determined was the KGB officer code named “Drozdov.” Russin is also listed as the General Counsel of the “Orthodox
Church in America” (OCA), renamed from
the Russian Orthodox Church in America
that Patriarch Mstyslav repeatedly warned was intent on subverting Bound
Brook. Russin is also listed as the “Washington Representative” of the Russian Orthodox Church in Moscow. But what was he
doing in Bound Brook in April, 1999, meeting with Archbishop Antony and
Rev. Frank Estocin, Secretary of the Consistory, among others?
Ukrainians should also ask why is
the name of Stalin’s hero, Alexandr Nevsky, distributed in the very interior of
the Memorial Church for the famine victims?
And why does Fr. Stefan Zencuch of St. Andrew’s parish in metropolitan
Washington, D.C. (Archbishop Antony’s cathedral), distribute an insert in the
parish newsletter where Prince Askol’d
is “Russian,” where Kyiv is “Russian”, where Ukrainian churches are
“Russian” churches, where Ukrainian history is “Russian” history. Why does another of Bound Brook’s newly
minted priests write that, “Most of my own
contacts have been with the Russian Church.
I love its mind and still seek to serve Russian Orthodoxy on its own
soil.” And why does Archbishop
Vsevolod’s website incorporate a description of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church as the “Russian Orthodox Church.” Even before that, The Ukrainian Orthodox
Word in one of its issues adopted the characterization of Ukrainians as
Russians.
In answering these questions would
it help to know that, after the “Points of Agreement” that Bound Brook’s
bishops struck in 1994-95 with the Ecumenical Patriarchate/Church of
Constantinople, they became members of the “Standing Conference of Canonical
Orthodox Bishops in the Americas,” that brings together “canonical” hierarchs
of the Orthodox jurisdictions in the U.S. and Canada. SCOBA has worked for decades for the “unification” of all North
American Orthodox churches into one, non-ethnic, generic American Orthodox
Church. For decades it refused to “recognize” the UOCUSA unless Bound Brook
officially surrendered any claim of autocephaly and disowned the founding
fathers of the Church, the bishops of the UAOC in the 1920's, meaning
Metropolitan Lypkivskyj and Teodorovich.
The OCA plays a key
role in SCOBA, and for decades has been in the forefront of vilifying Bound Brook. Key players in the OCA itself are such
vulgar Ukrainophobes as John Meyendorff, who views Ukrainians simply as
Russians who have gone astray. And the
OCA’s Alexander Schmemann regularly attacked Bound Brook for decades. He wrote that “The Ukrainian
‘autocephalists’ have never openly and consistently denounced and condemned as
heretical and incompatible with Orthodoxy the non-episcopal consecration of
Lypkivskyj, which is the very source of their existence.” “The Ukrainian problem has reached now the
point of no return.”
In 1998, Alexander Schmemann's son,
Pulitzer Prize‑winning U.S. journalist Serge Schmemann, who spent many
years in Moscow as a correspondent for The New York Times, told Ecumenical News
International in a telephone interview from Israel that his father's work "inspired and encouraged many
believers in Soviet‑era Russia, including Moscow’s Patriarch Alexei II,
who often spoke of Father Schmemann as 'my great teacher.'” In November 2000, the OCA reported on a meeting
between the OCA’s primate, Metropolitan Theodosius and Metropolitan Kirill,
head of the Department of External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarch and
Drozdov’s right hand man: “In his
remarks at the reception, Metropolitan Theodosius spoke of the years of
cooperation between the OCA and the Moscow Patriarchate and reaffirmed the
close bond which has developed between the two churches. Metropolitan Kirill thanked Metropolitan
Theodosius for his remarks and noted that he cannot imagine the relationship
between the OCA and the Moscow Patriarchate being any closer than it is at the
present time.” Theodosius is a close
personal friend of “our” Metropolitan Constantine in Bound Brook.
Needless to say,
Metropolitan, and then Patriarch, Mstyslav was a furious opponent of the OCA,
warning that in line with the decision of the Moscow Synod of Bishops in 1971,
the destruction of Bound Brook was on the
agenda. “Let us not forget that
the enemy of Christ and of our devout people would want to drown our Holy
Ukrainian Orthodox Church in an international
sea and erase from our memory the image of our pious ancestors and those
who suffered martyrdom for the Martyr-Church -- the Holy Ukrainian Orthodox
Church.” However, with Patriarch
Mstyslav safely embalmed, Bound Brook now embraces the OCA and also the Carpatho-Russian Church, whose priest, Fr.
Michael Conrad, recently publicized
contempt for “the hyper-nationalistic jingoism of the Ukrainian autocephalers”
With goose-stepping conformity, Bound Brook today denies that the UOCUSA was
ever autocephalous.
What was earlier only suspect, is
now clear, ominous and obscene. The
website of the “Ukrainian” Jerusalem, in its section on the history of the UOCUSA, has no mention, not a single word, about
Metropolitan Lypkivskyj. Earlier, in
1981, The Ukrainian Orthodox Word wrote that he was “God’s gift to our
people.” Today, try to find his writings in Bound Brook. You won’t.
After all, Archbishop Tikhon of the OCA sneered last year that Metropolitan Lypkivskyj’s
consecration “was a farce and a comedy.” As a matter of fact, try to find works
of other Ukrainian theologians in Bound Brook.
They were being quietly withdrawn for
years. Instead, the unbridled
propaganda of the OCA’s Schmemann and Meyendorff are now front and center in
Bound Brook’s book store and in the Consistory.
At the consecration of John Scharba
as “Bishop Antony” in 1986, Metropolitan Mstyslav said: “I prayed fervently and
sincerely for you, Father Vladyko, I prayed that the Almighty God --
Ruler of the human heart -- would reinforce your heart with a burning love for
the native Church. Beyond any earthly
measure, my soul will be unspeakably aggrieved if you, Vladyko, become
part of an effort to weaken our Church.”
He begged that Bozhe Velykyj
Yedynyj (The One and Only Lord) continue to unite all. Bozhe Velykyj, a prayer for the
protection of Ukraine, is one of the most revered Ukrainian prayers. Today, it is derisively dismissed by Bound Brook as “not even a prayer,” and
is being shut out of the parishes.
The
memorial book of Patriarch Mstyslav’s funeral in June 1993, contains voluminous
expressions of sympathy and professions of loyalty to “our Patriarch” and to one worldwide UAOC, uniting both the U.S. and the rest of the
diaspora with Ukraine. But the booklet also contains two letters from the “Carpatho-Russian” Church
and the OCA. The OCA letter carefully
referred to the deceased as
“Metropolitan,” not “Patriarch,” and
addressed only the faithful, clergy and hierarchs of the UOCUSA, avoiding any reference to the faithful in Ukraine or elsewhere in the
world. Likewise, the letter from the
Carpatho-Russian Church referred to him simply as “Hierarch.” Why did
Archbishop Antony, compiler of the booklet, include those two letters? Because it was the subliminal introduction
of the total gutting of Bound Brook that was to reveal itself with an
accelerating tempo now that Patriarch Mstyslav was no more. Those two letters today set down the law: we
now are told simply it’s “not true” that Bound Brook and the rest of the
Orthodox Diaspora was reunited into one Church with the revival of the
Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church in Ukraine in 1990 under Patriarch
Mstyslav.
Several years ago, The Ukrainian
Orthodox Word wrote that Bound
Brook’s St. Sophia Seminary had a “sacred trust.” What is that trust? It’s
described in the Seminary charter: “the
purpose for which the [Seminary] is organized is to provide the Ukrainian
Autocephalous Orthodox Church in the United States of America, Ukraine, and the
diaspora with qualified priest-pastors to serve the spiritual needs of
Ukrainian Orthodox faithful and parishes which come under the immediate
jurisdiction of His Holiness Patriarch Mstyslav and his lawful successors.” The charter is signed by “His Holiness Patriarch Mstyslav
Skrypnyk.” Fr. Estocin was the
Seminary Rector at the time. After
Patriarch Mstyslav’s death, the academic dean of the Seminary and the editor of
its St. Sophia Quarterly was from the OCA.
