Comments by Antoine Arjakovsky at the Inauguration of St Clement Center

Your Eminences,

Your Excellences,

Dear Konstantin, and

Dear friends,

First of all I congratulate you, Your Eminence, for the distinction that you received today. As a former teacher of the Kyivan Mohyla Academy I fully associate myself to this decision of the Scientific Council to attribute you the Doctorate Honoris Causa.

Allow me to begin by passing along to you from the rector of the Ukrainian Catholic University, Fr Borys Gudziak, who is currently in the United States, the very best wishes for the new Saint Clement Center. Allow me also, in the name of Father Iwan Dacko and the entire staff of the Institute of Ecumenical Studies in Lviv, to congratulate you on the occasion of this new beginning.

Professor Konstantin Sigov and I have had a friendship for over fifteen years. Just as Konstantin came to Lviv in 2005 to participate in the inauguration of our Institute of Ecumenical Studies, I am glad to be in Kyiv today. We are co-secretaries of the Christian Academic Society of Ukraine (CASU), and we both hope that friendship will be at the heart of our projects that promote the unity of Christians and cultural dialogue. For this reason, it is clear to us that, in Kyiv, the natural partner of the Institute of Ecumenical Studies is and will remain the Saint Clement Center (and, of course, also the European Center of Social Sciences and the publishing House Duh et Litera, which are naturally linked to this new enterprise of Konstantin Borisovich and his team)

We are especially glad to be invited – Father Borys Gudziak, Father Iwan Dacko, and myself – to be part of the Academic Board of the Saint Clement Center. This will not prevent us from maintainig friendships with other Kievan organizations represented here, such as the Saint Thomas Institute, the Commission for Ecumenism of the Greek Catholic Church, and the Center for Orthodox Studies directed by Father Piotr Zouev. The advantage of relations founded on friendship is that, as long as we ask of each other only a hope for unity, loyalty, and mutual service, the circle of friends can only grow.

Since I mentioned hope for unity, I will now take an opportunity to congratulate His Eminence Cardinal Walter Kasper and our friend Mgr Ivan Jurkovic, the Apostolic Nuncio, on the excellent Papal encyclical published last weekend, Spe salvi. I believe that this is the first time that Dostoyevsky has been mentioned in a papal encyclical. The appreciation by the Pope of such an important Orthodox writer, despite Dostoyevsky's occasionally non-ecumenical views of the Catholic Church, warms the hearts of many Orthodox in Slavic countries.

Konstantin has asked me to say a few words today about the Ukrainian tradition of veneration of saint Clement, about the inculturation of the faith brought to Slavic lands by the saints Cyril and Methodius, and about new experiences of the inculturation of faith in Europe.  I hope you will pardon me for taking more than a few minutes. One only has to think about the writings of Ivan Franko and Mykola Hurchevsky about the tradition of saint Clement to become convinced of the breadth of this subject.[1] Allow me to tell you just one short story that has to do with the veneration of saint Clement during the times of ancient Kyivan Rus'. I take this story from Father Iwan Dacko and from the excellent treatise of Mykola Tchubaty, professor at the Ukrainian Catholic University in Rome, Istoria Hristianstva na Rusi-Ukraini. I will then attempt to draw from it a few conclusions relevant to us today.

We know that Pope Clement, disciple of saint Peter, was martyred at Chersonesus in the second century A.D. By order of Emperor Trajan. In 860, saint Cyril found his relics and brought them to Rome. But in 989, Prince Vladimir received the skull of saint Clement as a gift from Pope John XV. At that time, the Church of Kyivan Rus’ was under the juridiction of the Patriarch of Constantinople but was also in direct communion with the Roman Church l’Eglise de Rome, thanks both to this relic and to the memory of saints Cyril and Methodius.

In 1147, Prince Iziaslav II was looking for ways to prove the might of his kingdom against Byzantium, and in particular against the Patriarchs of Constantinople who, according to him, treated the Church of Kyiv more as a source of revenue than as a fellow Church seeking the kingdom of God on earth.

