Transl. from Russian
Author: Metropolitan Agafangel. Publication date:. Category: Author's column.
It is obvious that
today the Russian Federation is returning to the Soviet political system, where
the place of communist ideology is occupied by the pseudo-Orthodoxy of the Moscow
Patriarchate. But a new society is obviously being built in Ukraine, as well, but
what result this construction activities lead to, we can only guess. Let's look
at this question from several points of view.
Ukraine in the Field of Political
Structure
The first Slavic state-empire
of the Rurikhs, which united many nationalities, with the center in Kyiv – the Kievan
Rus, - began its existence as an Orthodox state from the moment of the adoption
of Christ in 988, and has, one way or another, existed as a single entity for 250
years, up until the Mongol invasion (1237-1240). Kievan Rus partially covered the
territories of the modern states of Ukraine, the Russian Federation, Belarus and
Poland.
In the process of
its existence, the united Kievan Rus began to disintegrate into separate specific
principalities at the beginning of the XII century. The beginning of this fragmentation
is considered to be 1132, when Polotsk (1132) and Novgorod (1136) ceased to recognize
the power of the Kyiv prince. The chronicler under 1134 wrote down: "the whole
Russian land was torn apart." Kyiv continued to be considered the capital of
the entire Russian land, and the prestigious title of the Grand Duke of Kyiv became
an object of struggle between various associations of Rurikhs. At the same time,
the emerging specific principalities, having their own territories and monetary
units, were independently controlled by local princes. Later, the principalities
began to be intensively split up, since the lands, after the death of the prince,
were distributed as inheritance among his sons. There was no longer a single political
center, civil strife was practiced, only the Orthodox faith and the Church with
its center in Constantinople were common. In the north, the spread of specific principalities
stopped with the formation of a new powerful Slavic center – the Muscovite kingdom,
within which the last specific principality was liquidated in 1591.
In the south, the
territory with a conditional center in Kyiv constantly swapped hands. So, in 1169,
Kyiv was captured by the Vladimir-Suzdal prince Andrei Bogolyubsky. In 1240 – the
Mongol-Tatar Khan Batiy. In 1362, Kyiv was captured by the army of the Grand Duke
of Lithuania, who in 1569 united with Poland into a single Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
[Rech Pospolitaya]. This is, leaving out the smaller raids and strife. It was only
in 1648 that Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky at the head of the Ukrainian Liberation Army
solemnly entered Kyiv through the Golden Gate. Bogdan Khmelnytsky waged a difficult
war for the independence of Ukraine simultaneously with the Poles, Lithuanians,
the Crimean Khan and the Turkish Sultan. Under these conditions, the only way out
was to conclude a military-political alliance with the Moscow Tsar of the same Orthodox
faith.
That alliance was concluded in 1654 – in Pereyaslavl, Ukraine was reunited with Muscovite Russia, while Kyiv became the heart of Orthodoxy, the Slavic Holy Land for the entire Russian Empire. This union lasted until the change of the political system in 1917, and in 1943, by order of the communist dictator Joseph Stalin, the Soviet Moscow Patriarchate was formed, which defiled both the shrines of Kyiv and all of Russian Orthodoxy.
_______
Today, politically,
Ukraine is between the revival of the USSR, on the one hand, and the risk of becoming
a raw material province of Europe, on the other. There is a distant and vague hope
of becoming a self-dependent and independent state, but, practically, without a
chance of success.
Division of Peoples
Probably, the conditional
division of the Russian and Ukrainian peoples can be reckoned starting from 1169,
when Prince Andrei Bogolyubsky sent an army to the south, which, together with the
Smolensk and Seversk squads that joined him, captured Kyiv. For the first time in
history, the city was brutally plundered by its northern neighbors, Kyiv churches
were burned, many Kyivans were killed and taken prisoner.
