(Alexander Nemenov/Pool Photo via AP)
Ukrainian
bishops on Saturday are choosing a leader for a new national church
that will sideline their current Moscow-based patriarch, a move that
could weaken Russian President Vladimir Putin's power in the country.
The organization of an independent Ukrainian Orthodox
Church comes amid a simmering war between Ukraine and Russia, which
annexed Crimea in 2014. Russian Orthodox priests in Ukraine, who have
reported to Moscow for centuries, have downplayed Putin's role in the
fighting.
It's not clear who Ukrainians might elect to take over for
the incumbent leader, but sidelining him would end a relationship that
has empowered Russian leaders in Ukraine since the 17th Century.
late Patriarch Alexy II, was reportedly identified in
Soviet archives as a KGB asset. His successor, the incumbent Russian
Orthodox Patriarch Kirill, also is widely suspected of "being a KGB
agent, KGB-connected," one Baltic diplomat told the Washington Examiner.
“This is the understanding [based on] the way the Russian
Orthodox Church tries to support Russia’s aggression,” the diplomat said
on condition of anonymity.
A shift in the leadership of the Orthodox Church could make
it much harder for Putin to execute the “hybrid war” tactics that
allowed Russia to seize valuable swaths of Ukraine without launching a
conventional military invasion. Those tactics involved cyberattacks and
the deployment of Russian special forces who fought in unmarked
uniforms, which allowed Russia to portray the clash as an example of
Ukrainian persecution against ethnic Russians.
“The Russian government has been using and will continue to
use the Russian Orthodox Church as a geopolitical tool,” a senior State
Department official told the Washington Examiner in a recent interview. "The Ukrainian people have a right to self-determination in religious affairs.”
“There's no doubt that the Russian Orthodox Church was one
of the main tools in the toolbox of Kremlin," the Baltic diplomat said.
Moscow for decades has stressed the importance of the
historic cultural and religious unity of the Ukrainian and Russian
people. The Russian Orthodox Church, and Patriarch Kirill personally,
has played “a key role” in that effort since the 1990s by “reviv[ing] an
imperial ideology that viewed Russia as the protector of all things
eastern,” according to a leading expert on Ukrainian Orthodox history,
“Ukraine is absolutely key to this Russian world ideology,” Valparaiso University’s Nicholas Denysenko told the Washington Examiner.
“Russia views Ukraine as [committing] an act of betrayal ... The church
has played a very important role in capitulating to being an
ideological source or font for the conducting of this hybrid war.”
Russia has alleged that Ukraine's move for an independent church is part of a Western plot.
“The idea behind this is obvious — another step in tearing
Ukraine from Russia, not just politically, but also spiritually,”
Russian Foreign Ministery Sergey Lavrov said in October.
Kirill himself has been fighting the effort to create an
independent church. In a letter to the United Nations, he blasted the
"gross interference" of Ukrainian officials into the church, and said
they were trying to use the church to advance their own "political
goals."
The fight for control of the church has played out since
Crimea was annexed in 2014. Bishops poised to lead the new Ukrainian
church have blamed Russia for the violence, while Moscow-aligned clerics
have not.
The Security Service of Ukraine recently raided a
Russia-backed monastery in Kiev, and alleged Friday that the monastery
leaders were working with Russian officials to "organize provocations"
around the weekend vote.
Some are bracing for possible violence from Russia if an
independent Ukrainian church tries to establish itself, especially if
Russian bishops resist.
“If it gets bad enough, if they can't contain it, that
could open the door for Russian intervention, which they could call
peacekeeping,” Denysenko said.
The Kremlin has hinted this outcome is possible.
"Russia, of course, as it defends the interests of Russians
and Russian-speakers, as Putin has always said, in the same way ...
defends the interests of the Orthodox Christians,” Kremlin spokesman
Dmitry Peskov said in October.
The State Department declined to make a prediction about what might happen.
“The Russian government has no shortage of options and
ideas for how to escalate conflict vis a vis Ukraine,” the senior State
Department official told the Washington Examiner. “We're
monitoring the process very closely. We know the upcoming points on the
calendar when matters like these are being discussed.