Full text of the Albanian Church’s statement on the “Ukrainian issue”
Message (by decision of the Holy Synod of the Albanian Church) of Archbishop Anastasios of Tirana and All Albania to the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew, dated January 14, 2019.
Most Holy and Most Divine Archbishop of Constantinople – New Rome and Ecumenical Patriarch, in Christ most dearly beloved and most cherished brother and concelebrant of our humility, Kyr Bartholomew! Greeting Your Divine All-Holiness in the Lord, we address you in the sweetest manner.
May “Christ, Who has appeared to us and enlightened the world,” enlighten the thoughts, decisions, and actions of all Orthodox Christians, guiding in the New Year His Church, “which He purchased with His own precious Blood,” onto the path of peace.
Having gathered on January 4 of this year in Synod, we carefully studied the letter of Your Divine All-Holiness of December 24, 2018, and with all possible diligence examined the question of granting autocephaly to the Orthodox Church in Ukraine. With sincere respect and with loving boldness, as always, we briefly set forth the judgment of the Albanian Church, especially with regard to the actions of the Holy Spirit.
Our criticism of the Russian Church for refusing to participate in the Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church on Crete is already known. We also criticized the Russian Church for its hasty decision to break Eucharistic communion with the Ecumenical Patriarchate. In particular, in our letter to His Beatitude Patriarch Kirill of Moscow we wrote: “The decisions of the hierarchy of the Russian Church cannot deprive of validity the actions of the Holy Spirit in Orthodox churches under the jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. It is impossible for us to agree with such decisions. The Divine Eucharist – a mystery incomprehensible in its holiness and unique in its significance – must remain above ecclesiastical disputes.”
The same sorrow and agonizing concern for the preservation of the unity of the Orthodox Church compels us to voice serious doubts regarding the retroactive recognition as valid of ordinations performed by a person deposed from the priesthood, excommunicated, and anathematized. We speak of the actions of Mr. Filaret Denysenko (the principal instigator of the Ukrainian ecclesiastical crisis). The circumstances of his life are widely known. He was ordained a bishop of the Moscow Patriarchate in 1962, served as chairman of the Department of External Church Relations, and became Metropolitan of Kyiv. In 1991 he began to request autocephaly, not from the Ecumenical Patriarchate, but from his then Mother Church – the Moscow Patriarchate. In 1992 he was deposed, and in 1997 he was excommunicated and anathematized by the Russian Church – an organic part of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church – and these actions were recognized by all the autocephalous Orthodox Churches.
During the entire period in which Mr. Filaret was deposed and anathematized, he performed non-canonical rites that were not valid Mysteries.
Therefore, the ordinations performed by him are invalid, empty, devoid of Divine Grace and of the action of the Holy Spirit.
Among others, this includes the successive ordinations as deacon, priest, and finally bishop of his secretary Serhiy Dumenko, now Metropolitan Epifaniy. In your letter of December 24 it is said: “We restored them to the episcopal and presbyteral ranks that belonged to them.” However, we ask: to what extent did the ordinations performed by Mr. Filaret, while he was deposed and anathematized, receive retroactively – without a canonical ordination – validity in the Holy Spirit and the true seal of apostolic succession?
It is universally recognized in Orthodoxy as a fundamental ecclesiological principle that the ordinations of heretics and schismatics – and especially of those deposed and excommunicated – as “mysteries” performed outside the Church are invalid. This fundamental principle is inseparably linked with the Orthodox teaching on the Holy Spirit and constitutes the unshakable foundation of apostolic succession among Orthodox bishops. We are convinced that it is unacceptable to disregard this principle.
We find it difficult to understand how something invalid and empty “by economia” becomes Spirit-bearing; how actions that constituted an obvious blasphemy against the Holy Spirit (such as the invocation of the Holy Spirit by Mr. Filaret when he was excommunicated and deposed: “Divine grace, which always heals what is infirm and completes what is lacking, appoints the most reverent… let us therefore pray for him, that the grace of the All-Holy Spirit may come upon him”) are recognized retroactively “by economia.”
Finally, it is known to us that the election at the so-called Unification Council of the new primate of the Church of Ukraine was the result of the insistence of that same Mr. Filaret – who, significantly, is now called in Ukraine “His Holiness the Honorary Patriarch of Kyiv and All Rus’-Ukraine.”
In view of all the above, for us there remains the question of including Metropolitan Epifaniy in the Sacred Diptychs.
The desired reconciliation among Orthodox Ukrainians, who in the past endured persecutions from godless authorities, has still not been achieved. Hundreds of thousands of Orthodox faithful under the omophorion of Metropolitan Onufriy (according to statistics as of January 2018 they had 12,069 parishes, 90 hierarchs, 12,283 clergy, 251 monasteries, and 4,412 monks) refused to take part in the process of granting autocephaly; moreover, they broke Eucharistic communion with the Ecumenical Patriarchate. In the past, the ecclesiastical fullness of those countries that received autocephaly – Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, Georgia, Poland, Albania, the Czech Lands and Slovakia – was united.
We deeply grieve that our fears have been confirmed, which we repeatedly expressed during meetings with representatives of the Ecumenical Patriarchate (July 2018) and during our personal conversation with you on Crete (October 2018). Instead of reconciliation and the unification of Orthodox Christians in Ukraine, we see that there has arisen a danger of the destruction of the unity of all worldwide Orthodoxy.
Assumptions that the present upheavals and evident division will not last long, and that all the Autocephalous Orthodox Churches will eventually approve what has taken place, in the view of anyone who knows the history of ecclesiastical divisions and the persistence of religious fanaticism, can only be regarded as unfounded estimates. The soothing assumptions of some that this will happen… in the next century are especially cynical. Serious wounds that do not receive timely medical care do not heal with time. Usually they only widen and become even deeper.
The present situation requires new approaches and inspired ideas to ensure peace in Ukraine and, especially, to preserve the dangerously wounded unity of Orthodoxy. In this regard we firmly believe that the solution to the problem is to resort to conciliarity in the Holy Spirit, as was most clearly stated and emphasized on Crete: “The Orthodox Church expresses her unity and catholicity through the Council. Conciliarity permeates her entire organization, the manner of decision-making, and determines her course.”
We do not abandon the thought that the most precious achievement of the Orthodox in recent decades were the Pan-Orthodox Synaxes of Primates and the Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church with the active participation of the Ecumenical Patriarchate and of Your Divine All-Holiness.
Therefore, filled with the conciliar spirit of the Holy and Great Council, the Autocephalous Orthodox Church of Albania addresses a fervent appeal that the Ecumenical Patriarchate, fulfilling its exclusive prerogative to coordinate the Orthodox Churches, convene as soon as possible a Pan-Orthodox Synaxis or Council, in order to prevent the threatening danger of a painful schism that may damage the credibility and value of Orthodoxy’s witness in the contemporary world.
From the depths of our heart we pray and humbly implore that the Triune God direct our steps onto the path of preserving the unity of Orthodoxy: “Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, by the power of the Holy Spirit” (Rom. 15:13).
We greet you with a holy kiss and remain with all love and deepest respect in Christ, the God Who has appeared and enlightened the world.
Tirana, January 14, 2019.
