COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF THE TOMOSES ON AUTOCEPHALY GRANTED TO THE ORTHODOX CHURCHES IN POLAND AND UKRAINE ON 13 NOVEMBER 1924 AND 6 JANUARY 2019

Abstract

In 2024, Orthodox believers in Poland and Ukraine will celebrate two important anniversaries – the granting of Tomos of canonical independence to the Local Churches, in particular, on 6 January, five years for the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, and on 13 November 2024, the centenary of the granting of the Tomos of autocephaly to the Orthodox Church in Poland by the Patriarchate of Constantinople. On November 13, 1924, Ecumenical Patriarch Gregory VII, together with the Holy Synod, granted a Tomos of Autocephaly to the Orthodox Church in Poland, which was solemnly proclaimed on September 17, 1925, in Warsaw with the participation of representatives of the Churches of Constantinople and Romania, hierarchs and clergy of the Orthodox Church in Poland, as well as government officials. This historic document explicitly and unequivocally stated the non-canonical actions of the Moscow Patriarchate regarding the annexation in 1686 of the Kyiv Metropolitanate, which was part of the Patriarchate of Constantinople. The 1924 Tomos and other contemporary state-church events became the basis for the actions of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew regarding the Orthodox Church of Ukraine. Initially, at the meeting of the Holy Synod on 9–11 October, a ‘request for appeal from Bishops Filaret Denisenko and Makariy Meletich and their followers’ was accepted, and the aforementioned persons were canonically restored to their episcopal and priestly ranks... To cancel the obligations of the Synodal Letter of 1686...». Subsequently, on 15 December 2018, a Unification Council was held at St. Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv, at which Ukrainian Orthodoxy was united into the Orthodox Church of Ukraine and a Primate was elected. On 6 January 2019, Orthodox Ukrainians will receive the highly anticipated Tomos of Autocephaly, which was proclaimed exactly 100 years ago by the Law of the Ukrainian People’s Republic. This will have epoch-making consequences not only in the religious sphere between Ukraine and Russia, but will also become one of the reasons for a fullscale invasion by Muscovites and temporary occupation from 2022. The article examines the texts of Tomoses in terms of ecclesiastical and canonical issues. It highlights the challenges of implementing the provisions of these documents at present. The authors attempt to explore the important issue of inter-church relations in the 20th and 21st centuries based on available archival and documentary sources. In particular, the issue of obtaining the Tomos of autocephaly for the Orthodox Church in Poland on 13 November 1924 and its influence on obtaining the Tomos for the Orthodox Church of Ukraine on 6 January 2019. All this poses a challenge for researchers of contemporary church history in writing articles and inspiring young scholars to prepare theses, and possibly even candidate or doctoral dissertations. Considering the difficult and bloody contemporary struggle of the Ukrainian people against the Moscow aggressor, contrary to the norms of grammar and academic science, all terms and names related to the so-called ‘Orthodox’ occupiers-aggressors will be written with a lowercase letter.