And today, Fr. Estocin insists
that the Church was never autocephalous, that it did not embrace both Ukraine
and the U.S., and that only Metropolitan, not Patriarch, Mstyslav was in the
U.S. (The Ukrainian Orthodox Word
today also writes that Fr. John Thomas Allumattil is a graduate of the Seminary
and “the rector of the Orthodox Cathedral in Madras, India and head of their
educational institutions.” Is this the
“sacred trust” to which Ukrainians
contributed their paltry earnings?).
And how is it possible that the very
foundations of the UOCUSA as a specifically Ukrainian Orthodox church are now
said to never have existed? Yet
it was only yesterday that Archbishop Constantine, Bishop Antony, Dr. Anatolij
Lysyj, Fr. John Nakonachny and other key clergy and laity wrote that Bound
Brook’s “ideological basis was the principles set forth and proclaimed at the
First All-Ukrainian Sobor of 1921: autocephaly and sobornist’ in
life and administration and the restoration of ancient Ukrainian ecclesiastical
traditions and the native language in church services.” This very specifically included the historic
parish right to select and dismiss clergy, and to own and control its own
property and assets. In court
documents discussed below, Archbishop Antony also now says that the UOCUSA was never a part of
the Mother Church in Ukraine, whether at the time of its establishment in the
1920's or at any time afterwards. On
this point, he went to even a greater extreme than the OCA, which always viewed
the UOCUSA as a church “in exile.” So
did all Ukrainians worldwide. So did
everyone else, friend and foe alike.
On March 12, 1995, the UOCUSA
bishops celebrated in Istanbul the “Points of Agreement” that they had secretly
entered into in December 1994. Promptly
afterwards, the Press Office of the Church of Constantinople announced that
“the move was a step toward the settlement of the issue of the Diaspora.” What
“issue,” from the standpoint of the Church of Constantinople, was settled? And
why did Bound Brook conceal this “issue” from the faithful? Does it help to know that Bishop Vsevolod
wrote that at his consecration in 1987 he was “instructed” by Archbishop
Iakovos of the Greek Archdiocese in the U.S. that it was his (Vsevolod’s) duty
to bring Bound Brook under the jurisdiction of the Church of
Constantinople? Does it help to know
that on June 4, 1988, at a moleben’ service with Bishop Vsevolod, the same
Archbishop Iakovos again expressed his desire to see all Ukrainian united into
one Church? This time, however, Bishop
Antony was also present and participated, as a guest of Archbishop
Iakovos. Why did Bound Brook’s bishops
and selected clergy and laity, all “trustees” with the moral and legal
responsibility of speaking the truth and preserving the autocephaly of the
UOCUSA, instead sell the Points of
Agreement to the faithful as simply “recognition,”of the UOCUSA’s autocephaly,
and that the purpose was to assist in the unification and “recognition” of the
Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Ukraine?
The answer
is because the Istanbul deal is not intended as a means to aid the Church in
Ukraine, but as a back door mechanism to once and for all separate the Church
in the Diaspora from Ukraine -- to achieve precisely what Metropolitan Mstyslav
warned against. Speaking in 1967 before
the Ukrainian Orthodox League, he warned about the threat of the Church being
drowned in an “international sea” and where it and “all the other Orthodox
Churches of the USA would be
assimilated, liquidating themselves as national-religious entities and severing
the ties with their own Mother Church and its traditions.” The process of amputating the Orthodox
Diaspora from Ukraine began many decades before Mr. Russin’s meeting in Bound
Brook, having its origins in the 1930's.
The 1936 Sobor of the UOCUSA resolved: “Today our Ukrainian
Autocephalous Orthodox Church in Ukraine is destroyed by Moscow’s godless
regime of occupation. However, this
should not be a reason for our Church in the United States of America to look
for protection or support under the omophor of any other church, because
such a search may imperceptibly but steadily lead our Church to a dependency on
others and loss of her autocephaly.” Again,
Metropolitan Mstyslav warned: “Should
we now or in the future be denied our historical uniqueness, and subjected to
hierarchs of other nationalities in other lands, our ancestral traditions would
be lost forever.”
The secret deal with the Church of
Constantinople broke the dam. The
Points of Agreement was the tool. “Helping Ukraine” was the marketing
message. The result is the foreign
take over, from within, of a revered Ukrainian
institution.
Court documents in one of the
lawsuits that will be discussed below reveal a
June 11, 1997, letter from Fr.
Frank Estocin, Secretary of the Consistory, to Metropolitan Council Member Dr.
Anatolij Lysyj: “All of us should most certainly
decide where we really want to belong. . . . We . . . went to the Ecumenical
Patriarchate voluntarily; No one compelled
us. As of March 12, 1995 we voluntarily
became bishops and priests of Ecumenical Throne, subject to its discipline and
order. Putting it bluntly, the ship
sails with the Ecumenical Patriarchate.
If that seems not to fit the agenda of some, then those who feel bound
in conscience should extricate themselves from Constantinople and seek
spiritual and administrative solace under the omoforion of one of the
three [!] patriarchates in Ukraine.”
So much for Bishop Antony and Archbishop Constantine who wrote in their
1990 Archpastoral Easter Letter, “The Church cannot be subordinated to foreign domain, nor is
it to be subjected to the influence thereof.”
Here there is no innocence, no naiveté, no mere mistake. The group of bishops, clergy and laity -- who
are trustees, after all -- who planned the defection were from the very
beginning exquisitely aware of what they were doing, with whom they were doing
it, to what purpose they were committing and what they were betraying. At the same time, and to this very day, they
were publishing in The Ukrainian Weekly, in Svoboda, in The
Ukrainian Orthodox Word and in other newspapers the very contrary. This was
done knowingly, intentionally, deliberately.
Thus, for example, Ukrainian Orthodox Word published the March
1995 ceremonies in Turkey, including the March 11, 1995, address of Patriarch
Bartholomew to Metropolitan Constantine. But Bound Brook carefully
deleted the critical first two paragraphs of his speech which identified Metropolitan Constantine’s new position as a
bishop of the Church of Constantinople.
Court documents reveal the
missing text that Bound Brook intentionally censored: “Most Reverend and beloved brother in
the Lord, Metropolitan Constantine of Eirenoupolis: Abounding with great joy,
we announce to you your election to the ancient and venerable see of
Eirenoupolis, to which your fellow-hierarchs of the Holy and Sacred Synod of
the Ecumenical Patriarchate have, as one united soul, unanimously elected you
today.” Little wonder that Bound
Brook did not publish this.
For the same reason, Bound Brook
also censored Patriarch Bartholomew’s address to Archbishop Antony and the
since deceased Bishop Paisiy. As to
the former, Patriarch Bartholomew began:
“Most Reverend and beloved brother in the Lord,
Archbishop Antony of Hierapolis: We
have received the glad tidings of your election to the ancient and venerable
see of Hierapolis. Our heart is
overfilled with joy as we welcome you into the hierarchy of the Ecumenical
Patriarchate . . Now you are a worthy
bishop of the First Throne of Orthodoxy.” Similar acknowledgment was made to Bishop Paisiy.
In that same address, Patriarch
Bartholomew referred, delicately, to the fact that, in switching jurisdictions, Archbishop Antony himself acted “not knowing how [the] faithful would accept it.” This is especially revealing. If all this was “good,” if the deal was
nothing more than “recognition,” why would there be any question about how the
faithful would accept it? After all,
according to Bound Brook, this is what the faithful were striving for
decades. That statement shows, once
again, how very deliberate and intentional the deception of the faithful was.
