My Visit To Ukraine - Ii: Kiev
According to the Primary Chronicle, in the early 11th century, Anthony, an Orthodox monk from Esphigmenon monastery on Mount Athos, originally from Liubech of the Principality of Chernihiv, returned to Rus’ and settled in Kiev as a missionary of monastic tradition to Kievan Rus’. He chose a cave at the Berestov Mount that overlooked the Dnieper River and a community of disciples soon grew. Prince Iziaslav I of Kiev ceded the whole mount to the Antonite monks who founded a monastery built by architects from Constantinople.
The Kiev Pechersk Lavra contains numerous architectural monuments, ranging from bell towers to cathedrals to underground cave systems and to strong stone fortification walls. The main attractions of the Lavra include Great Lavra Belltower, the notable feature of the Kiev skyline, and the Dormition Cathedral, destroyed in World War II, and fully reconstructed in recent years. Other churches and cathedrals of the Lavra include: the Refectory Church, the Church of All Saints, the Church of the Saviour at Berestove, the Church of the Exaltation of Cross, the Church of the Trinity, the Church of the Nativity of the Virgin, the Church of the Conception of St. Anne, and the Church of the Life-Giving Spring. The Lavra also contains many other constructions, including: the St. Nicholas Monastery, the Kiev Theological Academy and Seminary.
Under the Caves monastery there is an interconnected system of caves which is said to reach out for hundreds of kilometeres; and it was in these caves where the monastery now stands that St Anthony of Kiev began his monastic retreat while evangelising the “Kieven Rus” people.
Saints Anthony and Theodosius of Kiev |
If all this is a sad reflection on the legacy of history, they are also proud of this wonderful complex of cathedral, churches, buildings and caves. Dormition Cathedral is incredibly beautiful.
On its walls and in the icons that are for sale there is evidence of its long history of sanctity, with many canonised saints who have lived as monks of the community.
Below ground are the underground passages in which holy abbots and monks are buried;
and there are the other caves which served as monastic cells, some of which are chapels.
Pio and Manuil in the cathedral shop Pio had taken off his habit |
This is the refectory church where the monks used to eat By Dezidor – Own work (own photo), CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3105490 |
St Volodymyr’s Cathedral |
the red stone wall is from the earlier building |
The cathedral’s name comes from the 6th-century Hagia Sophia cathedral in Constantinople (meaning Holy Wisdom, and dedicated to the Holy Wisdom rather than a specific saint named Sophia). Architecture-wise, its model could have been the 13-domed oaken Holy Sophia Cathedral in Novgorod (c. 989), which Yaroslav I the Wise determined to imitate in stone as a sign of gratitude to the citizens of Novgorod who had helped him secure the Kievan throne in 1019.
The first foundations were laid in 1037 or 1011,[6] but the cathedral took two decades to complete. According to Dr. Nadia Nikitenko, an historian who has studied the cathedral for 30 years, the cathedral was founded in 1011, under the reign of Yaroslav’s father, Grand Prince of Kievan Rus’, Vladimir the Great. This info has been accepted by both UNESCO and Ukraine, which officially celebrated the 1000th anniversary of the cathedral during 2011.[7]) The structure has 5 naves, 5 apses, and (quite surprisingly for Byzantine architecture) 13 cupolas. It is surrounded by two-tier galleries from three sides. Measuring 37 to 55 m (121 to 180 ft), the exterior used to be faced with plinths. On the inside, it retains mosaics and frescos from the 11th century, including a dilapidated representation of Yaroslav’s family, and the Orans.
Saved from destruction through the representations of important scientists and historians, it was confiscated by the Soviet authorities and turned into a museum. It is still owned by the civil authorities who have been restoring it, with its historic tombs and ancient mosaics. Father Manuil has an incredible memory for detail, especially on Ukrainian history, complete with dates. In the entrance to the cathedral, there is a model of the old city with buttons that light up different parts of the city. He went through the history. Of course, it is not a functioning church now, but they are allowed on special occasions, and the refectory church at the side of the main one is used by the Moscow patriarchate church.
Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in Kiev |
Of course, I was guest of monks of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church; but, unfortunately, there are extremely bad relations between the Moscow Patriarchate and this Catholic Byzantine rite church. Recent history and a modern civil war have added to the bitterness. In Russia, in accordance with Byzantine tradition, there is a “symphonic” relationship between the Russian Church and the Russian state; while in Ukraine the church is besmirched by its collaboration with the Soviet regime.
