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Khrystyna
Karelska is an alumna of the College of Europe in Natolin and Democracy
Study Centre in Kyiv. She is a student of the East European Multiparty
Democracy School and an intern-analyst of the Public
Association “Community Associations”in Odesa.
Andreas Umland is
a Nonresident Fellow at the Center for European Security of the
Institute of International Relations in Prague, and General Editor of
the book series “Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society” and “Ukrainian Voices.”
In
recent months, the ongoing Russian-Ukrainian multidimensional military,
political, economic and cultural conflict has become an issue with
which most people around the world are now familiar with. What is less
well known beyond Eastern Europe is the important religious aspect of
Moscow’s “hybrid war” against Ukrainian national independence. According
to its Constitution, Ukraine is, to be sure, a secular country where
churches and all religious organizations are separated from the state.
On the other hand, Ukraine is one of the most religious countries in
Europe, and has a Christian church whose history reaches back more than a
millennium.
The
origins of Ukrainian Orthodoxy date back to the Middles Ages when
Prince Volodymyr the Great of Kyiv received Christianity from
Constantinople in 988. The baptism of the Kyivan Rus was one of the
crucial events in early Ukrainian history. It helped create a first
proto-national community out of which today’s modern Ukrainian nation
would later emerge.
Eastern
Christianity heavily influenced the rise of the first Eastern Slavic
state, the Kyivan Rus, on the territories of today central and northern
Ukraine, eastern Belarus as well as western Russia. Later on, Orthodoxy
in Eastern Europe transformed, however, from a medium of cultivation and
unification into an instrument of domination and subversion.
Increasingly reimagining itself as an empire, Tsarist Russia used the
Orthodox church to justify and implement its control over Ukraine and
Belarus.
Against
this background, the last almost three decades since Ukraine’s
independence were marked by a fight of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of
the Kyiv Patriarchate (UOC KP) and Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox
Church (UAOC) against the dominance of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of
the Moscow Patriarchate (UOC MP) in Ukraine. This confrontation has
political undercurrents as the UOC MP is – in spite of its official name
– de facto a branch of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) which, in
turn, is a manifestly national (rather than pan-national) church that is
unofficially, but closely linked to the Kremlin. As such, the ROC and
UOC MP were and are today important soft-power instruments in the
Kremlin’s hybrid warfare against Ukraine. They are a major medium for
Moscow’s foreign policy and facilitate the Kremlin’s neo-imperial
schemes under such headings as “Orthodox civilization,” “Russian World,”
or “Eastern Slavic brotherhood.”
In
2014, the so-called “Ukraine crisis” began. This is the common, but
misleading label for the war that broke out as a result of Russia’s
illegal annexation of Crimea and covert intervention in the Donets
Basin. Since then, the question of religious independence from Russia
has become more pressing than ever for many Ukrainians. As a result of
prolonged negotiations, in January 2019, the Ecumenical Patriarch of
Constantinople Bartholomew I. handed to a Ukrainian delegation in
Istanbul a so-called Tomos (literally: little book), i.e. an official
document that grants canonical independence to the newly-established
unified Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU). This was a major achievement
not only for Ukraine’s religious autonomists. It was also a historic
success of the Presidency of Petro Poroshenko whose team had, since
2016, done most of the diplomatic work in preparation of
Constantinople’s momentous move.
The
Russian reaction to this historic act was expectedly vitriolic and full
of conspirology. Already before the finalization of Constantinople’s
move in early 2019, among many others, Patriarch Kirill of the Russian
Orthodox Church condemned,
in late 2018, with anger and hyperbole Ukraine’s forthcoming
autocephaly: “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. 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. 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.”
The new Metropolitan of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) Epiphanius responded to these and many other Russian attacks as he said that
the “the Russian Orthodox Church is the last advance post of Vladimir
Putin in Ukraine,” and that the “appearance of the OCU undercuts the
imperial goals of the Kremlin leader. Putin is losing here in Ukraine
the support which he had before because if he had not had this support,
there would not have been a war in the Donbas. And therefore, we will
consistently maintain ourselves as a single church – recognised and
canonical in Ukraine. And gradually Russia will lose this influence
through the souls of Orthodox Ukrainians here."
To
be sure, the acquisition of canonical independence of the newly
established Orthodox Church of Ukraine was not only a church matter and
source of division between Russia and Ukraine. It also played a role in
Ukrainian domestic affairs, and, in particular, in the Ukrainian
presidential elections of 2019. On the day of Epiphanius’s
enthronization on February 2, 2019, then President Petro Poroshenko
stressed that the OCU is and will be independent of the state. At the
same time, he stated
that “the church and the state will now be able to enter onto a path
toward genuine partnership of the church and state for joint work for
the good of the country and the people."
Representatives
of the new OCU repeatedly assured that the state does not meddle in
religious affairs, but merely contributed to the unification process.