There is more, however. Bound Brook has insisted all along that the
deal in Istanbul was not at its own initiative and that, to the contrary, it
was invited, quite unexpectedly, to Turkey at the initiative of Patriarch
Bartholomew. Among other places,
Metropolitan Constantine told the 15th Sobor in 1998: “We were invited to the ecumenical throne. We did not
request it -- we were invited.”
But in his address on March 12, 1995, during the divine liturgy,
Patriarch Bartholomew said something quite different: “It
would be superfluous to emphasize the willingness of the part of the Church of
Constantinople . . . to acknowledge your sacred request which you have
devotedly and praiseworthily submitted.” And again, after the festivities, Patriarch Bartholomew wrote in his Protocol #337 to Archbishop
Iakovos of the Greek Archdiocese in the U.S. that Metropolitan Constantine and
Archbishop Antony had “appropriately and repeatedly
expressed their wishes in the matter.” So who is lying?
Furthermore, in his March 11 address
to Archbishop Antony, Patriarch Bartholomew said: “We know that yours will be an unconditional devotion to this
throne because of the mutual trust and understanding that has been cultivated
between us.” When and for how long was
this “cultivation” going on? How could
it have been going on at all if this was, as Bound Brook says, just a big
surprise to them all? The fact is that
this was planned for many years, while Patriarch Mstyslav was still alive. After a sufficiently long waiting period
following his death, Bound Brook moved forward.
The key publicist in the
manipulation of the press and the community at large, in addition to Metropolitan Constantine and Archbishop Antony, is
long-time Metropolitan Council member Dr. Anatolij Lysyj. He very insistently described the
relationship with the Ecumenical Patriarchate as only “spiritual unity,”
“Eucharistic unity,” and “communion.”
Both before Fr. Estocin’s letter and afterwards to this day, Dr. Lysyj
flooded the Ukrainian press with articles categorically reaffirming that
nothing has changed, that the UOCUSA remains as before, autocephalous and sobornopravna.
Repeated assurances were given that “nothing would change” that “everything will remain the same.” Ukrainians in the diaspora and Ukraine were
told that the deal was the long overdue “recognition” of the Bound Brook’s
autocephaly that Metropolitan Mstyslav always wanted.
The packaging was
seductive. The Consistory loudly
publicized that the Istanbul deal “will also serve to positively effect the
unity of our Church in independent Ukraine and secure and strengthen the
position of the Kyyivan Throne as spiritual center and the Mother Church of
Ukrainian Orthodox Christians in Ukraine and beyond its now recognized borders
[in other words, including Bound Brook].”
In its resolutions seemingly approving the Istanbul deal, the
Metropolitan Council said that the UOCUSA “preserved in the USA and Diaspora
jurisdictions the unique spirituality of the Holy Orthodox Faith as practiced
by Ukrainian Orthodox Christians, ancient traditions and customs which remain
vibrant today.”
Nowhere was a single syllable
written or said by anyone in Bound Brook that the bishops, and with them
collaborating clergy and laity, had abandoned the UOCUSA and had become part of
a foreign church. At the 1995 and 1998
Sobors Metropolitan Constantine was directly asked who elects the Metropolitan
and bishops. He didn’t answer the
question and instead again repeated that the only thing that occurred was
“spiritual protection.” He
assured the 15th
Sobor that, “I have answered you honestly, beloved — I have no reason to lie to
you — I tell you the truth.” But the “truth” is not what Metropolitan
Constantine says it is. The truth is
what he does not say. Even “street
smart” Patriarch Filaret for a time was taken in, believing that only
“recognition” was achieved. On
September 28, 1995, he wrote a letter of support to Bound Brook’s bishops on
the eve of the 14th Sobor.
Satisfied, Fr. John Nakonachny, a key member of both the Metropolitan
Council and the Consistory, wrote in The Ukrainian Weekly that Patriarch
Filaret “expressed his joy at our recognition” by Istanbul.
Many otherwise well intentioned
people also believed, and still believe, it all. But it is the exact opposite.
In the lawsuit discussed below and that was initially reported by The
Ukrainian Weekly at the time it began one and a half years ago, Bound Brook’s own expert witness wrote in a report submitted
to Judge Roger F. Mahon of the New Jersey Superior Court that Bound Brook is
“under the authority of, and ultimately responsible to, the Holy Synod of the
Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople.” Who is Bound Brook’s expert witness? It’s Dr. Lewis J. Patsavos, a professor of canon law,
appropriately from the Holy Cross Greek Orthodox Theological School.
The expert witness of the defendant,
Holy Ascension parish in Clifton, N. J., is Prof. Thomas Bird. His report was more complete: “The supreme authority in the UOCUSA is the
Patriarch and Holy Synod of the Church of Constantinople in Turkey. . . With
their joining the Church of Constantinople the Bishops of the UOCUSA in 1995 abandoned this autocephaly and therefore the UOCUSA itself. . . . They are serving a
Ukrainian Orthodox population but they are bishops of a Greek-speaking,
non-Ukrainian Church in Turkey. . . . The
government of the UOCUSA has been given over to the Patriarch and Holy Synod of
Constantinople, a group of ethnically Hellenic, Greek-speaking, non-Ukrainian
churchmen in Turkey who have never had any relationship with this Ukrainian
Church. . . . They are bishops of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, a
different entity and one which is subject to the whim of the (often-inimical)
Turkish governmental authorities.”
Fr. Conrad, previously referred to,
happily described it as Bound Brook’s “subordination to Hellenism.” One can only shake one’s head over the
cynicism in a Consistory circular attacking parishioners who spread “all the false accusations accusing our
Hierarchs of selling our Church to the ‘Greeks’” And what about the April 2,
1995 Statement of the Council of Bishops that said there would be no “infringing upon the unique identity,
constitutional integrity or administrative independence” of Bound Brook, and
that “nothing will change in the structure and administration of our
church”? That promise was made a month after
Metropolitan Constantine and Archbishop Antony took off the cross of the
Ukrainian Orthodox Church and replaced it with the cross of the Church of
Constantinople. What greater deception
is possible?
It’s not that Archbishop Antony or anyone else in Bound
Brook simply did not disclose that they
had left the UOCUSA and had become bishops and clergy of a foreign Church. They
categorically denied doing so when parishioners directly asked the very
specific question, “Did they become bishops of the Church of Constantinople?”
They took active measures to
misinform and mislead the faithful, the broader Ukrainian community and its
press. Dr. Lysyj wrote in Svoboda, and similarly in other papers,
that “as a member of the Metropolitan Council of the UOCUSA, I do not know of a
single member of the Council, including the bishops, who would abandon or who
is abandoning Kyiv”? Writing that “I am
against attempts to ruin churches, against falsehood,” Dr. Lysyj in the very
same breath once again repeated that the UOCUSA remains “sobornopravna
and independent”. He denied, outright,
that there was “any joiner of the
UOCUSA to Istanbul.” What does he call
bishops leaving the UOCUSA and becoming bishops of a foreign church in
Turkey? Also Fr. Nakonachny, who is a
key player in the disinformation campaign, wrote in an open letter to the Board
of Trustees of his parish, St. Volodymyr in Parma, Ohio: “you well know that
nothing has changed in our Diocese. We
hold to our Diocesan Constitution, as in the past.” Well, that Constitution requires that the UOCUSA remain an
autocephalous, self-governing, independent church. As in other areas, the
deliberation with which Bound Brook fabricated a fraud can be seen from
selective mistranslations of English text to Ukrainian (or vice versa),
intended to sway the Ukrainian speaking, generally more elderly reader. Not
the least of the fictions was the “near unanimous” approval of it all by two
Sobors. But even without considering
the deception that was practiced on both Sobors, even ignoring the fact that the matter was not even placed on the
agenda, how can there be any “Sobor” of
the UOCUSA without the participation of bishops and clergy of the UOCUSA? That is rudimentary. But Fr. Estocin teaches us that by the time
of the 14th Sobor in October 1995, the bishops and clergy had
already been bishops and clergy of the Church of Constantinople for more than
half a year, since March 1995! The bishops/clergy in attendance at the 1995 and
1998 Sobors were not representing the UOCUSA but their new church, the Church
of Constantinople. No one at the 1995
Sobor before Fr. Estocin’s letter, or afterward at the 1998 Sobor, had a clue
about the reality. No one, that is,
except Metropolitan Constantine, Archbishop Antony, Archbishop Vsevolod, Dr. Lysyj, Fr. Nakonachny, Fr. Estocin and
certain other clergy and laity who were actively implementing, or through their
silence were collaborators of, dezinformatsia
on a grand scale.
