Consecration of Bishops

Question: 

I was reading about how after the Russian Revolution, the Ukrainian Church declared its independence from the Russian Orthodox Church, and that they proceeded with highly irregular activities.  For example, since no bishop was willing to participate in this activity of independence, priests of the church "ordained" an archpriest to be a bishop!  When I read this it struck me with such sadness, anger, and confusion.  And they proceeded afterward to ordain an adition 30 bishops and many priests.  How could Orthodox priests do something so heretical and blasphemous to God's Church?  I don't understand why they would commit this kind of sin?  Please, help me understand this in any way you can.  I hope that the Ukrainian Orthodox Church today has fixed this problem and repudiated such a sacrileges action.

Very Rev. Ihor Kutash kutash@unicorne.org 

The situation to which you are refering was a critical one.  You may not be aware of the fact that the hierarchy of the Russian Orthodox Church was being used to promote the political agenda of the State for hundreds of years.  There was a marvelous move to correct this at the Sobor of that Church held in 1917 but the Sobor was curtailed by the Bolshevik regime, which was certainly not in favour of anything that would make the Church more amenable or acceptable to the people.

The movement for an autocephalous Ukrainian Orthodox Church was a movement for renewal.  Among other items there was the question of the use of the vernacular in services (the 1917 Sobor had made moves in that direction as well - as a matter of fact they authorized the translation of the Gospel into Ukrainian and this translation is used in Ukrainian Churches that use the vernacular to this very day).  Also, of course, the matter of an indigenous hierarchy which would be sympathetic to the needs and aspiration of the Ukrainian flock rather than promoting the continuation of the anachronistic Russian empire.

In 1921 at the all-Ukrainian Sobor in Kyiv it became clear that these needs could not be met in the existing situation in the normal way.  Thus "the Alexandrian method" of consecration by priests was adopted as an exception for two candidates chosen by the Sobor.  The fact that only two candidates were so consecrated clearly indicates that there was a desire to adhere to the Apostolic Canon that says that a Bishop must be be consecrated by at least two other Bishops.  The candidates, Frs. Vasyl' Lypkivskyi and Nestor Sharayivs'kyi of blessed memory, were pious priests who paid for their daring with their lives at the hands of the Soviet regime.  Meanwhile they strove to serve Christ as best they could in the difficult situation in which they found themselves in 1920's and 30's Ukraine.

Ukrainian Orthodox (except for some who continue to adhere - many, no doubt, for praiseworthy reasons - to the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Moscow) generally recognize that these consecrations were exceptions, not to be emulated, and in future consecrations the regular procedures were adhered to.  The irregularity (there are many irregularities in daily Christian living - life does not go according to the book) is placed under God's mercy, as a matter of Church "oikonomeia" (economy), which says that sometimes exceptions are permitted without the rule being changed thereby.  And martyrs are recognized as martyrs.

If these consecrations were indeed "sinful" they were certainly not intentionally so.  I might point out that in the Orthodox Church sin is considered "amarteia", i.e. a divergence from perfection, and not necessarily a choice for lawlessness.  If they were sinful they were, alas, a response to another sin - that of the subjugation of people against their will to a regime that did not essentially care for their well-being, but was simply concerned with the promoting and prolonging of its power and wealth.

I must respectfully disagree with you in your assessment of these consecrations as blasphemous and heretical.  In the usual sense of the word, "heresy" is an intentional divergence from (and promotion of such divergences from) the dogmas of the Church which are once and forever proclaimed in the Nicaeo-Constantinopolitan Creed.  This was certainly not the case here.

I will not touch the charge of blasphemy - God alone knows who is blasphemous and when.  And He did turn the most blasphemous event imaginable, the condemnation and crucifixion of God the Son incarnate in Jesus of Nazareth, into the salvation of the human race!

I hope I have not added to your sadness, anger and confusion by my attempt at responding to your question.  Forgive me if I have.  However as Christians in the world we do often have thorny and difficult matters to consider, pray over and resolve.  And our resolutions ought always to be charitable, reasonable and open to further reflection and change or we may find ourselves serving formulas and structures rather than the living God.  And, oh, what horrible things have been done in His Name by those who have been so deceived!

Ukrainian Orthodoxy