He decided to appoint Klim Smoliatich, a Rusyn monk, to the position of Metropolitan of Kyiv, without asking permission of the Patriarch of Constantinople. According to existing sources, bishop Klim was a highly educated man, able to cite Maximum the Confessor as well as Homer and Aristotle. He was committed to the idea of a Kyivan autocephalous church, not for the sake of rivaling Constantinople, but in the name of soprichastie, communion among the Churches, which, as you know, by 1147 was threatened by the extreme tension between Rome and Constantinople. Klim Smoliatich was also a worthy son of the Kyivan Church of the 11^th century. He fought against the enrichment of the powerful, and made several public statements in favor of greater social justice, of the kind that existed under Jaroslav the Wise. Above all, he had a deep veneration for the Wisdom of God. In one of his letteres, he wrote: « The Wisdom is divinity, and humanity is its temple. »

At the Kyivan council in 1147, the bishops of Rus’ decided by a majority of six against two to crown bishop Klim Smoliatich as Metropolitan of Kyiv. Two opposing camps had formed. One, represented by Mgr Nifon of Novgorod, believed that canon law did not allow such a move. Another camp, represented by Mgr Onufrii of Chernigiv, believed that canon law could not be invoked against the synodality of a local Church that preferred a Rusyn to a Greek as its head. Onufri carried the day when he invoked the following argument, cited in Hypati's report on the council:

            « I know that it is possible for to consecrate a Metropolitan because we have the head of saint Clement, in the same way that the Greeks ordain Metropolitans with the help of the hand of saint John (the Baptist). Following this idea, the bishops ordained the Metropolitan (Klim) by the head of saint Clément. »

« ‘Ia znaiou cho nam vilno postaviti, bo ou nas e golova sviatovo Klimenta (papi), tak samo, iak Greki, postavliaiout (mitropolitiv) roukoiou sviatovo Ivana (Krestitelia)’. I taki podumavchi, episkopi postavili mitropolitom (Klima) golovoiou Sviatovo Klimenta. »»[2]

 I have chosen to recall this episode in the history of Kyivan Rus’ because I believe that the rôle which saint Clement's skull played in it brings to light a view of autocephaly that we tend to ignore today. For Iziaslav and Klim Smoliatich, autocephaly represented not only a desire to reùind the social commitment of the monks of Pecherska Lavra, but also loyalty to the idea of intercommunion among the Churches. The Church of Kyiv did not distinguish between the Easter and Western Churches, but always thought in terms of unity, seeing itself as the daughter of both Rome and Constantinople. To maintain this double identity, several times in the course of its history the Kyivan Church had to bring it to the attention of its parent churches, most often to its own peril.

soprichastie. In this vision of church organization, the local churches are united with each other and with the Church of Rome as  primus inter pares through a relationship of eucharistic communion. This model is rooted in the understanding that unity is a gift of God and that only the ability to commune at the same chalice while invoking the Holy Spirit enables us to be open to this gift. It gives historical time the same consideration as eschatoloical time. In this sense, the story of saint Clement's skull reminds us that the intercommunion of the Churches can be understood not only from an institutional and canonical standpoint (although friendship can also lead to a mutual self-giving that will ultimately result in the creation of common law). The intercommunion of the Churches is equally present in the friendship that unites the angels who sit at the head of each Church, as revealed in the book of the Apocalypse.

I will finish by making a confession. Though I lived in Kyiv for four years, I have only recently had the opportunity, thanks to my friend Mother Feodossia, to pay my respects and meditate before the skull of saint Clement, which is today at the Lavra of Saint Anthony of the Caves. Not many people know that to this day this relic exhudes holy oil, which the monks collect every day and distribute to the faithful. I have the impression that this presence of saint Clement, incredibly from the point of view of modern rationality, may be one of the best-kept secrets of Ukraine.

I would rejoice to see the Saint Clement Center, strengthened by the double blessing it received from Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Pontifical Council for the promotion of Christian unity, Archbishop Philip of Poltava and from Archbishop Mitrofan of Bila Tzerkva and of Bogouslav acquaint the whole world with the Kyivan Church's quest for communion and thus prepare the way for the reunification of all Christians. That is, for me, the greatest hope for this new Center.

Thank you for your attention.

Antoine Arjakovsky,

director of the Institute of Ecumenical Studies,

Ukrainian Catholic University,

Lviv. Tuesday, December 4^th 2007.