Both churches look at the same Ukrainian history but interpret it differently, not because one side is lying, but because they experienced it differently.
The Greek Catholics remember that, in western Ukraine, there were simply no Orthodox churches: all churches were Greek Catholic until around 1945 when Stalin tried to eliminate the Greek Catholic Church with Orthodox episcopal cooperation, some of the most important Orthodox bishops being KGB agents anyway. A fraudulent church synod was called – all the Greek Catholic bishops being in prison – and the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church ceased to exist. Monks and priests were imprisoned, murdered of fled into exile; many lay people were shipped off in cattle trucks to other parts of Russia. Both Russia and the Vatican believed that Stalin had succeeded…until Gorbachev allowed freedom of religion. Both were surprised how many people reclaimed their Greek Catholic heritage. They were accused of robbing Orthodox churches, proselytising and using underhand methods of gaining converts, property and power: anything but rejecting the conversion to Orthodoxy that was forced on them at the point of a Russian gun. They have also been accused of proselytising in parts of Russia where traditionally they have no roots, it being forgotten that they were taken there in cattle trucks.
The Orthodox have a different version. They acknowledge that the churches were Catholic in 1945, before Stalin’s action, but they remember that many centuries ago the whole region was Orthodox, until the Poles, the Lithuanians and, later, the Austrians had their way. Thus, the Orthodox were only claiming back what had been originally theirs. In Stalin’s time, the Orthodox Church was also persecuted and millions of Russians were arrested, murdered or sent to hard labour camps or exiled. Orthodox bishops collaborated to stay alive and to preserve the Russian Orthodox Church for better times. It wasn’t, as Ukrainians tend to hold, a Russian against Ukrainian thing: it was Soviet communism against Christianity. They collaborated with Stalin against the Ukrainian Catholics so that the Church that really does matter in those regions of Greater Russia would survive.
Meanwhile in Ukraine the Greek Catholic Church has an attraction that the Moscow Patriarchate cannot claim: no one can accuse that “Unia” of having collaborated with Soviet Russia.
What can we learn from all this? Pope Francis has said that in the Church there is no authority other than that of service – hence the extent of jurisdiction decides how many feet we can wash – and that there is no power in the Church other than the Cross. Thus there is a fundamental difference between civil jurisdiction and ecclesiastical jurisdiction, between civil law and church law. Christ made this quite clear: those with ecclesiastical jurisdiction have no power to “lord it over them”, and, unlike civil law which is backed by power, church law must be, in order to be valid, an expression of ecclesial love which is the visible sign of the presence of the Holy Spirit that comes down on the gifts and the people in the Eucharist.
Hence, when ecclesiastic power and civil power work together in such a way that ecclesiastical power serves civil power, then the activity is sub-Christian and against the Gospel. Hence, if the Union of Brest was enforced by civil power of the Poles and Lithuanians, then it was a sub-Christian act. On the other hand, if Orthodox came to accept papal claims and to believe true Orthodoxy implies communion with Peter, like Father Panteleimon whom we met in the first article, then I can’t see where the objection lies. After all, there are Orthodox active in the Philippines, in Venezuela and other places who quite happily receive Catholics into their church, and there is even “Western rite Orthodoxy”. It is a sad effect of schism that people are presented with an either-or situation and have to choose, no more obviously than in Ukraine. Having said this, my own belief about the Church is, “Where the Eucharist is, there is the Church,” and that we are already one in Christ.
What saddens me is that Metropolitan Hilarion, in spite of his Oxford education, does not seem capable of critical analysis with regard to Ukraine. There have been wrongs on both sides, and Russian Orthodox are the last people to be able to accuse the “Unia” of proselytism. As one Ukrainian Catholic priest said to me, what is needed is a healing of memories so that we can forgive one another from our hearts.
St Basil’s Monastery celebrating a feast oof Our Lady Kiev |
St Basil’s monastery is a large Greek Catholic parish with a modern church and a fairly small community of Basilian monks. It was there that Father Manuil, Brother Pio and I stayed during our time in Kiev.
studied theology in Russia and had become a monk of the famous Orthodox monastery of Valaam. One day, he returned to his native Ukraine to visit his family and, while he was there, decided to join the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. He joined as a monk and entered the Studite order, which is the nearest observance to an Orthodox monastery that you can get.
Source: http://fatherdavidbirdosb.blogspot.com/2016/12/my-visit-to-ukraine-ii-kiev.html
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