After the Mongol-Tatar
invasion and the ruin of Kyiv in 1240, the Kyiv princes lost the title of great
(the last Great Kyiv prince was Alexander Nevsky, who received the khan's label
on Kyiv and Novgorod), and during the XIII-XV centuries Kyiv, as an ordinary specific
principality, was part of the composition of other, stronger, principalities.
The Kievan and neighboring
Galician, Pereyaslavl, and Chernihiv principalities that were on the territory of
modern-day Ukraine were subjected to continuous seizures and raids, due to their
own ruin, exhaustion and external dependence, turned out to be a province, outskirts,
of the strong and developing northern Slavic principalities. The former glorious
Kievan Rus from the 12th to the 16th centuries became Specific Rus, in which there
alternated the dominance of the northern principalities: the Grand Duchy of Vladimir
(1125-1389); the Novgorod Republic (1136-1478); the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (1236-1795);
the Grand Duchy of Moscow (1263-1478); the Muscovy state (1478-1721); the Moscow
kingdom (1547-1721); the Russian Empire (1721-1917)
When in 1654 at the
Pereyaslav Rada it was decided for Ukraine to join into the Muscovite kingdom, Poland,
which owned part of the Ukrainian lands, did not agree with this, because of which
the Russian-Polish war of 1654-1667 broke out, as a result of which, in the Russian-Polish
treaty of 1667, Ukraine was divided along the Dnieper [River] into the Right Bank
[Ukraine], which remained part of Poland, and the Left Bank [Ukraine], which became
an autonomous unit (Hetmanate) within the Muscovite kingdom. Later, as a result
of the second division of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth [Rech Pospolitaya]
(1793), the Right-Bank Ukraine also passed from Poland to the Russian Empire.
Modern supporters
of the new world order would do well to remember how the Left-Bank Ukraine lived
under the Poles, where the Orthodox were subjected to humiliation and forcible Catholicization,
where, in addition to leasing Orthodox churches to non-Orthodox private owners,
when parishioners collected money over a full year, so that for a large fee they
would receive the key from the "owner" for Easter and serve the Easter
service in their church, and where [Polish] priests harnessed Orthodox priests instead
of horses to their [wreck] carts, and the wives of shinkars sewed skirts from Orthodox
vestments (according to N. V. Gogol). Right-bank Ukraine and Orthodoxy were not
oppressed under the Moscow Tsar; temples and cities were freely built here; Orthodox
lands seized by Muslims were won back and later became part of Ukraine; crafts and
trade developed successfully.
Thus, the entire Ukraine
became one state with the Russian Empire in 1793, that is, having lived from 1240
to 1793, for more than 550 years, one way or another, as a separate, albeit dependent,
state that passed from hand to hand. This is the time of formation in Ukraine of
an original way of life, language, national characteristics, a specific kind of
state administration, which eventually formed Ukrainians into an independent and
hardworking warrior people. In this historical period, uniting Russia and Ukraine
was only the Orthodox faith in the jurisdiction of Constantinople, the liturgical
way of life, the Church Slavonic language and the spiritual tradition, that is,
the Church.
* * *
The Moscow Metropolis
separated from the Kyiv Metropolis in several stages. In 1448, the Metropolitan
of Moscow was independently placed [enthroned] (without the participation of Constantinople,
which from 1439 to 1472 was in union with Rome). The status of the autocephaly of
the Moscow Metropolis was formally confirmed by Patriarch Jeremiah II of Constantinople
in 1589.
Thus, Russia was under
Constantinople until 1589, and Ukraine a hundred years longer – until 1686.
During the period
from the collapse of Kievan Rus to the collapse of Imperial Russia (from 1240 to
1917, that is, for 677 years), it can be said that Russia and Ukraine lived as a
single state for only 124 years (from 1793 to 1917). For a greater period of their
history, these peoples lived separately, like two different states.