In an unguarded moment during a
committee meeting at the 1995 Sobor, Metropolitan Constantine said: “It doesn’t
matter what the Sobor decides. The decision was made in March [1995]. Nothing that you do here will make any
difference.”
But Sobor
“approval” was in fact a key element in the deception of the press and the
community. Since neither the 1995 nor
the 1998 Sobors were not “Sobors” for the very reason that there were no UOCUSA
bishops/clergy in attendance but only bishops/clergy of a foreign church,
holding “Sobors” (two of them) allowed Bound Brook to bury even further the
fact of the bishops’ abandonment of the UOCUSA. The faithful came and went, oblivious of the fraud, but assured
by Fr. Nakonachny who reported to his parishioners after the 1998 Sobor: “Thank
God, ours is a sobornopravna church.”
To which Archbishop Antony added, in the
Consistory Circular for June 1999: “Of singular importance to many is that the
Sobor once again reaffirmed that ours is a Sobornopravna (Sobor governing) Church.” In Court, though, he denies this, arguing
strenuously that the UOCUSA is hierarchal.
Even those persons who have little
interest in “religious” matters will be numbed. Not only by the developments over the last 5 years or so in Bound
Brook, but by the methods used and the Bound Brook’s effectiveness in
suppressing news of such developments.
Those who refuse to be intimidated are vilified as “inveterate liars,” “manipulators,” and
as “assisting the enemy.” Laity and
clergy, alike, are threatened.
Fr. Oryhon, the Metropolitan
Council and Consistory member,
physically assaults an obstreperous delegate at the 1998 “Sobor.” On another
occasion, a week after serving at an OCA monastery, the following Sunday he
assaults an elderly parishioner from the defendant Holy Ascension parish during
Providna Nedilya (St. Thomas Sunday) in Bound Brook last year.
Lawsuits by Bound Brook, directly or indirectly, have
hammered three parishes in the U.S. At two of them, the police were called in
by the instigators of the lawsuits. The
events were timed to explode around the
Easter or Christmas holidays. St. Michael’s Russian Orthodox Church of
Philadelphia, Pa. gives Archbishop Antony $1000 after Hurricane Floyd, and
becomes “our benefactor,” in the words of The Ukrainian Orthodox Word. On the other hand, St. Michael’s Ukrainian
Orthodox Church in Uniondale, N.Y. is taken over a few weeks before Christmas. Police arrive in force, summoned by persons coordinating their
actions with Bound Brook, and showing to the police a letter from Archbishop
Antony fraudulently confirming their
ostensible authority as the parish council.
(Since when in the Ukrainian Orthodox Church did any bishop or priest
have any right to “confirm” the authority of any parish council?) The parish doors were locked, and services prohibited for weeks at
a time, including Christmas. And in Rochester, N. Y. a dissident group of
parishioners allied with Archbishop Antony gains control of St. Mary’s parish
and then sues fellow parishioners who insist that the parish remain Ukrainian. Again, Archbishop Antony’s
proxies call in the police to help establish the “new order.” And the priest, who refused to abandon the
Ukrainian Church, has all four tires slashed on his car the evening of Easter Resurrection services last
Spring. The calculated use of the
police, particularly against the
elderly whose experience with men in uniform has been a horror, is nothing less than emotional terrorism.
Those members of the clergy who
would be inclined to protest are simply
gagged. A telling case is Fr.
Andriy Partykevich of St. Andrew’s parish in Boston. While Patriarch Mstyslav was alive, Fr. Partykevich was
respected for his outspoken commitment
to the autocephaly of the UOCUSA and its founding principles. Following the funeral of Patriarch
Mstyslav on June 11, 1993, Fr.
Partykevich wrote an open letter
expressing his shock over the pitifully small representation in Bound Brook
from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Canada (“UOCof C”). (By that time, the UOCofC had already become
a diocese of the Church of Constantinople, an abandonment of the Ukrainian
church that shocked Metropolitan Mstyslav.)
Fr. Partykevich noted the fact
that the one bishop and the few priests from the UOCof C that were present
refused to take part in the funeral service or in the funeral Divine Liturgy
the next morning. Contrasting this with
the joint participation of all Orthodox clerics of the Diaspora on the occasion
of the Millennium celebrations a few years earlier, Fr. Partykevich wrote in his open letter: “Why?
What has changed? Why was it possible
to concelebrate the Divine Liturgy with your brothers during the Millennium
only five years ago and today it is not?
Are we no longer Orthodox? Are we
apostates? Is the UOCofC now canonical
and we are not canonical? What did we
do that made us uncanonical since 1988?
What deal has the UOCofC made with the Greeks that would forbid them
from celebrating with us? What
recognition or acceptance or promises of ‘canonicity’ could be so important
that the UOCofC has chosen not only to deeply hurt their brothers in the
Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the USA, but also to step out of Eucharistic
Communion with the Ukrainian Orthodox Diaspora, as well as to deprive itself of
the right to fully pay the respect due to our departed patriarch and the former
primate of the UOCofC?”
Fr.
Partykevich answered those questions by repeating in his open letter the
conclusion he expressed at a UOC USA clergy conference held a few years
earlier: “By the time of this conference, the first actions towards the rebirth
of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church in Ukraine had taken place. Not understanding why my brothers in Canada
would choose a foreign yoke over being united with the Church in Ukraine, I
referred to them as traitors. The actions of the Church in Canada during the
funeral of His Holiness appeared to reinforce this unfortunate and sad
description.”
Today, however, Fr. Partykevich has
been selected as “the Historian of the UOC” to
present the type of history that will support Bound Brook’s very denial
of it.
The issue in all this is not
“Filaret.” That is a transparent
diversion now used by Bound Brook, drawing on Patriarch Mstyslav’s well know distrust
of then Metropolitan Filaret. In fact,
the loudest proponents today in Bound Brook against the Kyivan Patriarchate
headed by Patriarch Filaret, were yesterday his most ardent advocates. In particular, Metropolitan Council members
such as Dr. Lysyj and Michael Heretz accepted medals from and, with chest
beating vigor, conducted fund raisers
for the Kyivan Patriarchate. Continuing the concealment of the bishops’ abandonment of
the UOCUSA, Dr. Lysyj even wrote, astonishingly, in Svoboda that “we have our Church in Kyiv with its own
Patriarch.” Bound Brook viewed the other Ukrainian Orthodox Church,
headed by the recently deceased Patriarch Dymytrij, as a front for Moscow. Overnight, however, Bound Brook has
somersaulted its positions.
Nor does Bound Brook’s
denial of its Ukrainian identity have anything to do with the existence of two,
five or fifty Ukrainian Orthodox Churches in Ukraine. There are several Orthodox Churches in Greece, and no one makes anything
of it. There also are a number of
Russian Orthodox Churches. What happens
if the two Orthodox Churches in Ukraine do unite? Moscow will engineer another split. Will everyone hold his breath all over again? Why make oneself captive to someone else’s
agenda, where the agenda is to obliterate your existence?
