Unification Council Research Articles

The church and religious situation in Central and Eastern Europe in the first third of the 15th century

The church and religious situation in Central and Eastern Europe in the first half of the 15th century, which changed dynamically under the influence of both foreign policy and internal church factors, was analysed. The Western Church was able to emerge from the process known to historians as the Great Schism only after the proclamation of the principle of conciliarism at the Council of Constance (the idea of reviving the ecumenical (general) councils); a single pope was elected, which meant the victory of the synodal model in governing the Latin Church. The condemnation of Jan Hus’s views as heretical at this council and his burning caused a great resonance in Czech society, and gave impetus to the development of the Hussite movement, which had a reformist religious and political character. Hussies found a response in the Kingdom of Poland.From the end of the 14th century changes in church life on the Ukrainian lands were becoming visible. Kyiv gradually lost its role as the religious centre for the Eastern Slavs. At a time when the patriarchs of Constantinople insisted on preserving the unity of the Metropolitanate of Kyiv, Grand Duke Vytautas of Lithuania did not want to subordinate his lands to the metropolitan who came under the control of the Moscow princes, so he insisted on dividing the Metropolitanate of Kyiv into Lithuanian and Moscow. He sought the ordination of Gregory Tsamblak as Metropolitan of Kyiv and All Rus.During the first decades of the 15th century in the eastern territories of the Kingdom of Poland and in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, a network of Catholic parishes was formed, not only in cities but also in rural areas. Until 1430, all Catholic bishoprics on the Ukrainian lands were endowed with land holdings and other income.At that difficult time, the idea of the unity of the two Churches, the Western and the Eastern, did not disappear. It was argued that the unification of the Churches would make it possible to achieve the unity of the completely Christian world against the Turks. The Council of Constance launched a series of negotiations between Constantinople and the Apostolic Capital. King Wladyslaw of Poland and Duke Vytautas of Lithuania supported the idea of the unity of the Churches. Due to the threat of Turkish attacks on the Byzantine capital, a unification council proved impossible.

Relations between Orthodox Christians in Ukraine in the Context of the War

Relations between Orthodox Christians in Ukraine in the Context of the War Andriy Dudchenko (bio) This article is about the Orthodox jurisdictions in Ukraine in the context of the war begun by the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. Orthodoxy in Ukraine is represented now by two main jurisdictions: the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC). First some statistics OCU is an autocephalous Church, created at the Unification Council in St. Sophia Cathedral of Kyiv on December 15, 2018. On January 6, 2019, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew granted this Church the Tomos of autocephaly. In OCU there are now 60 bishops, about 7,700 parishes and 4,900 priests, and about 80 monasteries. Before the war, 24.1% of Ukrainians considered themselves members of the OCU, which amounts to 39.8% of Orthodox Ukrainians.1 UOC is a self-governing Church under the Moscow Patriarchate. UOC has 104 bishops, about 12,000 parishes and about the same number of priests, and over 250 monasteries (these figures include the territories of Ukraine occupied by Russia before the current war). Before the war, 13.3% of Ukrainians identified themselves as members of the UOC, or 21.9% of Orthodox Ukrainians. To complete the picture, it should be added that 21.9% of respondents, or 36.2% of Orthodox, called themselves "just Orthodox" not identifying with either jurisdiction. As you can see, the number of parishes [End Page 189] and monasteries was much larger in the UOC, but OCU had far more worshippers. On the other hand, according to the data from the same research, UOC had twice as many permanent parishioners as OCU, that is, those who participate in liturgy at least once a week. The Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, has made a huge difference. According to an Omnibus Info Sapiens poll,2 73% of believers in the UOC, Moscow Patriarchate, have ceased to identify themselves with this church. As early as March, the number of supporters of the UOC-MP for the first time fell to a record low of 4%. At the same time, the percentage of OCU supporters increased to 52%. The survey was conducted even before the data on the atrocities of the Russian invaders near Kyiv were published. On May 27, 2022, at a council in Feofaniya, the UOC announced that it is breaking all ties with Moscow Patriarchate, but did not proclaim autocephaly. The canonical status of this Church today needs to be clarified, as I will discuss later on. In addition to the two main jurisdictions, the Kyiv Patriarchate again exists in Ukraine. This jurisdiction was self-dissolved on the day of the Unification Council in 2018 and fully joined the OCU. However, in the summer of 2019, Bishop Filaret Denisenko convened a Local Council, at which he announced the revival of the Kyiv Patriarchate with himself as patriarch, and he began to consecrate new bishops. The OCU, which considers Filaret a bishop with the title of "Honorary Patriarch," called the new consecrations of bishops in the Kyiv Patriarchate non-canonical and stated that they would not be recognized by the OCU. Today there are 14 bishops in the Kyiv Patriarchate, but only a few parishes within the borders of Ukraine.3 A little background Many believers in Ukraine remember the times when there was only one Orthodox Church in the Soviet Union—the Russian Church, also known as the Moscow Patriarchate. In 1989, the revival of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church or UAOC was proclaimed in Lviv. By the beginning of 1990, about 200 parishes had moved to the UAOC, mainly in western Ukraine. The head of the Ukrainian Exarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church at the time was then-Metropolitan Filaret. He sharply criticized the new autocephalous church, which he [End Page 190] interpreted as a schism. In October of the same year the Ukrainian Exarchate of Moscow Patriarchate was transformed into the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.4 Metropolitan Filaret received the title of His Beatitude. In the Blessed Charter issued by Patriarch Alexiy of Moscow, the UOC was called "independent and self-governed in its administration," united with the universal Church through the...