* * *
The Orthodox Russian
Empire, annexing new territories, naturally sought to make them organic parts of
the united [single] state. Therefore, in the Russian Empire there were no national
republics, there were no Ukraine, Georgia, Belarus, Moldova, etc. The Orthodox empire
smoothed out national features – hence Little Russia and Novorossia, Siberia, the
Caucasus, Tavria, Bessarabia, etc. Until recently, old Russian emigrants who did
not live in the USSR, even when they had come from those places, failed to understand
what any separate Ukraine, Moldova or Belarus meant – in their minds it was a single
Orthodox Russia.
Orthodoxy was reckoned
of paramount importance in the Russian Empire. The Orthodox [faithful] had the broadest
rights in the Empire – only those who professed the Orthodox faith could hold key
government positions. Moreover, the leading positions, even the highest ones, in
the Empire were occupied by people, who quite often were of non-Slavic origin. Many
foreigners who converted to Orthodoxy and became Russified became great Russian
scientists, writers, generals and statesmen. It was in Orthodoxy that the main meaning
of the Russian Empire was. Republics were created by the communists on a national
basis immediately after they seized power, precisely with the aim of fighting Orthodoxy
by dividing the peoples. In this sense, there is certain truth in the fact that
the theomachists took some part in the formation of national Ukraine within the
borders in which it exists today.
Although Ukraine went
for unification with Russia, which, in many ways, was a forced one, still the independently
lived history did not allow Ukrainians to accept the full power of the Muscovite
Tsar; they, of course, never expected such an imperious demand to submit, they did
not expect the dissolution of the Zaporizhzhya army, which was their army and defense
(which, in fact, represented Ukraine in its alliance with Russia in 1654), therefore
the uprising of the Ukrainian Hetman Mazepa and all other manifestations of resistance
were a tribute to the memory of Ukraine about its former independence. The Pereyaslav
Treaty promised the Ukrainian side guarantees of freedom and did not provide for
much that followed after its conclusion.
I personally, as an
Orthodox clergyman, grew up in the bosom of Russian spiritual culture, but I am
not a judge of the Ukrainian people and do not want to distort the history of Ukraine.
We have to state with regret that until now Ukrainians do not understand Russians,
and Russians do not understand Ukrainians. Such, behold, a paradox we have even
to this day.
_______
Today, Ukraine is
faced with a choice between becoming a separate independent state inhabited by a
separate people (like Poland, Bulgaria, etc.), or being a nationalless younger brother
of a Russian-Soviet non-national older brother.
Religious Aspect
As already mentioned,
only Orthodoxy gathered and kept the peoples of Kievan Rus as part of a single state.
Orthodoxy became the deep essence of many people, who – only thanks to it – became
one people in Christ: "Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision
nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ is all, and
in all." (Col. 3:11). Truly, these words of Holy Scripture have actually been
fulfilled over our Orthodox people. Tsarist Russia, especially at the end of its
history, was built on earth after the model of Heavenly Paradise: united by the
Orthodox faith, by the conciliar hierarchical structure of society headed by the
Orthodox Tsar on earth, as a reflection of the Tsar of Heaven. Russians, Ukrainians
and Belarusians are one people only in Orthodoxy, outside Orthodoxy they are different,
even deeply hostile peoples [to each other]. What we also see now in the war of
these peoples, a real and terrible war, which could not have happened if it were
a single people: "And if a kingdom be divided against itself, that kingdom
cannot stand." (Mk. 3:24). Now, unfortunately, on the scale of the state there
is no true Orthodoxy either in the Russian Federation, or in Ukraine, or in Belarus,
therefore there is not and there cannot be a single people.
Accession of the Kyiv Metropolis
to the Moscow Patriarchy
In 1654, the Left-bank
part of Ukraine, headed by Bohdan Khmelnitsky, became part of the Moscow kingdom,
the next step [deemed to follow] was the annexation of the Right-bank Ukraine, which
was [then] part of Poland (the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth). These political
perspectives also included the religious question of resubordination of the Kyiv
Metropolitanate, common to both Right-Bank and Left-Bank Ukraine, to the Moscow
Patriarch.
