Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Kirill
visits St George church, the main Greek Orthodox cathedral during his
visit on Aug. 31, 2018 in Istanbul.
By
VoxUkraine, , Scholar of the Democracy Study Center,, political scientist, Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Euro-Atlantic Cooperation
After
five years of Russia’s escalating hybrid war against Ukraine, their
multi-dimensional political, economic, civil, military and cultural
conflict reached, in late 2018, eventually the religious sphere. The
fundamental reconstitution of relations between the Russian and
Ukrainian Christian communities expressed itself in early 2019, when
Ukraine received a s0-called “tomos” (literally: small book).
This document made, in Kyiv’s view, Ukrainian Orthodoxy canonically independent from Moscow.
It was issued by Istanbul’s Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople,
the former capital of the Byzantine empire, i.e. by an Eastern Christian
church that occupies a special place of honor in the Orthodox world.
How did this come about? What was the
reaction of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) high officials and
priests to the Ukrainian tomos? What arguments has the ROC used to deny a
right of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) to be independent from
Moscow?
How Kyiv and Constantinople Upset Moscow
The arrival, in Kyiv, of
Constantinople’s official document granting the Orthodox Church of
Ukraine autocephaly, in January this year, was not only a result of the Russian-Ukrainian war.
Kyiv’s religious autonomists also benefitted from a partly unrelated
exacerbation of long-standing tensions between the Constantinople and
Moscow Patriarchates, hitherto the world’s two most important centers of
Orthodoxy. A conflict has been simmering between them, if not earlier,
since 2016 when the latter refused to participate in a major Eastern
Christian hierarchs’ meeting in Crete that was organized by
Constantinople and had been planned for a long time.
Ukraine’s President in 2014-2019,
Petro Poroshenko, in collaboration with the non-canonical or
unrecognized Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate and
Ukrainian Autocephalous Church, took resolute advantage of the resulting
change of mood in Istanbul. After two earlier unsuccessful
applications, they were, in late 2018 – early 2019, able to quickly
create and then get officially recognized, by the Ecumenical
Patriarchate, a national and united Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU).
This was an aim that earlier Ukrainian leaders, above all 2005-2010
President Viktor Yushchenko, had been striving for, for many years, but been unable to achieve. In early 2019,
a large delegation from Kyiv went to Istanbul where the Holy Synod of
the Ecumenical Patriarchate unanimously and officially approved an
already earlier taken decision to grant full autocephaly to the newly
founded and united OCU.
To be sure, a few months later, an acrimonious conflict
between the new Church’s “Honorary Patriarch” and older hierarch
Filaret, and the new Metropolitan Epiphanius of Kyiv and All Ukraine
Epiphanius spoiled the
unification and autonomization of the OCU. Yet, when autocephaly
happened, this momentous and historic action caused exaltation among
many Ukrainians
– even among those not affiliated to the OCU, Christianity or any
religion. On the other hand, the OCU’s independence from Moscow caused
frustration and, partly, anger among many hierarchs of the ROC.
The ROC leadership only recognizes a
Kyiv branch of itself, the so-called “Ukrainian Orthodox Church” linked
to the Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP), as legitimate in Ukraine. On the
eve of the OCU’s acquisition of autocephaly, the ROC thus insisted that,
in as far as the UOC-MP had not asked for it, there is no Kyiv subject
to whom a tomos can be bestowed. Moreover, Moscow argues that
Constantinople has no right to bestow autocephaly on the ROC’s
“canonical territory” which, according to the Moscow Patriarchate,
includes Ukraine. In the ROC leadership’s view, the only canonical local
Orthodox Church in Ukraine was, is and can be the UOC-MP, i.e. the
Ukrainian branch of the all-Russian Eastern Christian community
supposedly led by Moscow.
How Moscow Reacted to Constantinople’s Challenge
Following this ecclesiastical logic,
Moscow has accused Constantinople of advancing a split within Ukrainian
Orthodoxy. Hilarion Alfeyev, Head of the ROC’s Department of External
Church Relations, for example, argued: “If
we are talking about granting autocephaly, to whom [should it be
granted?]: the canonical [Ukrainian Orthodox] Church [of the Moscow
Patriarchate] is not asking for it, and granting it to dividers means
legitimizing [an already existing] split [in Ukraine’s Orthodox
community].”
The ROC created a special web-page
“In Defense of the Unity of the Russian Orthodox Church”
(edinstvo.patriarchia.ru) where the Moscow Patriarchate posts various
more or less official materials expressing the Church’s position on
Ukrainian Orthodoxy’s strive for canonical independence. For instance,
ROC priest Georgiy Maksimov opined that Ukrainians are not in favor of
having their own national Orthodox Church – a project allegedly desired
only by religious and political entrepreneurs. Maksimov asserted that, “possibly,
this is the first time in history that we see a forced ‘granting of
autocephaly’ which lets one to wonder about many things.”
