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Andreas Umland Tamar Chapidze,
New Eastern Europe
Over the last two decades, Georgia and Ukraine have become close
geopolitical allies vis-à-vis both Russia and the West. In 1997,
Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Moldova created between themselves a
multilateral consultative forum that in 2001 was upgraded into the
Organization for Democracy and Economic Development, better known under
the acronym GUAM. With the 2003 Rose Revolution and 2004 Orange
Revolution, Georgia and Ukraine left their – narrowly understood –
“post-Soviet” trajectories of political and economic development, and
took instead resolutely pro-Western paths. In spring 2008, Georgia and
Ukraine applied together for NATO membership, at the alliance’s summit
in Bucharest, and received official accession perspectives, yet no
Membership Action Plans.
In summer 2008, then President Viktor Yushchenko
travelled to Tbilisi, during the Russian-Georgian war, to demonstrate Ukraine’s
support for Georgia. Soon after the five-day war, Kyiv and Tbilisi both signed
charters of strategic partnership with Washington. In 2009, Ukraine and Georgia
joined, together with Azerbaijan, Armenia, Moldova and Belarus, the EU’s
Eastern Partnership program. In summer 2014, Georgia, Ukraine and Moldova
ratified especially far-reaching Association Agreements with Brussels.
Since the spring of 2014, Georgians have, as a nation and
individually, helped Ukrainians in a myriad of ways in their violent
confrontation with Russia. A number of Georgian politicians took, over
the last five years, high level positions in various relevant Ukrainian
state offices, at Kyiv and Odesa. People-to-people contacts too are
getting stronger and mutual trips of citizens of Ukraine and Georgia to
the other country are, since March 1st 2019, possible, on the basis of national ID-cards (and not only travel passports, as had been the case before).
Clouds in the sky
Georgia’s and Ukraine’s recent common history and
challenges have thus, so it would seem, created a broad and firm basis for the
two countries’ special relationship. However, some recent religious affairs are
raising the question of how far Georgia’s political support eventually goes,
whether it will be strong enough to overcome Russian pressure, and to which
degree the relations between the two nations will keep on deepening. Such
doubts have appeared as the Georgian government has, so far, abstained from officially
welcoming and supporting the recently obtained autocephaly of the Orthodox
Church of Ukraine.
The main reason of the silence of Georgia’s officials on this issue
is be found within the Georgian Orthodox Church that is not rushing to
take an official position with regard to the status of Ukraine’s
recently established united Orthodox Church. The last 2018 meeting of
the Holy Synod on 27 December did consider the question of Ukrainian
autocephaly, yet postponed the Church’s official verdict on the issue.
“The Church of Georgia will make a decision relating to Ukraine at the
next Holy Synod meeting, as it was promised” Michael Botkoveli,
Secretary of the Patriarch of Georgia announced.
A January 2019 visit of a high representative of the Constantinople
Patriarchate to Tbilisi again raised the question about the Georgian
Orthodox Church’s recognition of Ukraine’s. Yet, the meeting between the
Ecumenical Patriarch’s emissary and the Georgian Church’s leaders did
not lead to any clear announcements. The visit was instead presented as
having been only made to inform the Georgian Orthodox Church about
details of the Ecumenical Patriarch’s resolution to grant autocephaly to
Ukraine’s new national Orthodox Church and “not to put any pressure or
impose its opinion,” on the Georgian Church. Metropolitan Emanuel merely
stated that the “Catholicos-Patriarch of Georgia has the wisdom to make the proper decision.”
The official position of the Georgian Patriarchate thus, so far,
remains the same as before the Ecumenical Patriarchate’s handing over of
a so-called Tomos (literally: small book) of Autocephaly to the
Orthodox Church of Ukraine in January 2019. The web page of the Georgian
Patriarchate said in October 2018, and still says today
that this decision has “caused tension between Constantinople and
Russia. Until the Patriarchate of Constantinople and Patriarchate of
Russia confirm their respective final official decisions, the
Patriarchate of Georgia will forbear to give its assessment of the
situation.”
