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H.E. Luka Kovalenko, archbishop of Zaporozhe and Melitopol, and Archpriest Mykolay Danylevych with the WCC general secretary. Photo: Marcelo Schneider/WCC

H.E. Luka Kovalenko, archbishop of Zaporozhe and Melitopol, and Archpriest Mykolay Danylevych with the WCC general secretary. Photo: Marcelo Schneider/WCC

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Two officials of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church have been visiting the Central Committee of the World Council of Churches (WCC) during its June 2016 meeting in Trondheim, Norway, reporting on the day-to-day challenges of spiritual life amid social tensions and national strife.

Emissaries of His Beatitude Metropolitan Onufriy of Kiev and All Ukraine, the two guests in Trondheim are His Eminence Luka Kovalenko, archbishop of Zaporozhe and Melitopol, and Archpriest Mykolay Danylevych, who serves as deputy chair of the external church relations department in the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. The membership of their church in the WCC, they explain, is through the Russian Orthodox Church.

In conversation, Father Mykolay elaborated: “This is not just a matter of canonical jurisdiction. We live a deeply spiritual relationship with the Moscow Patriarchate. In our region, there are divisions based on nationality and politics, but we in the Church try to stay above the conflict.”

“Political context is one thing,” he continued, “The relationships between churches and peoples is another.”

Ukraine has undergone a series of disturbances and government reforms since the collapse of the Soviet Union, culminating in the 2014 demonstrations centred on Maidan Square in Kiev.

Describing their church as “the biggest religious organization in Ukraine,” the two churchmen note that their 12,500 parishes are evenly distributed from east to west. In its own life, the church experiences “all the idiosyncracies, the variety and, on occasion, the opposing socio-political sentiments in the different regions of the country.”

In a statement presented both to the policy reference subcommittee and a plenary meeting of the full Central Committee, the two representatives stressed the complexity of seeking to maintain the unity of believers in a nation of different languages and ethnicities.

“In connection with this,” they stated, “our church cannot unambiguously maintain or cause its believers to practice as mandatory this or that political or geopolitical civilizational choice for our country, because it is simply not in the competency of the church.”

Of the demonstrations in recent years, they said, “Some of our people strongly supported Maidan, whilst another part opposed it. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church consciously did not show its official support for Maidan, nor anti-Maidan, as they both were political positions and among the supporters of both sides were believers of our church.”

Even though it attempted to avoid partisan positions “so as not to further divide our people,” the church nevertheless “officially declared its principled support for the independence and territorial integrity of Ukraine within its internationally recognized borders.”

The archbishop and archpriest are hopeful of building closer ties to the WCC and its member churches, looking for support in the face of provocations from “certain political and security structures of radical nationalist orientation, often with the support of local authorities.”

They expressed gratitude for a visit to Kiev earlier this month by two representatives of the WCC, and they added that they look forward to exploring further ecumenical contacts that may enable the Ukrainian Orthodox Church to become a more effective “voice for national reconciliation.”

WCC Central Committee meeting