AS ORTHODOX LEADERS GATHER IN CRETE, UKRAINE CALLS FOR AN INDEPENDENT CHURCH

  ERASMUS, economist.com

ONLY a few hours ago, Orthodox Christian bishops from many countries were preparing smoothly enough for an historic gathering in Crete which although diminished by some last-minute withdrawals will still be a huge landmark in the history of eastern Christianity.

As I explain in this week’s print edition (see article), preparations for the Holy and Great Council, the first of its kind for many centuries, were disturbed by the late pullout of four of the 14 participating churches: those of Bulgaria, Georgia, Antioch (based in Syria) and finally the Patriarchate of Moscow, which is the biggest.

But bishops from such countries as Romania, Serbia, Poland, Greece, Cyprus and Egypt were still converging on the Greek island; and the meeting’s host, Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople (pictured), insisted that the Council’s authority would not be diminished by the absentees. He urged the nay-sayers to relent and attend after all. The Council, whose main business will begin after Pentecost celebrations this weekend, is due to issue pronouncements on topics such as marriage, fasting and Orthodoxy's relations with the wider Christian world.

This morning, however, another political bombshell reached the ears of the Cretan gathering. Parliamentarians in Ukraine formally called on Bartholomew I (who, as Ecumenical Patriarch, is Orthodox Christianity’s first among equals) to recognize and help establish a fully independent Orthodox church in that country. A resolution backed by 245 legislators, comfortably above the required minimum of 226, urged the Istanbul-based Patriarch to facilitate a “unification council” for Orthodox Christians in Ukraine, out of which a single, internationally recognized national church would emerge.

Such a turn of events would be greeted with deep dismay both in the Kremlin and the Patriarchate of Moscow, which is now accepted by most other Orthodox bodies as the legitimate church authority in Ukraine. When communism collapsed, the Patriarchate of Moscow had more active parishes in Ukraine than in Russia. After Ukraine became independent, a breakaway "Kiev Patriarchate" proclaimed itself the new Orthodox authority in the country, and it controls thousands of parishes. But it has won very little international recognition.

According to the Ukrainian parliamentarians, granting the country an independent, recognized church would simply be righting an historical wrong: the fact that in 1686, the metropolis (ecclesiastical authority) of Kiev was transferred from Constantinople to Moscow. In other words, the fact that Russia religiously annexed Ukraine. But Muscovite religious scholars have a very different reading of church history and insist that their own hierarch, Patriarch Kirill, is the legitimate spiritual leader of the eastern Slavs.

Patriarch Kirill of Moscow has already warned Patriarch Bartholomew that any move to detach Ukraine from Muscovite authority would be devastating for the relationship between Orthodox Christianity’s two most important sees, those of Constantinople and Moscow.

Patriarch Bartholomew will certainly not act hastily over a change which could have huge strategic repercussions. But thanks to Moscow’s last-minute withdrawal from the Cretan Council, Patriarch Kirill has lost a bit of leverage over his Istanbul-based counterpart. Patriarch Bartholomew has hitherto walked a delicate line over Ukraine. When he visited that country in 2008, he accepted the legitimacy, for now, of Moscow's religious authority but also expressed understanding for many Ukrainians' wish for an independent church. We can all expect to hear more about the ecclesiastical tug-of-war between Moscow, Kiev and Istanbul.