Reasons for Tbilisi’s hesitant stance
In fact, it is not that surprising that Georgia’s Orthodox Church is
dragging its feats, as opinions, in the Church’s Synod, on this issue
differ widely. Some Georgian Orthodox hierarchs openly support Ukrainian
autocephaly. “The Ukrainian nation of 40 million people deserves its
independence,” said Metropolitan
Peter Tsaava of Chkondidi, in late December 2018, hoping that Georgia
will choose to stand on the side of the truth and rejoice at Ukrainian
autocephaly.
Bishop Iakob, on the other side, declared, in late January 2019, that “we
should not get involved in religious war, we should not think about
only Ukraine, but also about Abkhazia. I’m thinking about my country
first.” Iakob and likeminded Georgian bishops believe that Georgia
should, in this matter, behave cautiously because of a burning Georgian
domestic issue. They argue that, if Georgia’s Church recognizes
Ukrainian autocephaly, the Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox
Church could, in response, recognize the independence of the Abkhaz
Orthodox Church and thus help its separation from Georgia’s.
Since 1993, Abkhazia has been de facto a satellite of Russia, and there has been no relevant
Georgian military presence, on the territory controlled by the Moscow-supported
separatist regime, since then. In August 2008, the Kremlin put regular troops
into Abkhazia and officially recognized its “independence.” The Black Sea
region is, however, not really independent, but a Russian protectorate partly functioning
autonomously, partly ruled from Moscow. Notwithstanding Tbilisi’s lacking control
of the separatist area, the Georgian Orthodox Church continues to claim
Abkhazia as its canonical territory, and fears the emergence of a Moscow-recognized
separate Orthodox church there.
Responding to Tbilisi’s nervousness about the Moscow’s possible
recognition of Abkhazian autocephaly, the theologian Giorgi Tiginashvili
maintains that it is shameful for the Georgian Orthodox Church to not
support Ukrainian autocephaly. He argues
that the Moscow Patriarchy does not have any rights to recognise the
autocephaly of an Abkhazian Orthodox church: “The argument that Russia
will encourage separatism in terms of ecclesiastical turmoil is just
ridiculous, [because] this has already been done. It [Russia] has a
Bishop and around fifteen clerics who seek to spread anti-Georgian
narratives and disinformation.”
When the Ukrainian Tomos became a publicly discussed issue in
Georgia, some members of the Georgian Orthodox Church addressed the Holy
Synod with a petition in support of autocephaly for Ukraine’s united Orthodox Church.
Some even gathered, in January 2019, to protest the Church’s timid
position, in front of the Georgian Patriarchate’s building, with
placards stating: “Our support to the Ukrainian nation.”
Georgian governmental representatives have, in contrast, abstained from
publicly commenting on the issue noting that it is of concern to the
Tbilisi Patriarchate. “I would like to state clearly that the Georgian
Orthodox Church is reviewing this question. Considering the canonical
processes, the position regarding this issue should first be determined
by the Orthodox Church of Georgia. As for the state, it does not
interfere with the Church’s affairs,” Minister of Foreign Affairs Zalkaniani said.
On February 1st 2019, a high representative of the Moscow Patriarchate, Metropolitan Ilarion Alfeyev, warned the Georgian hierarchs:
“I cannot imagine the Georgian Orthodox Church recognizing the
autocephaly of the so-called Ukrainian Orthodox Church. Most of the
clerics of the Georgian Patriarchate are very well aware of the
ecclesiastical reality and the serious consequences of such a decision.
There are young bishops who are in open opposition against the
Catholicos-Patriarch Ilia II calling upon the Patriarch to recognize the
so-called Autocephaly, but I’m sure it will not happen.” This statement
was made when the Georgian Patriarchate had sent its representatives to
Russia to congratulate Russian Patriarch Kirill on the 10th anniversary
of his intronisation. In a statement devoted to the anniversary of
Patriarch Kirill’s enthronement, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned those going against the Russian Orthodox Church – a message obviously delivered with the issue of Ukrainian autocephaly in mind.