This religious question
seemed to have been settled by the issuance of the Charter of 1686 by Constantinople.
However, with the Diploma of the Patriarch Dionysius IV of Constantinople, who transferred
the Kyiv Metropolis to the Moscow Patriarchate, as it turned out, not everything
was simple. Firstly, the Charter was issued under strong pressure from the Turkish
Sultan, as well as with the help of direct bribery by Moscow diplomacy (Dionysius
IV was deposed for this by the Council of the Greek Church a year later). Secondly,
this Charter did not transfer the Kyiv Metropolis to the Moscow Patriarchate, but
the Moscow Patriarch only received the status of a vicar or exarch of the Patriarch
of Constantinople in the matter of the Kyiv Metropolis with the right to ordination
and appointment of the Kyiv Metropolitan elected by the Ukrainian Council, who was
under the jurisdiction of the Church of Constantinople, whose Patriarch the Kyiv
Metropolitan was obliged to commemorate as his primate.
Nevertheless, with
the absolute political weakness of Constantinople and the power of the Muscovite
state, the Kyiv Metropolis, not legally, but practically, passed into the full jurisdiction
of Moscow. The see of Constantinople resigned itself to this fact, which it could
virtually do nothing about. Eucharistic communion continued, material assistance
from the Russian state was accepted with gratitude. From the former influence of
Constantinople there remained, it would seem, only short prayers in Greek in the
hierarchal service. The question was completely forgotten for more than three centuries.
However, unexpectedly,
already nowadays, on October 11, 2018, Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople with
his Synod suddenly decided to cancel the Charter issued in 1686 and return the Kyiv
Metropolis to its full possession [rule].
Following such a decision,
there can only be a “silent scene”, which very quickly turned into a complete and,
obviously, irrevocable, division of church communion between Moscow and Constantinople.
Most likely – for good, until the end of ages.
_______
Today, Ukraine has
a triple choice between the political pseudo-Orthodoxy of the Moscow Patriarchy,
the ecumenical one of Constantinople, and the heresy of Papism. True, the only correct
way is to return to the Orthodoxy of the Holy Fathers – the path to Christ, but
the likelihood that Ukraine will follow this, most difficult path today, is almost
zero. Almost – stands only because it is impossible to take away faith in a miracle.
What's Going on now
On a political plane,
the Slavs, as it were, have now returned into the 12th century – in the time of
princely strife, difficult times for the Orthodox people, which then came as a result
of the decline and destruction of the Kievan Rus Empire and which returned at the
beginning of the 20th century again, in their terrible reality, after the fall of
the Orthodox Russian Empire, and have continued with renewed vigor to our days,
in the Ukrainian-Russian war, in which other Slavic peoples and their allies have
united against the false Soviet empire of evil.
The Orthodox Empire,
unfortunately, no longer exists and will never be, neither the Kievan, nor the Russian,
nor any other. So, all the various anti-Imperials should not worry about this.
* * *
There is no doubt
that the decision of the Patriarch of Constantinople to return the Metropolis of
Kyiv did not come by chance, and not even at the initiative of Patriarch Bartholomew
himself. Clearly visible behind this are, of course, the plans of modern deep world
governments. Just as the Moscow Church is an organic appendage of the globalist
center in the Kremlin, so the Church of Constantinople is subordinate to another,
competing, globalist center. Neither side needs Ukraine as a strong independent
state. To them Ukraine is a territory, and nothing more, whose population is given
importance to, perhaps, as a cheap labor force. There is no elite in Ukraine that
the elites of deep governments would somehow reckon with. Both centers have their
own "invisible army" inside Ukraine – on the part of the Russian Federation,
these are the crazy sympathizers of the USSR and those in whom the Soviet mentality
has taken root, employees and agents of the KGB-FSB, as well as adherents of the
UOC-MP – the fifth column of the Russian Federation; on the side of deep Europe
there are other diverse and contradictory representatives – included here are people
not believing in God: both depraved supporters of all kinds of freedoms, professionals
and amateurs from among ultranationalists, medium and small businesses, freedom-loving
youth and, I must say, the majority of common-sense people.