Nor is the argument that the
Istanbul deal will (somehow) ensure the viability of parishes in the U.S. Although the arguments drift in that
direction, the issues of language and the aging of parishes are not changed in
the least by any of this. They existed
before and they exist now ‑‑ has anyone noticed an influx of youth
into the parishes since the December, 1994 Points of Agreement? Who was stayed at home on Sunday, not going
to a “Ukrainian” church, waiting to become subjects of Istanbul? The issue of youth, the zanepad of
parishes, is hardly unique to Ukrainians.
But do we see the willful abandonment of autocephaly by any other
church? Hardly. In the process of reinvigoration you don't
save a church by liquidating its independence.
You don't save something by surreptitiously converting it into something
else.
If anyone does not
like what Bound Brook was and what it was promised to remain, they are
perfectly free to leave and worship a “purer” form of Orthodoxy anywhere
else. If Ukrainian “ethnicity” is not palatable, everyone has the right to
leave and adopt a Russian, Serbian, Romanian, or Greek DNA. But hijacking Bound Brook by simply lying
about what was being done?
Manipulating, intimidating, lying to
the faithful? By bishops and
priests who swore an oath of loyalty to their Church? All
this led Prof. Thomas Bird, the expert witness for Holy Ascension parish, to write to the Court that Bound Brook’s
bishops “(a) eliminated the existence of the UOCUSA as an autocephalous Church,
its historic legal status; (b) presided over its absorption into a
non-Ukrainian, Greek Orthodox Patriarchate which decades of previous UOCUSA
bishops, clergy and laity opposed; (c) and accomplished this by manipulation,
misrepresentation, and fraud.”
One should also ask how can 70 years of official UOCUSA speeches, articles,
sermons, pastoral letters, decisions of Sobors, Metropolitan Councils, and
Council of Bishops, videotapes, audio tapes,
documents, letters, books, pamphlets and, yes, prayers, that came from
the lips of then Archbishop Constantine, then Bishop Antony, deceased Bound
Brook bishops, and all the clergy and laity be so openly denied, as if they
never existed? Where were Fr.
Nakonachny, Archbishop Constantine, Bishop Antony, and Dr. Lysyj and all the
others before such a rewriting of history?
Having now entered into a regularized daily interchangeability with an avowed enemy, the OCA, they have no difficulty reversing their
positions by 180 degrees and arguing the very opposite of what they had so
forcefully and regularly declared the day before. What is behind such self-induced amnesia? The significance of the answer lies beyond
the obvious fact that such denials of history are simply part of a mechanism to
manipulate, confuse, and defraud a deferential, supremely trusting
community. The denials are so extreme,
the proof of the reality is so extensive,
that the denials at first seem like foolish recklessness. Yet there is a thought process behind it
all. It’s that thought process, and the
assumptions behind Bound Brook’s utter rejection of its own founding
principles, that has profound
implications for key Ukrainian institutions in the Diaspora, regardless of the
area of concern, religious or otherwise.
It also adds perspective on the subversion of religious and national
peace in Ukraine.
Part II
“We cannot stand quietly by and see our history twisted.
We will not stand by and see our faith
‘compromised’!. . .
Into our hands and trust God has placed the course
of history for the next thousand years of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.”
Archbishop Constantine speaking at the 995th
anniversary of Ukraine’s Christianity
That there is more to the Istanbul
deal than meets the eye is a matter of common sense. If Bound Brook’s intention all along was truly merely to assist
in the “recognition” of the autocephaly of a united Ukrainian Orthodox Church
in Ukraine, why would her faithful in the Diaspora sever ties with the Mother
Church immediately after her rebirth?
After decades of existence in the U.S. at a time when the Mother Church
was destroyed, why would the faithful of her U.S. metropolia abruptly
decide to do exactly the opposite and simply deny the very fact of 70 years of
fervent prayer after those prayers were fulfilled? Why would they want to self-liquidate as a Ukrainian church and
become an indistinguishable
“ecclesiastical entity” subject to the “exclusive jurisdiction” of a
foreign power? Why would the faithful
agree to surrender their right
to rule themselves, to surrender sobornopravnist’ in favor of an
autocratic hierarchal structure against which they rebelled in establishing the
Church at the very outset? Why would
they simply give up their right to govern and control their parish properties,
bank accounts and assets? All of this is the antitheses of the UOCUSA since the
day of its founding. And it all
happened, we are to believe, “almost unanimously.” Afterwards, it is presented as the achievement of Patriarch
Mstyslav’s life’s goal.
Even before Archbishop Teodorovich’s
arrival in the U.S. from Ukraine in 1924, the fledgling U.S. diocese resolved
that it “must be united with the
maternal Ukrainian Autocephalous Church in Kyiv.” In 1922, the clergy in the U.S. exhorted their fellow countrymen
here: “Let us stand under the banner of our ancestral Ukrainian Orthodox
church, which through several hundreds of years has endured persecution and
indignity from [her] enemies and has remained to this day alive and as bright
as the sun for the Ukrainian people.”
Since the destruction of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Ukraine in the
1930's, it continued to exist in exile awaiting rebirth in Ukraine, with Bound Brook
as the self-proclaimed legatee of the 1000 year Ukrainian Orthodox church.
Reuniting with Ukraine was Bound
Brook’s prayer, dream, promise and self-declared obligation. Accordingly, Bound Brook always regularly
affirmed that it was a metropolia, of the worldwide Church, whose
historic center was Kyiv. The UOCUSA’s 1950 Sobor anticipated the time when
“the leadership of the Church will have the opportunity to work in Kyiv, as the
capital of an independent Ukraine.”
Thus, incorporated into the construction of Bound Brook’s Memorial
Church was a brick from St. Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv, smuggled out of Ukraine
during WWII. This symbolized the
extension of Ukraine to the United States, as well as well as the prayer of
return to Ukraine, repeated and published dozens of times by Bound Brook. The 1988 12th Sobor emphasized that “we, legatees
of the Kyivan Metropolia, whose traditions Divine Providence allowed us to
transfer to the free American soil, also allowed us to build here our Ukrainian
Orthodox Church, as a part of the Single Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox
Church in the world.” The Ukrainian Orthodox Word published Metropolitan
Mstyslav’s speech on the eve of the Millennium celebration: “The HOLY CITY for
us Orthodox Ukrainians was, is and will remain Kiev -- a city, which having
been repeatedly plundered for ages, is now enthralled by Moscow. God entrusted the large Ukrainian community
in the free world with an honorable task, namely to select and secure for
itself a center — a Ukrainian Jerusalem — which should serve as our source of
strength and inspiration before we are able to return to a purified and again
radiant Kiev.” On October 21, 1990,
Patriarch Mstyslav returned to St. Sophia an icon of St. Nicholas, which had
been preserved in Bound Brook, together with a 13th century pectoral
cross. And in February 1991, Metropolitan Council member Gayle Woloschak said:
“We as the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in the USA have much to be proud of — we
preserved the Church for these many years in order to take Her back for our
brothers and sisters in our Motherland.”
In 1973, Bound Brook’s bishops
(including then Bishop Constantine) repeated that “the mutual relations with
the Constantinople Patriarchate . . . remain on the basis of full autocephaly
of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in the Free World.” And Metropolitan
Constantine assured the 14th and 15th Sobors that the
UOCUSA is only under the “spiritual protection” of the Church of
Constantinople, and is recognized as
“an equal in the Orthodox world.”
That, of course, necessarily means that as “an equal,” the UOCUSA was
autocephalous, as are all the other “equal” Orthodox Churches. And that’s also what the UOCUSA’s
Constitution requires. Writing in two newspapers on the eve of the 1995 Sobor,
Dr. Lysyj distinguished a hierarchal church structure (which today is precisely
Bound Brook’s position in Court), emphasizing that instead “our Church is sobornopravna. That is how she was, is and will
remain. Delegates to the 14th
Sobor are to keep this in mind. . . .” How do autocephaly and sobornopravnist’
work in practice, once bishops and clergy abandon the UOCUSA and become bishops
and clergy of a foreign church?
