Is Ukraine transferred to a new “spiritual reality”?

Ukraine is being transferred to the Western "spiritual oikoumene". Photo: UOJ

Orthodox Ukraine is being actively and purposefully pushed into the Western religious sphere. This shift can become more powerful than the union with Catholicism in the 16th century. Why so? Let's figure it out.

The UGCC resolved to switch to the Gregorian calendar. This is to happen from September 1, 2023.

In May, the OCU is preparing to make the same decision. Its spokesman Evstratiy Zoria says that "they made the case for a positive decision." On the eve of 2023, the leaders of the Uniates and the OCU met and synchronized the transition to a new style. One can say these are their internal affairs and have nothing to do with the believers of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. However, that's not the case at all.

Not so long ago, the UGCC and Dumenko said that the transition to a new style is beneficial only to Moscow, since it will cause a split and preserve it for the next century.

Evstratiy Zoria: “This issue divides more than it unites. If we want to hold the ongoing state of separation, then let's carry out this calendar reform tomorrow. Let's replace the calendar, return the old calendar split and perpetuate the situation for another 100 years, which, in fact, would please Moscow. Shall we benefit Moscow in this way or be a little wiser?"

Now the answer is yes, their decision to urgently change the calendar will be a gift to Moscow. The war allegedly changed the needs of believers, and everyone is now longing for a new style. As for the OCU spokesman, he speaks with the same fervor, but this time about the importance of switching to a new calendar.

In fact, this is not at all a decision only of the OCU and the UGCC. The Ukrainian government plays with them in one team. Before the New Year, the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy, together with the Ministry of Digital Transformation, launched a poll in the Diya application on the date Ukrainians should celebrate Christmas. Why Christmas? The answer is simple – because this holiday has been discussed for several years as a transition point to a complete change of the calendar.

In turn, the government's initiative raised a lot of questions, since Diya is an electronic service of administrative public services. In other words, it looked the same as if when receiving a passport or marriage certificate in the administrative center, you were suddenly offered to vote about the church.

Such attention to religious issues in a country where the Church is separated from the state by the Constitution is amazing. But this is only at first glance. Initiatives like this don't just come out of the thin air. It is important from what perspective the survey was presented.

Oleksandr Tkachenko: “For Ukraine, following the Julian calendar is a legacy of the Russian empire. However, lately more and more people are switching to celebrating Christmas on December 25, together with the Christians of the world, and some even celebrate two dates, which is allowed by our law ... This process is accelerating, also because no one wants to celebrate Christmas together with Moscow."

Actually, not only the Russian and Ukrainian Churches, but also the Jerusalem, Polish, Georgian, Serbian, and Mount Athos live today according to the Julian calendar. However, our government is silent about it. By its interpretation, the Julian calendar is “bad”, this is Moscow and the Russian Empire, while the new calendar is “good”, these are Christians worldwide.

Therefore, a simple political technology in two moves can be traced here:

• first, the idea of a new church calendar is imposed on people;
• then this idea is served as a request of the society. People ostensibly demand it.

Tkachenko: “I don't see any room for discussions here. These are public expectations, we conducted a survey in Diya.”

And a little later, the minister writes: “The reform of the Liturgical calendar is already overdue, and today is the time to introduce drastic changes.”

Nevertheless, why did the authorities show such a great concern for the church calendar? Andriy Yurash, former head of the State Department for Religious Affairs, and now ambassador to the Vatican, answers this. It turns out that the transition to a new style is a matter of ideology and politics. And this is Ukraine's gratitude to the West for its support in the war.

Andriy Yurash: “It is a cultural and ideological issue. We are part of Western culture. It is logical that in this dimension, too, we should reaffirm our belonging. Moreover, it is not a formal choice, but a form of gratitude that we feel towards the majority of the Western spiritual oikoumene in this terrible fight. This is a very powerful impulse that will resonate with the entire spiritual space of our state.”