In response to Ilarion’s open warnings towards Georgia, the Georgian
Patriarchate explained that the Georgian Church has always tried to take
positions not on political grounds, but on the basis of ecclesiastical
law. “At a time when, in the Tskhinvali [South Ossetia] region on a
Russian military base the construction of a church is ongoing without
any negotiation with us, and in Abkhazia the clerics [under] the Russian
Church conduct non-canonic liturgies, the ambiguity of his statement
sounds threatening,” the Georgian Patriarchate complained in early February.
“We are guided by principle in the current situation, in that capacity,
we take care of Orthodox unity; to ease tensions, we believe, is the
responsibility of all Churches,” says the web page of the Georgian Patriarchate.
An official representative of Georgian Patriarchate, Metropolitan Shio, has rejected accusations
that the Georgian Patriarchate is under the influence of Russian
Orthodox Church. Still, some believe that many hierarchs of the Georgian
Orthodox Church are behaving the way they do not only because of the
Abkhazian issue, but also because they are pro-Russian. Above-mentioned
theologian Tiginashvili claimed, in early January 2019, that
“the majority of the Holy Synod of Georgia is Russophile. They are
linked to Russia via private contacts, previous educational, living
experience, etc.”
Political implications
If that were indeed the case, this could create a lasting
schism between the two otherwise multifariously cooperating post-Soviet states.
Georgia and Ukraine have recently become closer and closer – out of both,
accumulating political necessity and increasing mutual sympathy. Yet, now a –
for many Ukrainians – important question is in the room: Will the Georgian
Orthodox Church, as one of humanity’s oldest Christian churches, come forward
to support Ukrainian autocephaly or not? Many Georgian hierarchs may prefer to
handle this issue as a purely ecclesiastical challenge.
Yet, its outcome has also a political and even
geopolitical dimension. It will have repercussions for Ukrainian-Georgian
relations, in their entirety. Most Georgians see their own national church as a
(or even the) prime epitome of Georgianness. Similarly, most Ukrainians – even
many non-Orthodox and non-religious – regard an autocephalic church as a
critical expression of the uniqueness, freedom and independence of their
nation. Since the beginning of the Russian-Ukrainian war in 2014, the dominant
position of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church under the Moscow Patriarchy among
Ukraine’s four major Christian churches has become more and more anachronistic.
The unity of Russian and Ukrainian Orthodoxy, to be sure,
might have been possible to preserve, had the Moscow Patriarchate’s hierarchs
taken a clearly and officially critical approach towards Russia’s covert
military invasion into Ukraine since 2014. Yet, neither Metropolitan Kirill nor
any other high representative of the Russian Orthodox Church appear to have
done or said anything noteworthy – as, arguably, as Christians they should have
– to substantively condemn or moderate the Kremlin’s aggressiveness. The
origins of Eastern Orthodoxy’s schism lie thus neither in Kyiv nor in Constantinople,
but in Moscow. It would be sad, if Russia’s war against Ukraine and the
subsequent deep split in eastern Slavic Christianity will also spoil the otherwise
very close relations between Ukraine and Georgia.
This article is an
outcome of a project within the 2018-2019 Democracy Study Center training program of the
German-Polish-Ukrainian Society and European Ukrainian Youth Policy Center, supported
by the Federal Foreign Office of Germany.Tamar Chapidze is an Executive Director of the Tbilisi-based NGO Civil Development and Research Institute, and a 2018-2019 Scholar of the Democracy Study Center in Kyiv, Ukraine.
Andreas Umland is a Senior Fellow of the Democracy Study Center in Kyiv, Nonresident Fellow of the Institute of International Relations in Prague, and General Editor of the book series “Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society.”