ОБ’ЄДНАВЧИЙ СОБОР ПРАВОСЛАВНОЇ ЦЕРКВИ УКРАЇНИ 15 ГРУДНЯ 2018 РОКУ

The article deals with the establishing of the Local Orthodox Church of Ukraine, which took place in December 2018. The revolution of dignity and subsequent Russian armed aggression led to the intensification of the Ukrainian autocephalous movement. The President, the Parliament, the bishops of the UOC-KP, the UAOC, and about ten bishops of the UOC-MP appealed to the Ecumenical Patriarch to grant autocephaly to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine. On October 9-11, 2018, the Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate confirmed the resolution to start the procedure of granting autocephaly to the Orthodox Church in Ukraine, considered appeals and carried out canonical rehabilitation of UOC-KP and UAOC leaders Filaret Denysenko and Makariy Maletych, and restored the Patriarch’s stauropegia as the representation to the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Kyiv and repealed the act of 1686. On 15 December, before the unification council started, the UOC-KP and the UAOC held separate meetings during which they both dissolved themselves, which delayed the beginning of the unification council. Every bishop was to bring two people to vote. In the second round, laity and priests did not vote, only bishops. Metropolitan Mykhaiil Zinkevych was forced to withdraw his candidacy during the council before the final vote. In the first round, the score of the three candidates was: Mykhail Zinkevych: 38; Symeon Shostatskyi: 56; Epiphanius Dumenko: 81. In the secomd round, the votes of bishops were as follows: Symeon: 28; Epiphanius: 36. At the Unification Council on December 15, 2018, the establishment of the OCU was announced, its charter was approved and Metropolitan Epiphanius was elected as the Primate. On January 6, 2019, a Tomos on the autocephaly of the Ukrainian Church was granted to him in Constantinople.

The Orthodox Church of Ukraine at the intersection of social narratives: conflict of interpretations