In the 16th-17th centuries, when the right-bank Ukraine was under the rule of the Commonwealth, attempts were already made to make Ukrainians a part of the Western spiritual oikoumene. To put it simply, to destroy Orthodoxy here and make Ukraine Catholic. Then only the intercession of the Zaporizhzhia Cossacks helped to preserve the Orthodox faith in Ukraine. The reformatting attempt failed.

Now, due to the invasion of the Russian Federation, we can see that a new attempt is budding. However, today the situation is quite different. Constantinople and Rome are talking with might and main about the imminent concelebration and unification. It is slated for 2025, the year of the anniversary of the First Ecumenical Council. The pontiff and Patriarch Bartholomew arranged to have a common celebration of Easter. They have already made dozens of statements about future unity and not only between Rome and Phanar. Pope Francis calls for unity of all denominations. In addition, Patriarch Bartholomew calls on the British confessions to join this initiative. Still, this is a matter of the distant future, while the unification of the structures of Rome and the Phanar should be tested in Ukraine tomorrow. The head of the Uniates, Sviatoslav Shevchuk, upholds this point.

Sviatoslav Shevchuk: “Our Church competes so that we can implement at our local level those achievements that are obvious at the universal level. As a local church of the Ukrainian people, we want to bring those fruits of the search for universal unity into the Christian church context of our homeland. A dialogue that would finally lead us to complete and visible unity.”

It turns out that today a large-scale religious and political project is being implemented in Ukraine with the participation of Rome, the Phanar, the Uniates, the OCU and the secular authorities of Ukraine. Perhaps, the repressions of the authorities on the UOC can be explained by this project, rather than all its mythical connection with Moscow. After all, if it is possible to drive believers into the OCU and then unite them with the Uniates, then the whole of Ukraine will become a global testing ground for the running-in of a certain single confession.

A Christian will say – well, after all, unity is good, everyone must be happy. This will be true if those who have fallen away from the Church return to its fold. However, it is not so. Instead unity, there can be only a certain single hodgepodge of confessions, in which everyone will retain their heresies and delusions.

For example, the head of the Phanar Archdiocese in the United States believes that "all religions are myriad paths leading to one place." The head of the Phanar believes that its task is to build bridges between different faiths. With such rhetoric gaining momentum, ecumenical services today have become commonplace.

Here is a Catholic in vestments serving at the liturgy in the Ternopil Cathedral of the OCU. Here is a single Eucharist of the OCU and Lutherans in Hamburg. Ecumenical services are now held almost every week. Here Patriarch Bartholomew and the hierarchs of the Phanar are praying in the Anglican Cathedral in London. Here is the concelebration of the Phanar, Rome, the OCU and the UGCC in Kyiv. Here is the service of the Phanar, Catholics and Protestants in New York, here is the worship of the OCU, Catholics, Phanar and Protestants in Istanbul.

These are all Overton windows. They blur the very concept of Christ's Church. After all, if all religions are equal, then why adhere to the Orthodox faith? Moreover, is it really so necessary to rely on the Holy Scriptures? For example, in relation to Sodom’s sins?

In early February, the Synod of the Anglican Church decided to bless LGBT couples in churches. Now the authorities are vigorously trying to persuade the Church to approve assisted suicide, euthanasia. Similar processes are in full swing among Catholics and Protestants. But all this is the Western “spiritual oikoumene”, of which we, Ukrainians, are prepared to become a part.

Do we need such a future? Maybe we’d better turn our minds to the great wealth of the Orthodox faith that we received from the Monks of the Caves, Job of Pochaev, Jonah of Kyiv, Kuksha of Odessa, and many other great saints of our holy land? Maybe this is the "Western oikoumene" that should seek wisdom in our Orthodox churches and monasteries?

It so happened that Christianity is in crisis today. The Russian Church has become an appendage of the state military machine, most of Western Christianity has yielded to the imposed gender and LGBT ideology. In Ukraine, the Church of Christ is being persecuted, but this only makes Her stronger and more united. Yes, the authorities have their plans for us. But if God is for us, who can be against us?

Read also