Denominational sizes in Ukraine

[The young fogey]

This just in from a Catholic news service by way of a Catholic blog:

The growing Catholic Church in Ukraine

KIEV, Feb 12, 03 (CWNews.com) -- The Ukrainian government has released statistics on registered religious bodies, showing that the Byzantine-rite Ukrainian Catholic Church is now the second-largest single religious group in the country.

Although Orthodox Christians account for a substantial minority (blogger: I believe that should read majority) of religious believers in Ukraine, a three-way split among the Orthodox has produced a confused struggle for jurisdiction among the Ukrainian Orthodox Church allied with the Moscow Patriarchate, the independent Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kiev Patriarchate, and the Autocephalous Orthodox Church.

The government figures for 2003 show that 10,040 parishes are affiliated with the Orthodox Church-Moscow Patriarchate, 3,196 with the growing Kiev Patriarchate, and 1,110 with the Autocephalous Church. The latter two groups, which broke from the Moscow Patriarchate after the independence of Ukraine, are growing rapidly; of the 726 new Orthodox parishes registered by the government, only 72 are affiliated with the Moscow-backed group.

The Ukrainian Catholic Church now has 3,334 registered parishes, leaving it in second place behind the Orthodox Church-Moscow Patriarchate. There are also 847 Latin-rite Roman Catholic parishes.

[Serge: IOW, the actual Orthodox Church in Ukraine is still the biggest denomination nationwide, despite the defection of the two schismatic splinter groups from it. AFAIK the Ukrainian Catholics are all concentrated in the southwest, in ex-Polish and ex-Slovak territory, where they are about 80% of the population.

And actually, the Ukrainian Catholic Church is only a smidgen bigger than Patriarch Filaret's schismatic ex-Orthodox group.]

Protestants in Ukraine are represented in 2,272 Baptist communities, 1,366 Pentecostal, 928 Adventist, and 790 classified as "charismatic." There are also 262 Jewish groups, and 462 Muslim.

[Serge: Add the numbers of UkrCs and RCs and you get 4,181, making Catholicism the No. 2 denomination and the No. 3 faith in the country. Filaret's church is the No. 3 denomination; Baptists No. 4. (In the Russias these are Stundists, of the German Mennonite tradition, not American-type Baptists.) But if you add the numbers of Protestants together you get 5,356 congregations. So ISTM Catholicism isn't the No. 2 faith in Ukraine; Protestantism is.

Anyway, my impression is most people in Ukraine, like Russia, are secular/unchurched.]

[Anastasios]

While I agree with you Serge that Patriarch Filaret's group is 100% schismatic, I don't think it's fair to call him ex-Orthodox, especially since two of his bishops were just received into the OCA as bishops.  His situation is to me the same as the Greek Old Calendarists of Met. Cyprian before their joining union with ROCOR: Orthodox beliefs, Orthodox episcopate, irregular status.  ROCOR communed Met. Cyprian's laity even before the union was signed because they were irregular but Orthodox.  Or perhaps like the Bulgarian Church which was unjustly excommunicated by the Ecumenical Patriarch last century but was ultimately vindicated.

I think that it *can* be argued that Pat. Filaret was deposed canonically by the MP but his flock and his bishops are undoubtedly in my mind Orthodox, albeit schismatic.

In Christ,

anastasios

[Orthodoc]

[His situation is to me the same as the Greek Old Calendarists of Met. Cyprian before their joining union with ROCOR: Orthodox beliefs, Orthodox episcopate, irregular status.]

I agree!  Hopefully in time this schisms will be settled.  It could be settled over night if the EP and the MP put Orthodoxy first and granted the Ukrainian Orthodox Catholics autocephally with their own CANONICAL Patriarch.

You might even be suprised at the reaction of the UGC's if this was done.

Orthodoc

[The young fogey]

I see your point, anastasios, but I'm not saying Filaret and his church are not orthodox, or not sincere, not nice, etc. I'm saying they're not Orthodox. As I understand the Orthodox point of view, if a bishop and his church are not in the Orthodox communion, they aren't Orthodox. To say they are unequivocally in the Church despite being out of communion is a Catholic POV (‘valid orders’, etc.).

[Anastasios]

Dear Serge,

I have to argue that he is big-O Orthodox because what else is he?  He's obviously not a vagante--he has real Churches and over 25 bishops with real dioceses behind him--but he is not in communion with the rest of Orthodoxy.  Was the Bulgarian Orthodox Church "not Orthodox" when it was out of communion with the EP?  I personally don't think so, although others might disagree.  What about the Macedonian Orthodox Church?  It's certainly schismatic but not non-Orthodox.

I have to wonder: perhaps we need to distinguish between Canonical Orthodox, Schismatic Orthodox, and Non-Orthodox, because I think it is a bit of a pull to claim the UOC-KP is not Orthodox (with a big O); while we must acknoledge that Filaret is a schismatic, it is claimed he is deposed, etc.  I don't think it's the Catholic POV at all--namely that grace runs from consecrator to consecratee--because the emphasis is NOT on whether Filaret is a "validly consecrated bishop"--the issue is that he was consecrated by Orthodox bishops for an Orthodox Church (ie his local diocese, Metropolia, and Autonomous Church) but he chose to act outside of his jurisdictional mandate and so is considered schismatic.  That's a lot different than if a mentally senile old man such as Met. Vitaly consecrates a deposed priest to be a bishop, and this new bishop doesn't even have any parishes to back him up!

So in other words, I am arguing that one does not have to be in communion with world Orthodoxy to be an Orthodox bishop (I mean obviously one should, but human problems such as Patr. Alexy and Patr. Bartholemew make it difficult on hierarchs sometimes).  For instance, say one day Metropolitan Philip decides to break union with the Patriarchate of Antioch and joins the OCA.  Then everyone excommunicates the new OCA-Antiochian merger.  Does that mean that this Church is no longer Orthodox? Hardly.  Irregular? Yes.  Schismatic?  Maybe.  Non-Orthodox and on par with Bishop Billy Bob of the True Cathodox Apostolic Word Church of God in Christ? No!

Another thing to think about: in 1996 Moscow broke communion with Constantinople for about a month.  Did Moscow cease to be Orthodox for a month?  I don't think so.  Now they were in communion with the other Churches still, but I think this whole "I'm in communion with A, A is in communion with B and C, etc" is a relatively new idea.  I could be wrong of course, but I just don't see that as normal.

I'd shy away from making any kind of formula for Orthodoxy and simply say that some signs one would look for in an Orthodox Church would be

1) Orthodox faith as measured by the Scriptures, Ecumenical Councils, etc.

2) Orthodox episcopate, ie an Orthodox bishop was consecrated by other Orthodox bishops for an Orthodox community (and not in someone's living room for instance to be the Bp of Main Street, Boise, Idaho)

3) Communion with the other Orthodox Churches

with #3 having the caveat that such could be lacking provided there was an extinuating (sp?) circumstance, which would place said group in a suspect, irregular, and possibly schismatic position, but which would not automatically disqualify it.

Violation of #2 would make you a vagante,

Violation of #1 would be the Roman Catholic position for instance.

Another analogy my friend just made was that if your finger gets cut off, it's still alive for awhile; it can be reattached, and in the meantime it's still you.  So maybe for awhile, the KP or Macedonians, or whatever are still Orthodox, but it depends on their orientation: if they try to reenter communion with the other Orthodox, they will be ok, but if they turn inwards, they will wither and die.

These are just my thoughts and I haven't worked them out totally yet, and it's something I struggle with.

In Christ,

anastasios

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