However, we have to
admit that genuine Orthodoxy in Ukraine is in absolute decline. People who are completely
indifferent to any religion are in power; among them God has long been irrevocably
forgotten. The Church is viewed solely as a secondary civil institution, which they
try to either completely neutralize or manipulate according to their political needs.
In Ukraine, at the
beginning of the 20th century, the same atheists who overthrew the Russian Tsar,
also overthrew a little later the Ukrainian Hetman Paul Skoropadsky, who wanted
to return Ukraine to the path of the Orthodox state system, which the country followed
before reunification with Russia in 1654. This was fully sympathized with by Metropolitan
Anthony (Khrapovitsky), who at that time was in Kyiv in close relations with the
Hetman, as well as other bishops who emigrated from the territory of Ukraine to
Constantinople and laid the foundation for the Russian Church Abroad. There were
also such supporters from among the prominent ROCA laymen, for example, the monarchist
N. D. Talberg, a former member of the government of Hetman Skoropatsky.
Today in Ukraine,
unfortunately, much of what happened during the revolutionary turmoil of 1917 is
being repeated – the “tsarist regime” is again accused of all possible crimes against
the people, the common history is being crossed out, which, like it or not, is part
of the history of the Ukrainian people. In Ukraine, unfortunately, the authorities,
like the Bolsheviks did, constantly repeat in someone else's voice that everything
that was under the tsars was directed against the people, and only now, very soon,
finally, and without a doubt, a bright future and common happiness will come , great
horizons will soon open – thieves and crooks will restore the long-awaited order
and establish justice and prosperity in Ukraine for centuries to come. We have heard
and experienced all of this before.
* * *
In Ukraine, as well
as in the Russian Federation, the post-Soviet deception is being actively propagated
that the Orthodox Empire and the USSR are one and the same, and every day this lie
is hammered into people's heads through all kinds of media. But the current Kremlin
power is the power of the murderers who killed the true Orthodox Russia in 1917,
and have now, for their own political gain, put on the clothes of their victim.
Until now, the "Soviet imperialists" from the Russian Federation boast
and are proud of their ancestors who shot counter-revolutionaries – capitalists,
landlords [pomeshchiks], clergy, and all the intelligentsia in a row. One of the
differences between the Russian Empire and the USSR was that the Empire, especially
in its last years, was constantly progressing, reforms were under way there, freedoms
were strengthened, industry and science were growing rapidly. While the whole history
of the theomachic USSR, which ended the life of the Orthodox Empire was the path
of rooting in of slavery and degradation in all areas, the planting of militant
atheism, the cult of mediocrity, dullness, poverty and lies. Without real
repentance, post-Soviet people remain to this day unrepentant theomachists and murderers.
The words of Christ directly relate to them: “Woe unto you! for ye build the
sepulchres of the prophets, and your fathers killed them. Truly ye bear witness
that ye allow the deeds of your fathers: for they indeed killed them, and ye
build their sepulchres” (Lk. 11:47-48). While in the Russian Federation the murderers
have repainted themselves in "monarchist colors", in Ukraine the authorities
have not repainted themselves, but have simply returned to the positions of the
Bolsheviks of 1917.
While the fate of Ukraine is destined – for the collective
West – to be just a land from which subsoil is withdrawn and on which cheap workers
work, as evidenced by the recent attempt by international corporations to appropriate
Ukrainian land, the deliberate destruction of Ukrainian industry and the artificial
creation of a shortage of jobs in Ukraine on the one hand, and on the other hand,
favorable conditions for leaving "to earn [for work]" (before the war,
about 10 million young able-bodied people left), cases have come to light of direct
obstacles to the creation of large modern enterprises here, encouragement of corruption
among the highest authorities, etc. All this only says that what the collective
West needs of Ukraine is only land and resources. This, by the way, is also evidenced
by the metered issuance of purely defensive weapons during the war – exactly as
much as needed so that there are as many casualties as possible on both sides.
