Patriarch Ilia and the OCU: What was the position of the Georgian Church on the Ukrainian church issue?

The death of Georgian Patriarch Ilia II and the subsequent election of a new Primate of the GOC will bring serious changes not only to the life of the Georgian Church, but also, most likely, to the way of life of World Orthodoxy that has been established in the last few years. Speaking about this, we cannot ignore one of the key issues, namely the attitude of the Local Orthodox Churches to the Ukrainian church issue.

Over the past 7 years, the Georgian Church has tried to avoid the issue of recognizing the OCU. However, the GOC is not without its own “internal kitchen,” which, it should be noted, is not so clear on the issue of interest. As long as Patriarch Ilia remained the Primate of the GOC, the position of the Georgian Church on the OCU remained as vague and uncertain as possible. How then did the GOC react to the creation of the OCU?

We offer our readers a short chronology of the development of the position of the Georgian Church on the Ukrainian church issue.

June 2018. The Synod of the GOC announced that it was studying the Ukrainian issue. “We have heard that this question has been raised about the autocephaly of the Ukrainian Church. The Church is studying the issue, and a resolution will be adopted afterwards,” said Metropolitan Zosim of Cilkane and Dusheti.

September 2018. The Georgian Church publishes the first official statement on the issue of the then possible creation of the OCU. At that time, Tbilisi decided not to get involved in the brewing conflict between Moscow and Constantinople. “We think that at this stage we should not make hasty assessments until the two sides formulate their official provisions, which are not subject to appeals, based on the norms of canon law,” the Patriarchatesaid.

September-October 2018. The top officials of the Georgian Church declare their refusal to participate in resolving the impending Ukrainian church crisis. “The disagreement on this issue is between two great Churches, each of which has its own logic. We do not participate in these discussions,” said Andria Jagmaidze, Assistant to the Locum Tenens of the Patriarch of Georgia.

October 2018. The meeting between the late Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada Andriy Parubiy and Patriarch Ilia, after which the Patriarchate of Georgia had to refute the information of the Ukrainian media that the GOC supports autocephaly in Ukraine. The official report says that after the visit of the Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Andriy Parubiy to Georgia , “Ukrainian TV channels spread information that the Georgian Orthodox Church allegedly supported the autocephaly of Orthodoxy in Ukraine, which is not true.”

January 2019. After the creation of the OCU, the GOC announced that it would express a clear position “on the receipt of autocephaly by the Orthodox Church of Ukraine when the GOC gets acquainted with the text of the Tomos on this autocephaly.”

January 2019. The first reactions of the GOC hierarchs on the issue of legalizing the OCU follow. “There is nothing special or harmful if the newly created Church of Ukraine waits a little bit for recognition from the Georgian Orthodox Church. […] In general, the GOC supports the right of the Ukrainian state to have an autocephalous Church. But it is necessary to consider the conditions under which this autocephaly is applied. In particular, who should be the head of the Church of Ukraine, who should be other clergy. It is very important to establish their canonicity. Some of them had previously been anathematized, which was recognized by all Orthodox Churches, including the Church of Constantinople. Some of them, it turns out, are self-proclaimed bishops. How can we concelebrate with them? We cannot recognize them. […] At the Synod, we discussed a letter received from the Patriarchate of Constantinople recognizing the autocephaly of the Church of Ukraine. It contains a very dangerous phrase that the Patriarchate of Constantinople has the exclusive right to interfere in the internal affairs of any Local Church. For me personally, this is unacceptable and can cause many difficulties in the future,” Metropolitan Nikoloz (Pachuashvili) of Akhalkalaki, Kumurdo and Kari shared his opinion.

Metropolitan John of Rustavi: “Constantinople unilaterally and unilaterally decided to grant the status of an autocephalous Church to those who have been in schism for years. […] The unity of the Orthodox Church is based not on a sole, papist principle, but on conciliarity, which is reflected in the Symbol of Faith. […] The terms of autocephaly granted by the Patriarchate of Constantinople to Ukraine, which are specified in the Tomos of January 6, 2019, are more in line with the status of autonomy. In addition, the Tomos is silent on the fact that most Orthodox Ukrainians remain under the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate and, accordingly, represent part of the fullness of the World Orthodox Church. Therefore, we are guided by the principles of law and oikonomia so that the spirit of schism does not triumph among us.”

In turn, Metropolitan Gregory of Poti and Hobe sharply criticized the country’s authorities for refusing to congratulate Ukraine on the Tomos received from Constantinople.

February 2019. The Georgian Church issued a frankly lukewarm statement on the legalization of the Ukrainian schism by the head of Phanar. “Now the main thing is to preserve the unity of the Orthodox Church… our efforts should be aimed at preserving this unity,” the GOC concluded.

March 2019. Official information from the UOC speakers on the relationship between the GOC and the OCU. Archpriest Nikolai Danilevich: “I will not get ahead of their decisions, but communicating with the hierarchs, with the Patriarch of the Georgian Church, we did not feel that they are ready to take a step to the detriment of pan-Orthodox unity. Or to harm our canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church.” According to him, no more than seven of the 47 bishops of the Georgian Orthodox Church speak about the possibility of recognizing the OCU, but they are simply not fully aware of the situation in Ukrainian Orthodoxy. And those Georgian laity who wrote an open letter in support of Epiphany turned out to be fierce critics of even their own native Georgian Orthodox Church. “After the so-called enthronement of Epiphany, 30 Georgian theologians congratulated him with a letter. And there was a list of these theologians. I showed this list to the Synod of the GOC. It turned out that all these people fiercely criticize the Georgian Church. This is the opposition among the laity and people who mostly study in the West and criticize their Church,” the deputy head of the UOC DECR emphasized.

After that, the Ukrainian church issue in the Georgian Orthodox Church ceased to be discussed at the official level. The Synod of the GOC has not yet expressed its assessment of the legalization of the Ukrainian church schism. Patriarch Ilia himself has never spoken publicly on this issue.