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interview with Cardina Lubomyr Husar
A Synod
on the Eastern Churches
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The idea is that
of holding a Synod where these Churches can be presented
and known, and to see whether the traditions of these Churches
can contribute
to solving the problems of the Church
of today |
interview with Cardina Lubomyr Husar by Gianni Valente
Cardinal Lubomyr Husar,
senior archbishop of Kiev-Halic, testified for the nth time in his speech
to the October Synod that the Ukrainian Catholic Church of Eastern rite
plays a controversial and ambivalent role in the ecumenical sphere, that
escapes any idle classification. If the recent transfer of its Metropolitan
See from Leopolis to Kiev during the summer rekindled the anger of the
Patriarchy of Moscow, his words in the Synod hall before the States General
of the Catholic Church sounded to some as an altogether unbalanced appeal
to return to full sacramental communion between Catholics and Orthodox.
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 | | Cardinal Lubomyr Husar, senior archbishop of Kiev-Halic | | |
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Your Eminence, you have proposed that the next Synod be
about the Eastern Catholic Churches. What would be the purpose?
LUBOMYR HUSAR: It’s not a matter of making an
apologia for our Churches. And not even of having a platform from which to
complain about feeling neglected, that is an abiding temptation for us
Eastern Catholics. It could instead be the occasion to render a service to
the universal Church. The Eastern Catholic Churches are a part of the
Catholic Church with the same entitlement as the Latin Church. They are
bearers of traditions of great value for the whole Church. The idea is that
of holding a Synod where these Churches can be presented and known, and to
see whether the traditions of these Churches can contribute to solving the
problems of the Church of today.
You introduced your proposal with a rather special
question.
HUSAR: Many matters could be looked at in a new light,
if one starts from the perspective of the Eastern Catholic Churches. To
give an example, I asked a question in interrogative terms starting from
the theme dealt with in the last Synod. My premise was that there can be no
doubt of the fact that the Eucharist is fons et
culmen of the life and mission of the Church,
and that the liturgy is regula fidei (lex orandi, lex credendi). But this is also true for the Orthodox Churches! And so, if the
divine liturgy celebrated by the Eastern Churches in communion with
the See of Rome and by the Orthodox or Apostolic Churches is identical, if
the recognition of the apostolic sequence of bishops and, consequently, of
the priests who celebrate it, is mutual then my question is: what more is
needed for unity? Is there perhaps in the Church a superior instance, a culmen et fons superior to
the Eucharist? And if it doesn’t exist, why isn’t
con-celebration allowed?
Your question got no answer. Cardinal Sodano said that
the quest for unity with the Orthodox must not create divisions among
Catholics.
HUSAR: That’s his opinion. But only to begin
answering this question it needs an in-depth discussion in an ad hoc Synod. I was struck by
the speech from the metropolitan of Pergamum Ioannis Zizioulas, present at
the Synod as a fraternal delegate of the Ecumenic Patriarchy of
Constantinople. Zizioulas said the same as me. And he is precisely the man
chosen by the Orthodox as co-president of the Commission for theological
dialogue between Catholics and Orthodox, which should begin working again
next year dealing with the subject of the primacy. His Eucharistic
ecclesiology is highly esteemed. And for that matter, the Fathers already
taught it: if we believe that Christ is present in the Eucharist, there are
certain consequences for the life of the Church.
Your proposal was presented by the media as the idea
for a Synod convoked by the Pope with the Orthodox called to participate as
partners of equal right.
HUSAR: That was not my intention. I was thinking of a
Synod devoted to the Churches of Eastern rite that are in communion
with the Church of Rome. But even the misunderstanding of the media, at
bottom, seemed a felix culpa to me. In the sense that, as a further step, obviously if the
Holy Father decides it, a joint Synod with the Orthodox brethren
doesn’t seem to me a bad idea at all.
Comparing the disciplinary traditions of the Latin
Church and of the Churches of the East, the issue of priestly celibacy
would immediately come up. What did you think of the debate on this point
at the October Synod?
HUSAR: I didn’t speak on that question. I
didn’t know what to say. I don’t have a settled opinion on it.
My grandfather was a priest and so were many other members of my family,
married and not. But with us married priests start from the time of the
seminary with the prospect of marrying. The viri
probati, instead, are men who are ordained
priests after living thirty or even forty years of “normal”
life, struggling each day to get by with their children and family. A
priest should in theory conceive his life as total service to the Church. I
don’t know whether such a mental habitus can be acquired at a mature age, by a man who has lived
for a long time totally absorbed in his lay condition. That said, if it can
happen through an adequate spiritual preparation, this condition at the
start could even work out to advantage.
In what way?
HUSAR: Such a priest could perhaps understand from
inside the concrete problems of his own parish. An attitude our priests
often lack, who sometimes seem to live in a world apart.
Another question touched on at the Synod was the
possibility of administering communion to Christians of other Churches and
ecclesial communities.
HUSAR: With us the dramatic events of history are what
have created the state of necessity that justifies recourse to the
practise. A great many of us, during the Soviet period, were deported to
Siberia. But it also happened that the Orthodox were deported to the
Ukraine, to areas where there were no Orthodox parishes. Already in the
’thirties Metropolitan Andrzej Septyckyj gave disposition to
administer the sacraments to the Orthodox who came with a righteous
intention to ask for them in our parishes. The only thing to avoid was
scandal.
Now, in the Ukraine, the Orthodox Church also seems to
be split in three. But the nationalist government wants a united national
Church and is putting pressure on for reunification.
HUSAR: The Church in Kiev began a thousand years ago.
Then splits began. First we split into Catholics and Orthodox. Then, in
recent decades, the Orthodox have split into three sections. Now President
Yushchenko, as his precursor Kuchma had already done, has on several
occasions repeated that the government would like to see a single united
Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
What do you think about the presidential pressure?
HUSAR: I look favorably on it. I’ve already said
that we too want to join in a single Ukrainian Church, on only one
condition: that the patriarch of this united Church be in communion with
Peter’s successor. As a Synod, we have asked the government not to
hand over the Cathedral of Santa Sofia in Kiev to any of the Churches
currently divided. Let them continue to keep it as a museum, till there is
only one Church in Kiev and only one patriarch. The government has accepted
our proposal.
In the meantime your insistence on your Church being
recognised as Patriarchate continues to fuel tensions with the Patriarchate
of Moscow.
HUSAR: Our request for a patriarchate is not aimed at
closing the possibility of communion with the Orthodox, but precisely to
enter dialogue with them as equal partners. If in the Ukraine there were
three patriarchs, I’m convinced that they could work together better
to patch up the unity that there was at the start.
You have declared that the Ukrainians themselves must
create the unity of the Church in the Ukraine, because it can’t come
«either from Moscow or from Rome». How would an eventual
Ukrainian Church united and in communion with Peter’s successor
behave towards the Church of Rome?
HUSAR: That would be another matter to deal with at the
Synod: to clarify what it means for an Eastern Church to be in
communion with the See of Peter. So the Orthodox would be able to see in
advance what their fate will be, once unity has been achieved. You see,
it’s also a matter of very practical things. When our Synod chooses
candidates for the episcopate, I must wait a year before they are approved
by Rome. I’m sure that neither Patriarch Bartholomew nor Patriarch
Alexis would accept a thing of the kind. And it’s a practice that
could very well be changed: it certainly doesn’t touch any essential
truth of the faith.
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