The Putin Federation,
in turn, is interested in bringing Ukraine back into the sphere of Kremlin globalism,
for the purpose of which people should again turn into uncomplaining Soviet slaves,
like those who are now fans of the bunker dictator driven mad. Unfortunately, it
must be admitted that here in Ukraine there are still many who want to return to
socialism [known as communism in the West]. Of course, for all people of common
sense, the most terrible prospect possible is a return back to a Soviet Union, which
most Ukrainians are well aware of and which they desperately resist. And, thank
God, they do so successfully.
Today, the people
of Ukraine are artificially placed before the supposedly only possible choice: either
Europe or USSR – either fire or flames.
In Ukraine, gradually
using the desire of the people for freedom and independence, some kind of national
communism is being imperceptibly built. Clearly, there are signs of a return to
the Soviet past, in which, unlike in other political regimes, it was a crime to
think differently from what the authorities order one to think. This is already
noticeable in Ukraine, although not on such a big scale as it used to be in the
USSR, but the foundation for it has been laid. Non-Ukrainian schools for children
and all foreign educational institutions are prohibited. Everything related to Russian
culture and history is, for some reason, referred to the Putin regime and considered
hostile, even criminal; there are active forces that divide people along ethnic
lines. Repeated now in Ukraine is what the communists did after coming to power
in 1917 – an attempt is being made to destroy the memory of the past – a good example
is what is taking place in Odessa, where city council members [deputies], in fact,
decide unanimously to demolish the monument to the founders of Odessa and the monument
to the commander who liberated this Orthodox land from the Islamist invaders, the
land on which – only thanks to these people – we live today. What is left, probably,
is for the deputies of all levels [of government] to convert to Islam and join Turkey
all in one with the Crimea and the Black Sea territory, for which, say, the Odessa
deputies, no doubt, will also easily vote if necessary. Of course, most likely these
decisions are being imposed on Ukraine from outside, as a condition for providing
us with the much-needed help now. But whether such behavior of the current local
authorities is justified remains a question.
Ukraine Condemned
Ukraine is sentenced
to destruction and termination of its existence as an independent state, by the
collective West, on the one hand, and by the Russian Federation, on the other. But
there is this only factor that can destroy these plans – i.e. the people of Ukraine
itself, who have already proved on the battlefields that not all plans, be them
of the West and of the Russian Federation, are destined to come true on this land.
It was this people exactly who destroyed the plans of the Kremlin globalists to
seize Kyiv within 3 days, when all Western countries, instead of helping them defend
themselves, evacuated their embassies from here and persuaded the leadership of
Ukraine to flee. They planned that Kyiv would be surrendered. Russian soldiers advancing
on Kyiv were dragging their full dress uniforms with them – they and their command
planned that Kyiv would be surrendered. Were these plans mutually agreed upon? It
is hardly worth doubting this.
Historically the Ukrainians,
after the adoption of Orthodoxy - planted in this land by the Grand Duke Vladimir
– never chose their fate, they fought for it. When the people of Ukraine fought
for Orthodoxy, they turned invincible, and when they yielded – be it to Catholics,
to Islamists, atheists, or today’s pseudo-Orthodox deceivers – they fell into slavery.
Will an honest and
uncompromising Orthodox leader arise from the people today, like that same Bogdan
Khmelnitsky, who would again helm a Ukrainian Liberation Army and raise the people
for a real, strong and free, Orthodox Ukraine independent of external forces? O
Lord, give strength to our people to remember the glory of their valiant ancestors
– the Orthodox Cossacks, to unite [itself] in single ranks with them in the struggle
for the Orthodoxy for which they fought!
This is clearly an
utopia. But I wish so much to believe in it.
+ Metropolitan Agafangel
December 6, 2022
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