A wide-ranging and incisive intervention on contemporary ecclesiastical challenges—focusing especially on the Ukrainian issue—was delivered by Elder Metropolitan Emmanuel of Chalcedon at Vilnius City Hall, during the conference titled “Constantinople and Moscow: Transformations of Ecclesiastical Allegiance and the Impact of Imperial Policy.”
Opening his address, Metropolitan Emmanuel situated the discussion within the living memory of the city itself, noting that “the city of Vilnius possesses a memory denser than a usual historical narrative permits,” having experienced “conquests and empires, maps that were repeatedly redrawn, as well as identities imposed compulsorily.” He stressed that such historical experiences mirror the complex ecclesiastical realities of Eastern Europe today.
Referring to Ukraine, he underlined that “the history of the Orthodox Church in Ukraine constitutes perhaps the most characteristic case of this intertwining,” marked by “three schisms, scattered throughout the centuries, [which] formed a situation of exceptional complexity, which resists simplificatory schemes.” He reminded the audience that “all roads… finally lead to New Rome–Constantinople, where the canonical genesis of these Churches is also located,” and emphasized that this spiritual and canonical relationship “remains absolutely active, transcending whatever administrative decisions or political expediencies.”
Metropolitan Emmanuel warned of the dangers of instrumentalizing canon law, observing that “those same canonical texts that are destined to guarantee Christian freedom have sometimes functioned as tools of control,” while “geography was identified historically with theology, the cadastres of the episcopal territory assumed the power of dogmas, and pained people were found… suspended among claims that transcend them.” Drawing a parallel with Lithuania’s own history, he noted that “ecclesiastical freedom also emerges through agony, conflict, and many times through blood itself.”
Rejecting simplistic solutions, he stated candidly: “Easy answers I do not bring… I share simply an agony – the agony of anyone who observes ecclesiastical matters far from the easiness of partisan integrations.” This agony, he added, may become a common ground for approaching the truth.
Addressing the 2018 decision of the Ecumenical Patriarchate regarding Ukraine, he pointed out that it was based on canonical foundations: “The Ecumenical Patriarchate leaned on this Canon… so as to proceed with the recognition of the independence of the Church of Ukraine and the revocation of the old anathemas. A decision, undoubtedly, of huge consequences.” Yet he also acknowledged the heavy historical legacy: “The inability… to strictly establish clear canons as to the foundation of new autocephalous Churches bequeaths… an exceptionally difficult legacy, which Ukraine today is called to experience at the heaviest human cost.”
At the heart of his critique lay a fundamental question: “Does the canonical order serve and promote life, or perhaps restrict it and stifle it?” He lamented that jurisdictional disputes have “deeply wounded ecclesiastical communities” and “alienated a multitude of young people, who… turn away from sterile jurisdictional disputes and strife.”
Reflecting on the rupture between Constantinople and Moscow, he described it as “a wound to the body of the Church,” noting that “behind the diplomatic terminology, the question to whom the Church finally belongs remains essentially a question of soul.” He highlighted the human dimension of the conflict: “The faithful in Kyiv or in Lviv… carry their personal pain and their human need, instead of the Canons of Chalcedon.” The ongoing disputes over sacred sites, he said, render appeals to the “canon” painfully hollow in places like the Kyiv Lavra, now “a centre of sad conflicts.”
Healing, he argued, cannot come through administrative measures alone: “The healing requires primarily repentance and a readiness to assume our own responsibilities… Repentance constitutes an internal process and not a political strategy or a synodal encyclical.” Quoting the Beatitudes, he reminded that “‘Blessed are the peacemakers’… A peacemaker becomes he who enters into the conflict, shouldering the pain of it.”
Metropolitan Emmanuel also addressed the ongoing problem of ethnophyletism, observing that “many local Churches function as extensions of state diplomacy,” while “synods are convened and anathemas are managed with criteria of geopolitical expediency.” Against this backdrop, he recalled the message of the Holy and Great Council of Crete (2016): “The Church exceeds every cultural or national formation… Its unity is defined as a gift of the Holy Spirit, and not as a product of diplomatic manoeuvres.”
He cautioned that Churches may “‘gain the world’, losing the truth,” when power replaces service, and lamented the transformation of pastoral ministry into legal administration: “The basin of the washstand was gradually replaced by the throne… The pastoral surrendered its position to the legal, and love to competencies.”
Calling for a return to the voice of the people of God, he stressed that “whatever jurisdictional changes occur must necessarily listen to and incorporate the very voice of the people,” recalling the patristic principle that “the governing Church… decides jointly with them.” The Ukrainian case, he said, remains “eminently instructive,” as entire communities were declared schismatic and deprived of communion, a reality he called “a scandal, with the full and literal evangelical meaning of the word.”
He also stressed: “The Orthodox Church of Ukraine now constitutes an unquestionable and absolutely living reality. Despite whatever institutional or structural imperfections inescapably accompany every human undertaking, we speak about a multitudinous community of faithful which agonisingly seeks its way towards freedom in Christ – a truth which we must honestly recognise. In parallel, the gaze of our ecclesiastical hope turns also to the painful rift between Constantinople and Moscow. Despite the historical weight and the seriousness of the canonical consequences, the very centuries-long ecclesiastical history teaches that even the deepest and gaping wounds are able, with time, to be led to their full and final healing. The coming of the Kingdom of God dynamically transcends whatever geographical restrictions and narrow jurisdictional land-registries of history exist. It is revealed and manifested as an empirical, living presence exactly there where sacrificial love transforms the ‘other’ – from stranger or competitor – into a genuine brother. The institutions and the sacred canons are called to function as humble servants in exactly this charismatic life.”
Concluding, Metropolitan Emmanuel emphasized that the Eucharist itself should be the criterion of ecclesial authenticity: “The Church is judged and evaluated on the basis of the quality of the communion that she herself actualises.” He recalled the apostolic vision of unity: “‘There is neither Jew nor Gentile’ (Gal. 3:28),” calling it “the deeply founded theological antidote against the scourge of modern ethnophyletism.”
Speaking from Vilnius—a city that knows the cost of historical renewal—he affirmed that “the return to the essential projects as a living and burning need,” warning that while the forms of temptation change, “its demonic essence is preserved intact and unaltered.”
Read the full address in English by clicking HERE
