THE Archbishop of Canterbury, concluding his five-day visit to Ukraine on Friday, said: “We must long for peace — but not peace that increases the likelihood of more war.”
The UK, he said, “needs to show that we are committed as a nation to justice, to peace, to reconciliation on the basis of security, and respect for international law”, but he was “not capable of trotting out an answer that would probably be wrong” about exactly how this could be achieved.
Asked whether he thought the trip had been worth the time, expense, and risk, he said that he saw it as a “biblical and theological imperative to stand — as much as one is able — with those who are oppressed” and to say: “You’re not forgotten: we love you.”
The trip had not unduly distracted him from other responsibilities, he said: even while sheltering during a missile strike early on Wednesday morning last week (News, 7 February), he had been working on safeguarding and Living in Love and Faith.
Describing the differences that he had noticed since his previous visit, in November-December 2022, Archbishop Welby said: “The mood is more realistically hard-nosed, and consequently dour, about the length this is likely to last.”
He believed that there was a recognition of “the enormous mountain there is to climb to achieve security and the objectives of Ukraine, and the colossal human cost at all levels”.
It was, he said, “very easy to forget Ukraine”, but “there is a real link between what is happening in Ukraine, what is happening in the Middle East, in the Holy Land, and what is happening elsewhere, in terms of the struggle for a world in which going to war is not an option.”
Later this month, the General Synod will debate a motion on the war in Ukraine which affirms the work that churches are doing to support parties to the conflict, and calls for religious freedom to be protected within the country.
A background paper by Mark Sheard, who chairs the C of E’s Mission and Public Affairs Council, suggests that religion has “become increasingly weaponised as the war has progressed”.
President Putin has advanced religious arguments in an attempt to justify the invasion of Ukraine, most recently in an interview with the American political commentator Tucker Carlson.
Archbishop Welby, however, dismissed such arguments: “There is an argument in favour of debate, discussion, appeal, but there is no argument in favour of armed force: the invasion of Ukraine was a self-chosen, unjust, unjustifiable attack on a neighbour.”
Francis Martin/Church TimesArchbishop Welby prays in front of a display made of items salvaged from churches destroyed in the war
He said: “This war is evil.” While there was “opportunity to repent and turn from the way of violence, to restore land taken, to find a way to security and peace . . . , that is a very difficult decision for President Putin to take at this time.”
The Synod paper also refers to the “tensions” between the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), which has historic links to the Moscow Patriarchate, and the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU), which, in 2019, was granted autocephaly by the Ecumenical Patriarch (News, 8 February 2019).
A law passed by the Ukrainian parliament in December makes it illegal for any organisation to be “subordinate” to an enemy institution, although it is yet to come into effect (News, 2 February).
As a result, the UOC’s links to the Moscow Patriarchate are under intense scrutiny. In May 2022, the UOC declared itself administratively independent of Moscow, but this claim is contested by critics of the Church. Its defenders say that the Church is being persecuted for political reasons.
Threats to freedom of religion and belief in Ukraine have been identified by the UN, including acts of intimidation and violence against UOC priests (News, 24 November 2023).
On Friday, Archbishop Welby said: “We have to be very careful about being judgemental, but I hope and pray for a reconciliation between these Churches.” He hoped that both would be able to “uphold the morale of the people of Ukraine, and to look for ways forward that will eventually involve what will be a decades-long process of reconciliation”.
IN KYIV, on Tuesday of last week, on his first full day in the Ukrainian capital, Archbishop Welby heard from representatives of the both the OCU and UOC, in the course of a day of meetings with church leaders.
In the morning, he met members of the All-Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organisations, which includes representatives of the two main Orthodox Churches, the Latin and Greek Catholic jurisdictions, the Ukrainian Evangelical Church, the Pentecostal Church of Ukraine, and the Union of Jewish Religious Organisations.
Professor Sergii Bortnyk, who teaches at the UOC theological academy, gave an address in which he condemned Patriach Kirill of Moscow’s support for the war: “The Russian side uses the common Orthodox faith for its imperialistic purposes, and this cannot be accepted in Ukraine.”
He also suggested, however, that the UOC should not be persecuted for its historic canonical links to Moscow, when local church leaders say that they are now administratively independent of the Patriarchate.
Lambeth PalaceMetropolitan Epiphany, Archbishop Welby, and Archbishop Yevstratiy exchange gifts in Kyiv
After listening to the assembled representatives, Archbishop Welby said that he had “learnt a great deal”, and promised that the Church of England would “continue our prayers, but also our advocacy”.
He recalled an answer that the former Bishop of Chichester George Bell had given when asked, during the Second World War, what the Church should do in times of war: “His answer was that the Church must be even more the Church: it must do what it does usually, but ten times more.”
The Archbishop then travelled to meet the Primate of the OCU, Metropolitan Epiphany, at his residence in the compound of St Michael’s Cathedral, Kyiv.
