Encounter of Ukrainian Catholic & Orthodox Hierarchs

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If the experience of the Melkites is any indication, then no, the Ukrainian Church will not be the first to unify. When the Melkites attempted “dual communion” with both Rome and the Antiochian Orthodox Church (and through them all of Orthodoxy), Rome stated that there cannot be communion between two particular Churches without communion first being established between all the Churches. So if Rome is to be taken at its word, then communion must be established between Catholicism and Orthodoxy in general before there can be a united Ukrainian Church, unless of course either the Ukrainian Catholics leave the Catholic Communion for the Orthodox Communion, or the Ukrainian Orthodox leave the Orthodox Communion for the Catholic Communion. 🤷 I don’t necessarily agree with Rome on this one, but that’s the way it is.
 
To be blunt, those conversations are all about public relations only. The Orthodox and Catholic churches of the Ukrainian/Kyivan tradition will act together along certain levels, but that is where everything stops.

One Orthodox priest from Ukraine once wrote me to say that unity among the Ukrainian churches will come not when the UGCC tears away from Rome or when the UOC tears away from Constantinople or Moscow.

He said all the Ukrainian churches must tear away from each of their respective “comfort zones” in order to become one.

And such a unified church can then have relations with the Orthodox Patriarchs and even with the Pope of Rome (from a distance, I think he meant).

No sign of that happening any time soon.

Alex
 
Phillip_Rolfes said:
If the experience of the Melkites is any indication, then no, the Ukrainian Church will not be the first to unify. When the Melkites attempted “dual communion” with both Rome and the Antiochian Orthodox Church (and through them all of Orthodoxy), Rome stated that there cannot be communion between two particular Churches without communion first being established between all the Churches. So if Rome is to be taken at its word, then communion must be established between Catholicism and Orthodoxy in general before there can be a united Ukrainian Church, unless of course either the Ukrainian Catholics leave the Catholic Communion for the Orthodox Communion, or the Ukrainian Orthodox leave the Orthodox Communion for the Catholic Communion. 🤷 I don’t necessarily agree with Rome on this one, but that’s the way it is.
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Of the varios Ukrainian “Orthodox” churches, only one is in formal communion with the rest of “Eastern Orthodoxy,” namely the UOC-Moscow Patriarchate.

The Kyiv Patriarchate and UAOC are not.
 
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