Collisions of Local and Spiritual in State and Public Activities of Metropolitan Ilarion (Ivan Ohienko)

Abstract

The article clarifies the views of one of the brightest and most significant figures of the Ukrainian church — Metropolitan Ilarion (Ivan) Ohienko on the spiritual and secular service to Ukraine and his practical activities, which naturally effectively combined these two aspects. This article notes that an important element that united the two ministries and substantiated them was the deep level of their interpenetration, where Orthodoxy acquired a national character based on traditions. The article concludes that during this ministry his views on the church did not undergo nonlinear evolution, but only acquired depth and system. Even when Ivan Ohienko was in public office or abroad, he attached great importance to moral, ethical and ecclesiastical issues. Despite the ideological closeness with the views of another prominent Ukrainian church figure Andrei Sheptytsky on church-state relations, education and revival of the Ukrainian nation, language and culture as factors of Ukrainian identity, Ivan Ohienko was still skeptical of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, seeing in it is an instrument of Catholicization of the Ukrainian people. Ohienko believed that in reality only an autocephalous church could be Ukrainian, which relied exclusively on the traditions and needs of the people. This was the criterion of the truth of Orthodoxy for him.