The article explores the semantic potential of social narratives associated with the creation and constitution of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, which caused a interpretations conflict, marked by conflicting interpretations and differences in meanings that are applied in different contexts. The narrative arranges events in a certain time sequence, accumulates and translates meanings, individual and social experience. The presence of meanings in the interpretation of the narrative depends on the perspective, interpretation horizons and the subject's ability to analyze information and its correct application. The social narrative accumulates a set of stories and messages that are fragmentary and disordered, constructs a coherent plot aimed at finding and defining meanings, and forming social discourse. Social narratives materialized in social structures, orientations, expectations, and stereotypes of their bearers due to everyday modification in the form of simple images, attitudes, and principles. Since each social narrative claims to be exclusive and correct in its own way of understanding events, a clash of narratives and their interpretations is inevitable. A large-scale event determines the modification of social structures, standards, and evaluation criteria, is accompanied by the transformation of everyday life, reveals deep mental layers, and opens up new perspectives. The extraordinary event that was marked by the creation of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine is accompanied by diametrically opposite assessments from the clergy, believers, politicians, experts – from the statement about autocephaly as the only opportunity to achieve unity and recognition of Ukrainian Orthodoxy to the political subtext justification of the new religious organization creation. Church circles represented by representatives of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate claim that the state interferes in the internal Affairs of the Church. The Constitution of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine takes place in the context of the confrontation of two social narratives – the «ukrainian world» and the «russian world». The social narrative «ukrainian world» is based on values rooted in the national soil, but the social narrative «russian world» denies the existence of the Ukrainian nation and the Ukrainian state. Under the patronage of the Russian Orthodox Church, the expression of the ideas of the «russian world» is the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, which enshrines in the minds of believers ideologies about «the common origin of the Ukrainian and Russian peoples», «the common baptismal font», «the unity of the historical space of Holy Rus», «the identity of the East Slavic Orthodox civilization». The Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate did not support the decision of patriarch Bartholomew to grant autocephaly to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine. Metropolitan Onufriy did not give his blessing to the hierarchs to participate in the Unification Council, which is called «a non-canonical assembly of schismatic groups». The Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, according to its primate, has de facto autocephaly, so it is the only canonical local Orthodox Church in Ukraine. In the face of the conflict of public narratives, the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, along with meeting the spiritual needs of believers, contributes to the formation of national identity, the formation of a worldview matrix that will determine the vision of the future development of the country.

Changes in the Religious Situation in Ukraine (1985—2019): Ethnocultural Implications

In the process of disintegration of the Soviet Union and development of the independent Ukrainian State (1985–2019), the Ukrainian Orthodoxy underwent radical changes, which influenced the ethnocultural development of the Ukrainian society. Accession of Kyiv Metropolia by Moscow was abolished and its previous status restored. The Unification Council established the Local Orthodox Church, which was later granted tomos of Autocephaly by the Ecumenical Patriarchate. The topical tasks of the Church consist in its recognition by other Orthodox churches and its engagement in the unification process of Orthodox parishes of the Moscow Patriarchate. The intensity of further differentiation depends largely on the new government of Ukraine. For modern Ukrainian society, the main ethnocultural consequences of changes in the religious situation are as follows: 1) the appearance of Ukrainian national religious organizations; 2) the full-fledged functioning of the Ukrainian language in the religious life; 3) the revival of rituals and traditions associated with the religious life that were banned in the USSR or forgotten; 4) formation of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church on the basis of Kyiv Metropolia and its acquisition of the highest canonical status in Ukraine. Changes that took place in the religious sphere contributed to the reverse Ukrainization of the Ukrainian ethnos after the long process of Russification, as well as to the political and ethnocultural consolidation of the Ukrainian nation. The impact of these changes on the modern ethnocultural development of the Ukrainian society, which took place from the mid-1980s till today, should be considered positive and corresponding to the national interests of Ukraine. These shifts in the religious situation contribute to the process of overcoming consequences of the religious, political, economic, and ethnocultural domination of Moscow in Ukraine.

The evolution of a church and religious role in the Ukrainian national and cultural Renaissance in the second half of the 19th - the first third of the 20th century: the modern historiography

The Ukrainian historiographical narrative of the religious and church place and role in the Ukrainian national and cultural Renaissance, and in the national liberation movement in the second half of the 19th and the first third of the 20th century is analyzed in the issue. The modern historians consider the ecclesiastical and religious factors of the Ukrainian Renaissance according to two levels. The first level reveals the history of religious thought, the representatives of which study the religious reflections of the prominent figures in culture, education, religion and literature, the second level conveys the history of the church life in Ukraine, the analysis of the church institutes’ role and place in the Ukrainian modern national and cultural Renaissance (the activity of UGCC, the Unification Council of the Eastern Orthodox Churches of Ukraine, the UAOC, etc.) is presented. A defined historiographical issue complies with the evolutional levels of a religious and ecclesiastical component in the modern spiritual, cultural, political and civil processes, namely the development of religious thought and institutional orientation of church and parish-based education in the second half of the 19th century contributed to the ecclesiastical and religious integration with the national democratic society and state establishment in the early 20th century. The scope of the church and religious activity on the Ukrainian lands had a moderate character in the second half of the 19th century compared to the first decades of the “long century”. The Ukrainian lands were divided politically as well as confessional that strengthened sacral indifference and “religious absenteeism”. The positive fact was that the modern historians had left politicization in the sacral and religious issues’ consideration which was a mainstream in the Soviet period. The scientists support a common thought that despite an institutional weakness of the church and religious life on the Ukrainian lands in the second half of the 19th century, the religion and faith were preserved as the essential features of the Ukrainian mentality, and as a result plays a crucial role in the Ukrainian cultural and spiritual development, put a base for the further governmental struggle. A final conclusion was drawn that the religious thought development, the prominent thinkers’ reflections about the Ukrainian Christianity and national church phenomena prepared the necessary conditions for the regularizing and further building of the Ukrainian church life in the beginning of the 20th century.