The ROC interprets the granting of an
independent status to the OCU as a mere instrument used for Ukrainian
domestic political battles. In the words of Maksimov: “The ‘acquisition
of a tomos’ [was] one of the main points of the electoral campaign of
the [then] incumbent Ukrainian President [Petro Poroshenko] who wanted to be re-elected for a second term this spring.”
Such a political dynamic was indeed part and parcel of a larger
Ukrainian public campaign accompanying Kyiv’s effective interaction with
the Ecumenical Patriarchate which led Constantinople to officially
recognize the newly united OCU. Yet, abortive Ukrainian attempts to
achieve independence from the Moscow Patriarchate had been made by
Kyiv’s Orthodox hierarchs as early as during the short-lived Ukrainian
People’s Republic in 1918 (if not before).
One hundred years later, ROC
representatives accused the Ecumenical Patriarchate of provoking, by its
support of Kyiv’s canonical independence, an alleged suppression of
Orthodox believers by the Ukrainian state. Above-mentioned Maksimov
declared that “[…]
Patriarch Bartholomew [I of Constantinople] behaves as if he is not
noticing that his actions have launched state persecution of the
canonical Church of Ukraine [i.e. of the UOC-MP].” In
fact, Kyiv does not limit the activities of the UOC-MP in Ukraine. The
Ukrainian parliament merely resolved, in December 2018, that the UOC-MP
has to rename itself so as to make, in its official designation, clear
that it represents a foreign national church.
In another line of argument against
Ukrainian religious autonomy, the ROC appears to be worried about human
rights violations in Ukraine, and accuses respective Western
organizations of double standards. Above-mentioned Hilarion Alfeyev of
the ROC’s Department of External Church Relations claimed that “[…]
repressions of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church [of the Moscow
Patriarchate] are not coming to an end. Western human right
organizations try to ignore the current issue not because they do not
know about it, but because the current Western political mood does not
allow for Ukraine to be an anti-hero. The anti-hero of the West can
today be only Russia.”
How the Moscow Patriarchate Follows the Kremlin
In both of the above lines of
argument, the Moscow Patriarchate repeats tropes of disinformation and
defamation to be found in the Kremlin’s foreign discourses. With regard
to both religious and non-religious matters, post-Euromaidan Ukraine is
portrayed as an aggressor state supported by a duplicitous West. In
contrast, Russia and its agents abroad are introduced as victims of
groundless accusations and ruthless repressions.
No wonder that the ROC resorts to
traditional Russian anti-Americanism when commenting on Ukrainian
autocephaly. For instance, Patriarch Kirill stated that: “The
concrete political goal was well-formulated by, among others,
plenipotentiary representatives of the United States in Ukraine and by
representatives of the Ukrainian government themselves: it is necessary
to tear apart the last connection between our people [i.e. the Russians
and Ukrainians], and this [last] connection is the spiritual one.”
This argument follows a general discourse of the ROC that Western human rights are mere fake. Kirill continues: “We
should make our own conclusions [concerning this issue] including on
the tales which [the West], for a long time, tried to impose on us,
during so many years, about the rule of law, human rights, religious
freedom and all those things which, not long ago, were regarded as
having fundamental value for the formation of the modern state and of
human relations in modern society.”
The ROC’s head thus warns that “Ukraine
could become a precedent and example for how easily one can do away
with any laws, with any orders [and] with any human rights, if the
mighty of this world need it.”
Kirill goes as far to equate Bolshevik terror against the ROC during
the Soviet period, and post-Soviet Ukraine’s strive for an autocephalous
church: “The
Ukrainian situation is a reflection of the politics of the
revolutionary authorities in the Soviet Union directed at the
destruction of the Russian Orthodox Church.”
The Moscow Patriarchate Plays Hardball
Another line of the ROC’s resistance
to Ukrainian independence has been to repeatedly point out the initial
absence of support for Kyiv’s autocephaly from other Orthodox churches
around the world. Moscow presents itself as allegedly expressing an
opinion from below and the position of the majority of Orthodox
Christians. Metropolitan of Volokolamsk Hilarion declared triumphantly,
in early 2019: “As
of today, no local Church has recognized the lawlessness that was
executed by [the Ecumenical Patriarchate of] Constantinople.”*
Yet, the, so far, indeed only limited international support for
Ukrainian religious autonomy is a phenomenon that has much to do with
the ROC’s foreign influence itself.
