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Answer:
Dr. Alexander Roman
alex@unicorne.org
It is always important for you to see the Priest before Divine Liturgy in
any Orthodox Church you would be attending.
There would be no canonical impediment preventing you, as a Greek Orthodox
Christian, from receiving Holy Communion in the Ukrainian Orthodox
Churches in communion with Constantinople or Moscow. There would be when
it came to the independent Ukrainian Orthodox jurisdictions such as the
Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church
- Kyivan Patriarchate.
A Greek Orthodox can marry a Ukrainian Orthodox if they love each other
and can come to a happy arrangement with respect to each other's
deeply-loved cultural traditions!
Both Churches are one in Orthodox Faith and Tradition, but have developed
different religious and cultural traditions and practices, as one would
expect.
And these differences are "legion." For example, the Greeks bless their
home-icons or "aghia" with oil and leave them in Church for a period of
forty days.
The Ukrainians, on the other hand, bless their home-icons with holy water
and usually just leave them on the tetrapod for a period of one Divine
Liturgy . . .
Greeks prefer lamb for Easter/Pascha, while Ukrainians emphasize kolbassa.
The Greeks generally now follow the "Reformed Julian Calendar" and
celebrate Christmas on December 25th, while the Ukrainians follow the Old
Calendar and celebrate Christmas on January 7th.
But there are Old Calendarist Greeks . . .
In addition, both Greeks and Ukrainians feel very strongly about their
national/cultural identity. The idea of diluting it may be quite out of
the question, even within the bounds of an ethnically mixed marriage.
But Greeks should remember the great sacrifices made on their behalf by
the Ukrainian Kozaks, many of whom gave their lives fighting the Turks and
liberating Greek and other prisoners from Turkish and Tatar slavery!
And we Ukrainians are very conscious of our Byzantine/Greek heritage that
we received from Constantinople.
With respect to iconoclastic Protestantism, many of us Ukrainians find it
rather dull and colourless by comparison to our rich traditions . . .
We, like the Greeks, I daresay, believe that one should be passionate
about one's religious and cultural experiences.
If you can't thoroughly enjoy them and have a great time practicing them,
why bother?
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