Squabbles between churches in Ukraine, Russia and Turkey are bound up in global politics
SCORES OF millions of Orthodox Christians will on June 16th mark the
feast of Pentecost. This celebration centres on the moment when,
according to church tradition, the Holy Spirit bestowed upon the
disciples of Jesus Christ the mysterious power to communicate across
language barriers. Each member of the multicultural crowd that gathered
in Jerusalem is said to have heard the Apostles speaking in his or her
own tongue.
Unfortunately the ability to communicate successfully
across other barriers, whether geopolitical or simply personal, is
currently eluding the Christians of the East, or at least their
hierarchs.
The global split which opened within Orthodox Christianity six months
ago over church jurisdiction in Ukraine shows no sign of healing. The
dire state of diplomatic relations among regional powers is certainly
not helping. The Patriarchate of Moscow abruptly severed relations with
the Istanbul-based Ecumenical Patriarch, Bartholomew I, after he
recognised the existence of an independent Ukrainian church. The split
has left the 12 other self-ruling Orthodox churches in an awkward
position of having to choose between the two Patriarchates, and the
tension has ricocheted across the Orthodox world.
So far, no
church has followed the Ecumenical Patriarchate in fully recognising the
Ukrainian body, nor has any followed Moscow in completely severing ties
with Patriarch Bartholomew.
The Moscow Patriarchate, which hews
close to the presidency of Vladimir Putin and at times defends it from
popular protest, regularly pours scorn on its counterpart in Istanbul
for acting as a stooge of American diplomacy. That America’s State
Department supported the right of Ukrainians to organise their own
independent church only added to Moscow’s fury.
In fact, the
Muscovite attacks oversimplify the position of the ancient
Istanbul-based see, which must keep a delicate balance between many
different earthly powers in order to survive as a tiny Christian enclave
in a Muslim country.
But in the coming weeks, the Ecumenical
Patriarch’s profile in the Western and Anglophone world will certainly
rise. The average age of his most visible representatives will plunge by
nearly 40 years as younger clerics take over Greek-Orthodox sees in New
York, London and Sydney. Mike Pompeo, President Donald Trump’s
secretary of state, has invited Patriarch Bartholomew to America in July
to give a speech on the environment. The choice of topic will come more
naturally to the guest, a staunch greenie, than to the host.
As
part of an apparent effort to counter-balance Muscovite influence in the
Orthodox world, Patriarch Bartholomew has in recent weeks visibly
mended his relations with the Archbishop of Athens, Ieronymos, by
patching up their arcane quarrels over church jurisdiction in parts of
Greece. That paved the way for Archbishop Ieronymos to join the primate
of the new Ukrainian church, Epifaniy, and many other Bartholomew-minded
hierarchs at celebrations in Istanbul of the Ecumenical Patriarch’s
personal feast-day on June 11th. To judge by the reaction on social
media, this innocent-seeming event caused much fury in the Muscovite
camp and much pleasure in the opposing one.
Meanwhile in Ukraine,
ecclesiastical disputes roll on in an often bizarre way. Controversy
swirls around 90-year-old Filaret Denysenko, a veteran and
still-vigorous player in the high politics of Orthodoxy since the Soviet
era. Having narrowly failed to become Patriarch of Moscow, he led a
breakaway Ukrainian church in 1992 and was duly defrocked and disgraced
by his erstwhile colleagues in Moscow, some of whom he had helped to
consecrate as bishops.
Since then the nonagenarian has styled
himself the Patriarch of Kiev, a title that few people outside Ukraine
recognise. In recent months, he has voiced bitter disappointment over
the fact he was not put in charge of the newly-established Orthodox
Church in Ukraine, and he has openly challenged the authority of
40-year-old Epifaniy, who was once his close aide.
In their
handling of these inter-Ukrainian squabbles, the hierarchs in Istanbul
feel they have trodden a careful line. They recognised Filaret as a
valid cleric with the rank of retired bishop, which was enough to incur
Muscovite rage, but they flatly rejected his claim to the title of
Patriarch.
To all this, organs of the Muscovite media that are
close to church thinking have reacted in a surreal way. While still
snubbing the claims of “Mr Denysenko” to have any kind of clerical
status, they report with gleeful satisfaction on the lively old man’s
campaign to undermine his young successor. To anyone used to the
relatively vertical structure of the global Catholic church, this will
seem like an unseemly mess. But the story may not quite end there.
The
feast of Pentecost, like every other landmark in the Orthodox calendar,
will be marked by ceremonies of immense complexity, antiquity and
beauty. Mastering and participating in such intricate rites can create
mysterious, but also fissile, bonds between celebrants. They can quarrel
suddenly, but also have sudden reconciliations.