The fact that the Ecumenical
Patriarchate of Constantinople had, already in October 2018, lifted the
excommunication of Filaret, Patriarch of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church
of the Kyiv Patriarchate and Metropolitan Makariy, Metropolitan of the
Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church, when deciding to grant
independence to Ukrainian Orthodoxy, had also enraged the Moscow
Patriarchate. As a result, the ROC went as far as to break off Eucharistic communion with the Patriarchate of Constantinople. Protodeacon Konstantin Markovich from the Saint Petersburg Theological Academy even announced that “Bartholomew
[I of Constantinople] and his Synod have, according to canonical logic,
to be excommunicated and given to anathema.”
The ROC treats the actions of the
Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople as being arbitrary and in
breach of Orthodox canons. Says Maksimov: “Orthodox
people of various countries observe with perplexion and horror how the
primate [Bartholomew] of the esteemed [Orthodox] Church [of
Constantinople] suddenly announces as his canonical territory what was,
for more than 300 years, recognized by all [Orthodoxy], without
exception, as part of another local Church, and named people who were
unanimously recognized as dissidents by all Orthodox Churches as part of
a canonical Church threatening, at the same time, to announce as
renegades those [i.e. Moscow’s representatives in Ukraine] with whom all
local Churches are in Eucharistic communion.”
The Ecumenical Patriarchate of
Constantinople should have, in the ROC leadership’s opinion, respected
the Moscow Patriarchate’s canonical territory. Says above-quoted
Protodeacon Markovich: “If
Patriarch Bartholomew [I of Constantinople] indeed had desired to heal
the schism in Ukraine, he could have taken upon himself the role of a
peacemaker and mediator between the conflicting parties, and could have
used his not insignificant influence and authority, which he enjoys by
virtue of his status as the prime First Hierarch of the Ecumenical
Church for advancing fruitful dialogue between the hierarchy of the
canonical Ukrainian [Orthodox] Church [of the Moscow Patriarchate] and
schismatics which would have led to reconciliation and a reunification
of the dissidents with the canonical Church [i.e. the UOC-MP].”
This line of argument follows an
accusation that the ROC had already been advancing for several years
before – namely that the Primate of the Constantinople Patriarchate is
acting as if he represents a superior Church. Says Priest Mikhail
Ulanov: “…the
current pretenses of Constantinople are not simply manipulations in the
sphere of church politics or a fight for spheres of influence against
Moscow. They are an attempt to revise Orthodox Ecclesiology.”
The ROC between Religion and Politics
The shrill tone of these and many
other similar ROC announcements illustrates a fundamental dilemma of the
Moscow Patriarchate. The ROC has – as a national church of a state
engaged in increasingly violent regional and geopolitical battles for
influence – become hostage of the more ambitious and expansionist moods
and viewpoints, in Russia’s political elite. Whether in its quarrel with
Constantinople or in its confrontation with Kyiv, the Moscow
Patriarchate – copying the Kremlin’s approach to both international
organization and the Ukrainian state – follows outdated patterns of
great power assertiveness.
When defining its position towards
the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, the ROC should have instead followed
general Christian and specifically Orthodox principles. The Moscow
Patriarchate could have come out in defense of the Ukrainian
brother-nation’s state territory, with a critique of the Kremlin’s
hybrid war against Kyiv. As a supposedly pacifist force in favor of
Eastern Slavic unity, it should have condemned Russia’s official
annexation of Crimea and unofficial occupation of the Eastern Donbas.
Yet, as a de facto branch of the
Russian government, the ROC followed Putin in his futile attempt to
redefine Russian geopolitics or even world politics, in the early 21st
century. The way Constantinople and Kyiv reacted to the Kremlin’s and
ROC’s challenging behavior in political and religious affairs was
predictable. In fact, it was unavoidable, once the Moscow Patriarchate
took the path it took. As the above quotes indicated, Russia’s recent
political, diplomatic, economic and cultural isolation may further
increase via gradual segregation of its religious life from the Slavic
and wider worlds.
* We analyzed texts and speeches of
priests and high officials of the ROC on the eve of rumors about the
Ukrainian church independence, summer 2018 to spring 2019. We employed
content and discourse analysis for that.
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, in Kyiv, supported by the Foreign Office of the Federal
Republic of Germany. Leonid Luks (Catholic University of
Eichstaett-Ingolstadt), Regina Elsner (Center for East European and
International Studies, Berlin) and George Soroka (Harvard University,
Cambridge, Mass.) made useful comments on a draft of this paper. None of
them can, however, be held responsible for any remaining mistakes or
misinterpretations that this text may still contain.