While the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) has cut most ties with the Moscow Patriarchate since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, any possibility of a merger or even closer relations with the already independent Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) might be ar off due to cultural and liturgical differences between the two church bodies, writes Nadieszda Kizenko in the blog Public Orthodoxy (June 21). Before the war, many in both the UOC and the OCU shared the desire for a canonical church in the local tradition, but their liturgical approaches reflected different interpretations of what that meant. “The OCU’s plurality of liturgical expression, its multiple translations of Ukrainian, and its greater ecumenical initiatives, meant more liturgical experimentation, like incorporating Patriarch Bartholomew’s ‘ecological molieben’ into the Church New Year…The OCU’s attitude to the past was selective (in the sense of being focused on one narrative of Ukrainian history) and their attitude to the future expansive. With less emphasis on external forms like head-coverings for women, and a less hierarchical clergy-laity relationship, the OCU seemed to be evolving in the overall direction of UAOC in 1917–18, the Paris Exarchate in the 1920s–1950s, the OCA in the 1960s–1970s, or (in its emphasis on nation-building and secular memory culture) the Estonian Apostolic Orthodox Church.”
Source: Warsaw Institute.
“By contrast, the UOC’s overall liturgical practice before the war was conservative, emphasizing ceremony and hierarchy. The UOC’s attitude to the past was inclusive in the sense of having a diversity of narratives (Rus, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Russian empire, and the USSR), their attitude to the present conservationist, and their attitude to the future cautious. Clerics shared the desire of their flocks for a ‘sacral’ atmosphere and for conveying the sense that liturgy is a link to the past as well as to the living body of Christ. In this sense they could be compared to the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese in America (with its maintenance of liturgical Greek), the Estonian Orthodox Church in communion with the Moscow Patriarchate, or the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia.” Before the invasion, neither the UOC nor the OCU could be seen as an embodiment of either pure tradition or innovation, or could claim to speak for the “true” Ukraine. But both sides may now be “coming closer to a coherent Ukrainian liturgical narrative.” The most potentially charged holidays relating to Ukrainian identity, such as the feasts of St. Olha, St. Volodymyr, and Ss. Borys and Gleb, may be an indicator of whether “celebrating the same rites might be one way of signaling unity. And perhaps engaging the war and its ghastly effects in liturgy may bring about a rapprochement that would not [have] been possible otherwise.”
(Public Orthodoxy, https://publicorthodoxy.org/2022/06/21/lex-orandi-lex-credendi-ukraine-and-the-second-sunday-of-pentecost-in-uoc-and-ocu-liturgies/)