In 1999 a book was published
entitled, We Are All Brothers,
The author is listed as “Bishop Vsevolod of Scopelos, Ecumenical
Patriarchate of Constantinople.” But
how can that be? Metropolitan
Constantine supposedly elevated him to Archbishop two years earlier, in March
1997. Much fanfare for the faithful
appeared in The Ukrainian Orthodox Word. The elevation was seemingly confirmed by the 15th
Sobor of the UOCUSA in 1998. Everyone
(almost) stood and proclaimed “Axios! Axios! Axios!” In fact, Bishop Vsevolod did not become “archbishop” until his
superior, Patriarch Bartholomew, the primate of a foreign church, the Church of
Constantinople, made him one on April 11, 2000. So writes the Greek Archdiocese.
(In a lapse of diligence, so does Archbishop Vsevolod’s own
website.)
The 1998 Sobor’s confirmation of
“Archbishop” Vsevolod was only for show. That can be seen from the fact that afterwards, for Ukrainian consumption,
Bound Brook carefully portrayed him in its publications as an archbishop. But for the rest of the world, including his
own book, at public appearances and in
correspondence to the “real” world, he was still a “bishop.” Thus, for
example, in a September 27, 1999 letter to President Clinton urging an end to
the Iraqi embargo, “Archbishop” Vsevolod signed as “Bishop” Vsevolod. And at a November 1999 conference of the
“Bishops and Religious Superiors of the Eastern Catholic Churches” in
Boston, “Archbishop” Vsevolod again
addressed the conference as “Bishop,” and, furthermore, was described as the Ukrainian Orthodox
Bishop in the U.S. And that is also why
We Are All Brothers, published a year before his elevation by Patriarch
Bartholomew-- not by the 1998 Sobor-- lists the author as “Bishop” Vsevolod.
Sobornopravnist’ is thus
castrated. And how, then, can the
UOCUSA continue to be autocephalous, as it was established and as promised in
its Constitution? It can’t. Self-governance is what autocephaly means.
It can’t be autocephalous if it doesn’t decide who its own bishops are. Not only did Bound Brook’s bishops abandon
the UOCUSA, but they implemented a scheme that had as its aim perpetuating the
myth that Bound Brook was still in fact governed by its Sobors, including the
selection of its bishops. And by that
is meant not the kind of democracy that was typified by the choreographed 100%
vote at Communist Party congresses, but informed, uncoerced debate and
decision. Dr. Lysyj, however, in the
Diaspora and in Ukraine continues to beat a drum of assurance about the
UOCUSA’s sobornopravnist’ and independence.
The end result is that, today, the
control of Bound Brook, as the control of the UOCUSA, is no longer in Ukrainian
hands. And the UOCUSA, itself, no longer exists as a Church, much less as a
Ukrainian Church. It is only an “ecclesiastical entity,” a diocese, under the “exclusive jurisdiction” of a
foreign center. The so-called “Ukrainian Orthodox Church” in Ukraine is
under the tutelage of Metropolitan Sabodan, agent Drosdov’s man in
Ukraine. It is merely a paper extension of the Russian Church in Moscow, and
doesn’t even exist as a separate
Church, much less a Ukrainian one. Likewise, the UOCUSA, being under the control of foreign bishops
and clergy, no longer exists. It’s only
a name. But in We Are All Brothers,
even the UOCUSA name doesn’t exist. There is no reference to the “UOCUSA” in
Bishop Vsevolod’s book. Only to his status as a bishop of the “Ecumenical
Patriarchate, Church of Constantinople.”
Yet, in the same 1998 Sobor report to his parishioners, Fr. Nakonachny, solemnly promises that the
deal with Istanbul ensured Bound Brook’s administrative independence!
Today, the drive to denationalize
Bound Brook as a Ukrainian memorial, to cut all ties and memory of unity with
Ukraine, is in full swing. “Pan
Orthodoxy” is the new catechism that is destroying the Ukrainian identity of a
uniquely Ukrainian institution. The destruction of its Ukrainian orientation
means also the destruction of those central underpinnings attributes that made
it a specifically Ukrainian Orthodox church--self-rule, parishioner ownership and control of parish
assets, and sobornopravnist’ and narodnist’. That is all now being categorically
denied by the “trustees” of Bound Brook as ever having been the case. Instead,
an autocratic, hierarchal structure is suddenly what the UOCUSA was supposedly all about. Fr. Dennis Kristoff, one of Bound Brook’s
“deans,” wrote in his regular column entitled “Tradition” in The Ukrainian
Orthodox Word: “Lately, the beautiful Ukrainian word, Sobornopravnist’, is being used more and more by people to
describe our Ukrainian Orthodox Church.”
He concludes with the kind of dialectical pseudo-argumentation that
would have been the envy of Marx and Engels . . . and his conclusion is also
the title of his article, “Sobornopravna
is Hierarchical.”
The irony and tragedy is heightened
when one realizes that much of the initiative for the establishment of the
UOCUSA in the early 20th century came from Ukrainian Catholics who
were dissatisfied with hierarchal rule and loss of any control over their
parishes and assets. “Many stood against the Latinization of their clergy and
church. They adamantly challenged the
attempts of their hierarchs to confiscate their church properties. This led to court cases which often resulted
in the loss of the property these people had worked, struggled and contributed
their finances to have and maintain.”
So wrote Fr. Diakiw, former Consistory president, a number of years ago. But a few months ago, Fr. Diakiw, together
with Dr. Lysyj, descended on St. Mary’s parish in Rochester, N.Y. to support
another group of “concerned parishioners” who, in close coordination with
Archbishop Antony, had gained control of that parish.
“Internationalism” and “Soviet man”
were code words for russification and the ethnocide of Ukraine in Soviet times.
Bound Brook’s code words are summarized by Archbishop Antony, “The mission of
the Church is the SALVATION OF SOULS.
Anything which turns our attention as Ukrainian Orthodox Christians from
this mission is inherently evil.” This
is the green light for eliminating
“Ukrainian” from the UOCUSA. In
fact, the latest UOCUSA Calendar for 2001 lists the addition of a “mission
parish” in Virginia--the word “Ukrainian” is not even in the parish name. And why is an “Exhortation to the Clergy of
the UOCUSA” by Metropolitan Nicholas published in the UOCUSA Calendar? Who is Metropolitan Nicholas? Good question, because the article carefully
avoids giving his title. He is the head
of the “Carpatho-Russian” Orthodox Church.
The same one whose priest, Michael Conrad, wrote sneeringly about “the
hyper-nationalistic jingoism of the Ukrainian autocephalers” Yet another
version is the OCA’s Meyendorff’s tract that “the temptation of religious
nationalism remains one of the most basic weaknesses of contemporary Orthodoxy.”
Fr. Zencuch clearly agrees: “It’s not enough for our church life to focus
exclusively on the nurturing of the spiritual culture of our nation.” And Dr. Lysyj again solemnly writes in Svoboda,
“Let’s not forget that the Church is a religious, not a political institution.”
Evidently, he forgot his decades of writing that the Church and its
specifically Ukrainian character were not base “politics” but organically
intertwined and mutually supportive concepts, without which Bound Brook could
not exist.
Another variation is Archbishop
Antony’s requirement that “Spiritual
growth will not and cannot occur when we concentrate on the temporal and
political issues of the day or on personalities prominent at any given moment
in history.” This sounds remarkably like the prohibition, in the “Points of Agreement,” that Bound Brook “shall be detached from any secular or
political influence.” The incomprehensible
suddenly snaps into focus. After being repeatedly invited, months in advance,
to participate in the memorial service commemorating the Famine victims, held
in November 1998, in St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York, and after a series of
telephone calls requesting a response, Archbishop Antony . . . refused. He was “busy.” Bound Brook’s other
bishops were also “busy,” one of them
busy serving that day in a parish of the OCA.