They spoke for an hour, before continuing discussions over lunch. Metropolitan Epiphany thanked Archbishop Welby for visiting Ukraine and “having no fear in this time of danger”. The Archbishop assured him of his support and prayers.
The conversation focused on the war against Russia, and the current situation concerning the UOC.
Archbishop Yevstratiy of Chernihiv & Nizhyn, who was also in the meeting, characterised the law as closing a loophole allowing Russian propaganda. “Only one sphere [in Ukrainian society], the spiritual sphere, has an open door for Russian influence,” he said, and suggested that if the UOC really was independent, it should have no concerns about the new law.
After lunch, the Archbishop’s delegation visited the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra, an ancient monastery complex, control of which has been contested between the UOC and OCU (News,18 August 2023).
The Archbishop’s party was given a tour of the Holy Dormition Cathedral and the Refectory Church in the grounds of the Lavra, before Archbishop Yevstratiy gave an interview to the Church Times (Podcast, 9 February).
He argued that the draft law was necessary to prevent the spread of “propaganda” in Ukraine, and dismissed reports of harassment of UOC priests and communities as an attempt to portray that Church as a victim.
“The Moscow Patriarchate is a system which provides, for decades, spiritual grounds and spiritual excuse for the Russian invasion of Ukraine,” he said.
Asked what he expected the situation of the UOC to be after the war was over, he said that churches linked to the Moscow Patriarchate would continue to exist in Ukraine, “because Ukraine is a democratic country and we are fighting for our country”.
He was in no doubt that God would ensure Ukraine’s survival: “I believe that God is on the Ukrainian side, and, where there is God, there is victory,” he said.
AFTER Archbishop Welby’s tour of the Lavra, the Archbishop’s group — which included the Rector of Trinity, Wall Street, the Revd Phillip Jackson, and the Church of England’s National Ecumenical Adviser, Canon Jeremy Morris — met Professor Bortnyk and five young colleagues at the theological academy, in a café just outside the Lavra.
The UOC academy used to have four buildings in the Lavra complex, but now has only one after the city council restricted its use of land in the territory.
Francis Martin/Church TimesThe Dormition Cathedral in Kyiv Pechersk Lavra
The group spoke about the challenges that their Church faced, including accusations that it is in thrall to Russian power. “How can we be their Church when they try to kill us?” Fr Panteleimon, one of the theologians, asked rhetorically. “We have never supported the aggression. We support our country, we love our people, and we condemn this aggression,” he said.
He grappled with some of the theological questions posed by the war, such as how to respond to the bloodshed. The UOC had no issue in supporting Ukrainian troops and taking the sacrament to those on the front lines, but, he said, “cannot say that killing is a virtue”.
Fr Nicodimos, another of the young priests, said that there was a desire for a decisive split with the Moscow Patriarchate, especially among younger members of the UOC.
In April 2022, shortly after the full-scale invasion began, about 400 priests of the UOC signed a collective challenge to Patriarch Kirill’s authority, on the basis of his statements in support of Russian aggression.
The next month, a council of the UOC declared that it would amend the Church’s statutes to separate itself from the Moscow Patriarchate, but critics note that it remains in communion with Moscow while refusing to recognise the validity of the OCU.
The nature of this ongoing connection was misleading, another teacher at the UOC seminary, Fr Mitrophan, said, on Tuesday of last week: all Orthodox Churches in the apostolic succession were connected by a canonical relationship, but this didn’t mean that they were politically aligned.
The next afternoon, a priest who had left the UOC to join the OCU, Fr Andriy Dudchenko, told me that his decision was “not nationalistic”, but that he wanted to distance himself from “another kind of nationalism”, encapsulated in the Russki mir, or “Russian world”, ideology: the idea propounded by President Putin that elements of a shared religious history mean that Ukraine can never truly be independent of Russia.
Speaking in a break from classes at the OCU theological academy, where he teaches, Fr Dudchenko said that the OCU offered a distinctly Ukrainian religious tradition, with services in the vernacular rather than Church Slavonic, and with liturgical resources created in Ukraine, specifically for Ukrainian usage.
He alleged that, although many younger priests of the UOC wanted full independence from Moscow, they were “hostages of their hierarchy”. Asked why more UOC clerics were not agitating for more decisive separation, he suggested that they were bound by tradition, and a belief that separating from Moscow would make their ordinations invalid.
Everyone I spoke with, in both the UOC and the OCU, expressed a desire to engage in dialogue, although, for many in the UOC, the OCU is an invalid, non-canonical entity, while, to the OCU, the UOC maintains inexplicable loyalties to the enemy.
Fr Raphael was not under any illusion about how long any reconciliation would take. “I am concerned that the war with bombs might end quicker than the religious war,” he said.
Listen to an extended interview with Archbishop Welby on the Church Times Podcast