Yet, former President Poroshenko actively presented Ukraine’s
acquisition of autocephaly as his political victory vis-à-vis Russia
during his 2019 election campaign, and even went on a so-called
Tomos-tour through Ukraine. While such manifest political
instrumentalization spoiled the acquisition of Ukrainian autocephaly,
the OCU’s independence is not a mere side-product of political
maneuvering by Ukraine’s former President. It is the result of a decades
long struggle of many Ukrainian Christians against the dominance of the
UOC-MP and of aspirations of many Orthodox believers in Ukraine.
According
to American theologian Shaun Casey, Ukraine’s Tomos, i.e. her
obtainment of autocephaly for her Orthodox church, will lead to unification around the OCU
and give new opportunity to deal with religious diversity. Among
others, Archimandrite Cyril Hovorun has emphasized that Ukraine’s
acquisition Constantinople’s Tomos is a move that corresponds to the
general structure of the world-wide religious Orthodox community, and
national character of the individual Eastern Christian churches. Unlike
in the centralized and pyramidal structure of the Catholic Church with
the Pope at its top, Orthodoxy is divided into local churches and
constitutes an international Commonwealth rather than unified organization.
The
ongoing dominance of an Orthodox Church subordinated to Moscow rather
than Kyiv on the territory of independent Ukraine had thus always been
an anomaly. It became an absurdity once Russia started a war against
Ukraine in 2014. Therefore, Ukraine’s acquisition of autocephaly for its
Orthodox church can be viewed as an opportunity to heal the schism
between the various Eastern Christian communities on Ukrainian
territory, and to eventually unite most Orthodox believers living in
Ukraine.
For
that to happen, the international recognition by other Orthodox
churches is crucial as it legitimizes the young OCU in the Eastern
Christian world. So far, only the Patriachate of Alexandria and the
Standing Synod of the Church of Greece have officially recognized the
canonical independence of the OCU. Even these were contested decisions.
The former Greek Defence Minister Panos Kammenos called it a crime: “If
anything happens in the next few months, the Holy Synod [of the Greek
Orthodox Church] will hold all responsibility for the termination of
guarantees granted by Russia, due to the recognition of the illegal
Church of Ukraine.”
In
contrast to Greece’s Holy Synod, the Serbian Orthodox Church, a close
ally of the ROC, has made publicly clear that it will not recognize the
OCU. It follows Moscow’s line when claiming that “the
Kyiv-based Metropolia cannot be equated with current Ukraine as it has
been under the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate since 1686." Events
in Ukraine have gained additional meaning in the Western Balkans as
Montenegro – NATO’s most recent new member – is currently discussing a
contentious religious bill that enables the state to confiscate property
of the Serbian Orthodox Church. The latter has, in response, blamed
Kyiv for this development: “It
appears that recent events in Ukraine, where the previous authorities
and Constantinople Patriarchate legalized the schism, are currently
repeated in Montenegro. Schismatics should confess and achieve
reconciliation with the Serbian Orthodox Church."
Reacting to recent developments in Ukraine, Greece and former Yugoslavia, Moscow’s Patriarch Kirill warns now that “new
work will now be done to strengthen Orthodoxy's canonical purity, and
even greater efforts made to preserve and restore unity where this has
been shaken." OCU’s Metropolitan Epiphanius at Kyiv, in contrast,
predicts that, in the near future, “at least three or four more churches
will recognize our autocephaly.”
Such radical statements are due to the fact that the OCU’s independence has
the potential to change the balance of influence in the entire Orthodox
world. Representatives of several other Christian and non-Christian
religions have welcomed the emergence of a canonical and independent
Ukrainian Orthodox church in 2019. The partly harsh rejection of the OCU
by a number of Russian and pro-Russian Orthodox hierarchs has largely
to do with the Moscow-dominated power relations in the international
network of Eastern Christian churches that are under threat. The
emergence of a potentially large competitor in Eastern Europe could
encourage certain other local churches currently under the Moscow
Patriarchy to follow Ukraine’s example.
Religion
will remain an important factor in the ongoing conflict between Russia
and Ukraine, and divide world-wide Orthodoxy as long as Moscow does not
recognize Ukrainian autocephaly. The emergence of the OCU and its
growing recognition among other local Orthodox churches will impact
profoundly the post-Soviet and other regions of the world. It will
probably provoke Moscow towards even harsher actions as the Kremlin is
gradually losing a vital instruments of its hybrid warfare against
Ukraine. While autocephaly has been an aim for many Ukrainian Christians
for centuries, Constantinople’s 2019 Tomos for the OCU is perceived,
in- and outside Ukraine, as a highly symbolic answer to the Russian
military attack on Ukraine – an aggression of one largely Orthodox
people against another. Against this geopolitical background, the OCU’s
acquisition of autocephaly undercuts the crypto-imperial mood in the
Moscow Patriarchy.
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. #CivilSocietyCooperation. Umland's work
for this article benefited from support by "Accommodation of Regional
Diversity in Ukraine (ARDU): A research project funded by the Research
Council of Norway (NORRUSS Plus Programme)." See blogg.hioa.no/ardu/category/about-the-project/.