Domestic vulnerability and nationalist propaganda: Taiwan's national unification council campaign in 2006

Domestic vulnerability and nationalist propaganda: Taiwan's national unification council campaign in 2006

Taiwan's Future National Identity: Attitudes and Geopolitical Constraints

ROBERT M. MARSH [*] ABSTRACT People in Taiwan who favor the establishment of an independent Republic of Taiwan face the reality constraint that mainland (the PRC) threatens to use force to prevent this. Those who hold the opposite view and favor the reunification of Taiwan with mainland face a different reality constraint: the non-democratic, economically underdeveloped and, therefore, unappealing character of the PRC. These reality constraints were included in the way questions were phrased in several Taiwan surveys during the 1990s. Respondents were asked: (1) after Taiwan announces its independence it could maintain peaceful relations with Communist China, should Taiwan become an independent country? (2) mainland and Taiwan were to become similar in economic, political, and social conditions, should the two sides of the Strait be unified into one country? Depending on how a person answered both of these questions, s/he was categorized as having one of the following four types of national identification: Taiwan nationalist, nationalist, Pragmatist, and Conservative. This paper first analyzes the distribution of these four types of respondents in surveys conducted before and after the 1996 PRC firing of missiles into the waters near Taiwan's two largest seaports. Next, I show the effect of objective ethnicity (pen-sheng jen vs. wai-sheng jen) and subjective ethnicity (self-identification as Taiwanese or or both) on national identification preferences. These survey findings are then examined within a geopolitical context. From Beijing's point of view, the Taiwan independence movement is a secessionist movement. A comparative analysis of the outcomes of secessionist movements around the world shows that attempts at secession are almost always unsuccessful, for the basic reason that states do not willingly give up what they consider their sovereign territory. And since even modem democratic states are unwilling to accept a loss of territory, even a future democratic PRC would be unlikely to accept Taiwan's independence. AMONG THE POPULATION of Taiwan, those who favor the establishment of an independent Republic of Taiwan face the reality constraint that mainland (the PRC) has not renounced the use of military force if Taiwan declares its independence. Supporters of the opposite type of national identity -- reunification of Taiwan with mainland -- also face a reality constraint: the non-democratic, economically less developed character of the PRC. Surveys of attitudes in Taiwan toward future national identity made a significant advance in 1992 when they began annually to use Wu Naiteh's new formulation (Wu 1993) and to ask respondents: (1) If after Taiwan announced its independence it could maintain peacful relations with the Chinese communist government, then Taiwan should become an independent country. Do you agree? (2) If mainland and Taiwan were to become similar in economic, social and political conditions, then the two sides of the Strait should be united into one country. Do you agree? The second view is basically the position of President Lee Teng-hui, who stated in an address to the National Unification Council on July 22, 1998, China must be reunified. However, this reunification must be under a system of democracy, freedom and equitable prosperity... The nation should by no means be unified under the proven failure of comunism or the so-called 'one country, two systems' formula (Taiwan Research Institute 1998b:5). Even the PRC regime is aware that China's present political institutions and economy are more alienating than appealing to Taiwan residents. From answers to these two questions, Wu (1993, 1997) and Shen and Wu (1998) classified respondents into four types of national identification preferences: Taiwan nationalists, nationalists, Pragmatists, and Conservatives (see Table 1). …

Document 5: MAC Chairman Chang King-yuh, “Cross-Strait Relations and Their Prospects in New Situations,” National Unification Council, 22 July 1998

Document 5: MAC Chairman Chang King-yuh, “Cross-Strait Relations and Their Prospects in New Situations,” National Unification Council, 22 July 1998