(Imagine the trustees who are responsible for safeguarding and promoting
the Yad Vashem memorial in Israel refusing to attend a Jewish memorial
service.) Not so long ago, there would
have been no need to invite Bound Brook to a Famine Commemoration service. It would have been the initiator of the
event, and itself would have done the inviting. Bound Brook was perfunctorily represented at the commemorative
services in St. Patrick’s Cathedral in 1999 and 2000. One can only wonder about
the longevity of the abrupt change of heart.
After a storm of protest, coupled
with counterclaims raised against it by Holy Ascension parish in Clifton, N.J.,
Bound Brook has temporarily rediscovered its roots. Suddenly, being Ukrainian
should not be so publicly demonized.
Archbishop Antony organizes an ecumenical Chornobyl’ moleben’
service recently at St. Volodymyr Cathedral in New York City. (True to the new, hierarchal order, the
parish council was not even notified of the event.) The fund raising for a new museum building in Bound Brook is now
advertised as a “famine memorial.” And
$40,000, largely from two private bequests, are given by “Bound Brook” to the
Children of Chernobyl Fund to support two orphanages in Ukraine. (Bound Brook names Deacon Ihor Mahlay as the
contact person for any follow-up on the $40,000 grant. But it’s the same Deacon
Mahlay who faithfully serves with Fr. Nakonachny at St. Volodymyr parish in
Parma, Ohio, and who writes that “nationalistic phyletism cannot replace gospel
evangelism.” According to him, if you are not “in communion” with, among
others, the Patriarchate of Moscow or the OCA, you are heretically
“uncanonical.”) Throughout, the transparent seduction of the Ukrainian speaking
elderly who read Svoboda continues with statements like: “Firstly, it
must be underscored that neither Archbishop Antony nor the Consistory and
Orthodox Bound Brook have turned from Kyiv. . . . We are all ready to unite
around a Patriarchate in Ukraine that will become the foundation and
realization of the testament of Metropolitan Lypkivskyj, Teodorovich and
Patriarch Mstyslav.” That was an article by the same Fr. Zencuch from St.
Andrew’s parish in suburban Washington, D.C. who then simply turned around and
distributed Russian propaganda in the parish bulletin.
Reversal of the 70 year Ukrainian
identity of the UOCUSA requires a
rewriting of history . . . the
creation -- in true Soviet style -- of “memory holes,” the creation of “non-persons” such as Metropolitan Lypkivskyj. And that is who, among others, is included
in the phrase, “personalities prominent at any given moment in history,” in
Archbishop Antony’s above statement. Metropolitan Lypkivskyj is reviled by
Moscow for being the catalyst of national awakening, and the OCA’s contempt for
the “autocephalist Ukrainians” is the same as Moscow’s. So is it a surprise that Fr. Arkadiusz
Mironko, former priest at Holy Ascension parish, declares that he does not even know who Metropolitan Lypkivskyj
was? Or that he admits praying for
Moscow’s Patriarch Alexei, but refuses to pray for Ukrainian Orthodox bishops
in Ukraine, and brings in Russian
priests to the parish? Or that Fr.
Peter Hotrovich at Holy Trinity parish in Irvington, N.J. says that
Metropolitan Lypkivskyj’s works are to be trashed? Don’t be surprised if the
statute of Metropolitan Lypkivskyj is found one morning to have been toppled --
by “vandals,” of course -- complete with subsequent complaints filed by Bound Brook with the police and other
public protests of indignation.
Tangible evidence, such as the
sacred antimines issued to parishes by Archbishop Teodorovich, are rounded up
and destroyed. He was, after all, an
uncompromising foe of any subservience to a foreign church, insisting that
under no circumstances was the UOCUSA to be merged into any entity that was
subject to foreign control. Endlessly,
he defended the autocephaly and national character and sobornopravnist’
of the UOCUSA. When it comes to money,
however, Bound Brook doesn’t hesitate to capitalize on his name. But the stationary that is used to solicit
donations only has the caption “Consistory of the UOCUSA.” Not wanting to alert those who cherish the memory of Metropolitan
Teodorovich and his uncompromising stance against any subjugation to
Constantinople, Bound Brook hypocritically deletes from its stationary the
sub-caption “Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople.”
To further complete the separation
of Bound Brook from Ukraine also requires that the final link to Ukraine, by
reason of Patriarch Mstyslav’s status as the prime hierarch of all Ukrainian
Orthodox, worldwide, be denied. In his 1990-1991 Christmas Poslan’ja,
Patriarch Mstyslav referred to the first Sobor, in Kyiv on November 17, 1990,
of all the Bishops of the UAOC, from both Ukraine, Bound Brook and the rest of
the Diaspora. He wrote: “This assembly and its deliberations
resulted, with the will of the Almighty, in the establishment of one Holy Sobor
of Bishops of the Ukranian Autocephalous Orthodox Church, and at the same time
of a single Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church worldwide.” Denial of that
is also critical to Bound Brook because
Patriarch Mstyslav embodied the very notion of autocephaly that Archbishop Antony and others today brazenly
say never existed. Yet Bound Brook goes even further, arguing
mightily that the loss of autocephaly and the conversion of the UOCUSA into a
component part of a foreign church is what Patriarch Mstyslav had striven for
all his life. Examination of this
example of historical revisionism
is also important because it
shows the extremes to which Bound Brook
goes in talking, acting and pretending that the past never existed.
One thread in the argument is
that Patriarch Mstyslav’s temporarily
retaining the title as head of the UAOC’s metropolia (the UOCUSA) in the
U.S. while also being Patriarch of the
worldwide UAOC somehow shows that the UOCUSA was never a part of the
resurrected church in Ukraine. Today’s historical revisionism is
that Mstyslav was “Patriarch” in
and for Ukraine, only, but for Bound Brook he was only the “Metropolitan”, that
his authority as “Patriarch” was not recognized by anyone in Bound Brook, and
that the UOCUSA was never part of the reborn UAOC in Ukraine -- precisely the
message in the OCA’s letter in the commemorative booklet of Patriarch
Mstyslav’s funeral. The seeds for the
disinformation campaign were more
boldly planted before the 1998 Sobor by Fr. Nakonachny in a letter, also to this paper, where he wrote: “At what Sobor of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church
of the U.S.A. did the delegates vote to unite with Ukraine? It never happened! It was never discussed!
Metropolitan Mstyslav was elected Patriarch of Ukraine--in Ukraine--for
Ukraine.”
This is today argued by the same persons with even more
enthusiasm than their professions of loyalty to one united Church and to
Patriarch Mstyslav’s position as their “prime hierarch” while he was alive. A
good example is the letter of Fr. Frank Estocin, Secretary of the
Consistory, to this newspaper that “the
letterhead that was utilized by Patriarch Mstyslav throughout his reign clearly
indicates that he considered himself to be patriarch of Ukraine and
metropolitan of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the U.S.A.” This, wrote Fr.
Estocin, somehow proves that Bound
Brook was never part of the reborn Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church in
Ukraine, and that Patriarch Mstyslav was not the Patriarch of a Church that included
the UOCUSA but only of a Church in Ukraine.
First, Fr. Estocin’s example
proves the very opposite — Patriarch Mstyslav’s overlapping
responsibilities as head of the UAOC, worldwide, as well as the head of one of
the Church’s parts, its U.S. metropolia, meant the UOCUSA was even more tightly
bound to Ukraine. The very letterhead that Fr. Estocin argues memorializes that
unity by incorporating Bound Brook’s Memorial Church within the borders of the
Patriarchal Seal. Second, while
Patriarch Mstyslav was alive, Fr.
Estocin himself always spoke of “our
bishops, clergy and faithful in Ukraine,” “our parishes in Ukraine,” “our
Church in Ukraine,” “our Patriarchate.” In his writings at the time, Fr. Estocin wrote the very opposite of his writings now, saying that Metropolitan Mstyslav’s elevation to
Patriarch “finally brought unity” to the UAOC in Ukraine and the Diaspora. Even in his June 1997 letter to Dr. Lysyj,
quoted at the beginning of this article, Fr. Estocin is self-complimentary,
writing that he gave his priestly loyalty “freely to our previous Primate,
Patriarch Mstyslav . . .”
Second, a bishop or Patriarch of one Orthodox Church cannot
simultaneously be a bishop -- much less the head -- of a different
Orthodox Church. The reason Patriarch
Mstyslav could hold both positions was
because the UOCUSA was not a different church . . . it was part of the
UAOC. You can be the chairman of a
corporation, and simultaneous the head of one of the corporation’s subsidiary entities.
Third, since the Orthodox Church, in its broadest sense, is organized
along national/ethnic lines, very obviously Patriarch Mstyslav’s title
reads “of Ukraine.” What else, Bulgaria? Serbia?
The head of each Autocephalous Church bears the name of his mother
country and mother church. So it is
with Romania, Cyprus, Finland, Serbia, etc.
Isn’t Patriarch Alexei the Patriarch for Russians in Russia? How about
for Russians in Ukraine or Tahiti? Of
course he is. And what about the
Bulgarian or Romanian Orthodox Patriarchs?
The overseas parishes of those Churches are still a part of their native
Patriarchates, as was Bound Brook while Patriarch Mstyslav was alive.
And, yes, Patriarch Mstyslav was elected Patriarch “in Ukraine.” That is because according to the “canons,”
the Patriarch of a national church must
be elected in the country of that
church, and not in the emigration, outside of Ukraine. Had he
been elected as Patriarch in Bound Brook, he would have been--dare we
say it?--”uncanonical.”
And categorically no “vote to unite,”
as Rev. Nakonachny disingenuously writes, was ever necessary because Bound
Brook always regarded itself as an integral part of the Ukrainian Autocephalous
Orthodox Church, for decades representing it in exile. It was the remnant of the original Church
reborn in the 1920's, then again in the 1940's. When the Church was again reborn in Ukraine in 1989, it publicly
declared that it was joining the
original UAOC exiled in the Diaspora, not the other way around. How does Bound Brook get around that? It simply denies that it was a church in exile.
But much
more demonstrates the unity between Bound Brook and the Mother Church. Since Patriarch Mstyslav’s overall
jurisdiction, as Patriarch, included the UOCUSA metropolia, new parishes
were admitted to the UOCUSA with a certificate (hramota) signed by
Metropolitan Constantine, stating that the parish was admitted to the church
“headed by Patriarch Mstyslav,” not by “Metropolitan” Mstyslav. Metropolitan Constantine signed the hramota
during Patriarch Mstyslav’s absence from Bound Brook, acting on behalf of and
in the name of Patriarch Mstyslav. Furthermore, if Patriarch Mstyslav, as Patriarch, wasn’t the superior of Archbishop Constantine, how can he have
elevated Archbishop Constantine to Metropolitan? And if, as Fr. Estocin says, “Patriarch” Mstyslav was really just
the Metropolitan in Bound Brook, then
the UOCUSA would have had two simultaneous heads — two reigning Metropolitans,
Metropolitan Mstyslav and Metropolitan Constantine. This is not possible. And
even before that, it was Patriarch, not Metropolitan, Mstyslav who elevated
Bishop Antony to Archbishop. This was
done in Ukraine, not in Bound Brook, further symbolizing the unity between the
UOCUSA and Ukraine
On June 7, 1990, the Consistory sent
a directive (signed by Fr. Taras
Chubenko) that “all Father Pastors of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox
Church in the United States of America and throughout the world are hereby
requested to . . . commemorate the hierarchy of the UAOC as follows: His
Holiness Mstyslav, Patriarch of the Holy UAOC, Archbishops Constantine
(followed by a list of archbishops in Ukraine, Their Graces Bishops Antony,
Paisiy (followed by a list of bishops in Ukraine)” (At this point, we can wonder why Fr. Chubenko was the one who
sent the above June 1990
directive. As reported in The
Ukrainian Orthodox Word, in 1981 then Metropolitan Mstyslav was
incensed and publicly sanctioned both him and Fr. Nakonachny for secretly
holding a meeting that included representatives of the OCA.)
Typically, Archbishop Antony denies in court papers that he was
a bishop in the Church headed by
Patriarch Mstyslav.
However, as reported by The
Ukrainian Orthodox Word at the time, both Archbishop Antony and Archbishop
Constantine, together with Metropolitan Ioan and Archbishop Andrij from
Ukraine, performed the enthronization of their Patriarch. It was Archbishop
Constantine who handed the Patriarchal Staff
to his superior. They both
kissed him on the cheek and accepted his omophor as Patriarch. The Ukrainian Orthodox Word reported
that, the day after his enthronement, Patriarch Mstyslav sent a greeting to
newly elected Patriarch Bartholomew in Istanbul, “in the name of the clergy and
faithful of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church, which by the grace of
God lives and creatively functions in Ukraine, the USA, South America,
Great Britain, Western Europe, Australia and New Zealand, the Church of which
by the grace of God I am the leader.”
(Canada was not listed, the bishops there having earlier abandoned the
Ukrainian Orthodox Church and submitted themselves to Istanbul.)
Afterwards, Archbishop Antony
engaged in clearly “administrative” acts such as the June 23 and 30, 1991,
consecrations, with Patriarch Mstyslav and other bishops from Ukraine, of new
bishops in Ukraine. Archbishop Antony did this
as a bishop of the one, worldwide UAOC, with its ecclesiastical center
in Kyiv. We know this because The
Ukrainian Orthodox Word published that on November 16, 1990, one worldwide
UAOC, with only one Council of Bishops that embraced both Ukraine and the
Diaspora, had been created “and, through such, the formation of one world-wide
Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church.” Both Archbishop Constantine and
Bishop Antony were specifically included.
In that capacity, Archbishop Antony also represented the worldwide UAOC
(including Bound Brook) and Patriarch Mstyslav, in Istanbul, both at the
funeral of Patriarch Dimitrios I of the Church of Constantinople and at the
enthronement of his successor, Patriarch Bartholomew.
Furthermore, following the death of
Patriarch Mstyslav, Archbishop Antony agreed to be a candidate for election as
successor to Patriarch Mstyslav’s position as prime hierarch of the worldwide
UAOC, then later withdrew his candidacy.
He could not have agreed to be a
candidate to head one church (the Church in Ukraine) if at the same time he was
a bishop of supposedly a different church (Bound Brook). Obviously, the latter was part of the
former. After Archbishop Antony
withdrew his candidacy, Fr. Volodymyr Romaniuk was elected as successor to
Patriarch Mstyslav. In court papers,
however, Archbishop Antony again simply
denies that he was a candidate in Kyiv.
He will have to explain why Fr. Estocin wrote in The Ukrainian
Orthodox Word: “Following further consultation with America, the Archbishop
informed the Patriarchal Office that he would, for the unity of the church,
agree to the submission of his candidacy for Patriarch to the Sobor.” (The organic unity of Bound Brook and
Ukraine was demonstrated earlier, with then Metropolitan Mstyslav having
elevated the rank of Fr. Romaniuk while the latter was visiting Bound Brook
from Ukraine. That was on August 7,
1988, at the culmination of the Millennium celebrations in Bound Brook, and
even before the UAOC was officially reborn in Ukraine the following year.)