Russia waged a religious war against Ukraine
Russia waged a religious war against Ukraine
The assault from Russia to Ukraine developed along military, economic and diplomatic lines. Vladimir Putin's Moscow is also waging a less visible war against Ukraine's religious sovereignty. To understand this, look at the structure of Eastern Orthodox Christianity. The church is composed of 14 autocephalous or self-governing churches. Religious and national identities often overlap, as in the Orthodox churches of Russia, Romania, Bulgaria and Georgia. Each national church falls under a particular patriarchy, and the ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople is considered the first among equals.
In recent centuries, Ukrainian believers had belonged to the Russian Orthodox Church. Shortly before the disappearance of the Soviet Union in 1991, a council of bishops in Ukraine declared the independence of the Russian church. In the 1990s, the new leader of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Filaret, the metropolitan bishop of Kiev, was pressured by the Russian church and security officials to resign. He said no. In 1997, the patriarch of the Russian church excommunicated him and declared schismatics to his followers.
It is estimated that 12,300 parishes in Ukraine continue to follow Moscow and belong to what is known as the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate. Meanwhile, some 5,100 parishes moved to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kiev Patriarchate, led by Filaret.
Patriarch Filaret seeks recognition of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church as autonomous and independent, and is about to achieve it. The final arbiter in this dispute is the ecumenical patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople. On September 23, he confirmed his intention to issue a tomes, or decree that confers the independence of a local church, for Ukraine.
The ties between the Kremlin and the Moscow Patriarchate are as old as Russia itself. Throughout its history, the Russian Orthodox Church was subordinated to the state and an unbreakable supporter of the autocracy. From the late fifteenth century, the church provided the rulers of Moscow with a political theology of manifest destiny, stating that Moscow had become the Second Jerusalem and the Third Rome (being the second Constantinople).
The appearance of the atheist Soviet state in 1922 dealt a heavy blow to the church. The state confiscated most of the ecclesiastical property. It destroyed many churches and converted others into storage places. The bells that were raised enough became stations of interference to prevent Voice of America or the BBC from reaching Soviet citizens. Few seminars survived. Those who did, trained a small number of priests. The KGB infiltrated the priesthood, informing the clergy and promoting Soviet interests abroad.
During Russia's brief experiment with democracy in the 1990s, the church recovered from decades of suppression. But under Mr. Putin, the state quickly co-opted and subsumed the church. The Kremlin has relied on the Orthodox Church as the main unifying force in the country and provides it with generous financial support. In return, the church has been the key promoter of the "Russian World" concept that projects the Kremlin as a defender of Russians outside of Russia. Patriarch Kirill has called the Putin era "a miracle of God."
The prospect of Ukrainian autocephaly would mean losing millions of dollars in property and thousands of priests in Ukraine. It would deprive Moscow of power over several million Ukrainians. Most importantly, it would be a blow to Moscow's ambition to be the leader of orthodox Christianity.
Moscow has pressed patriarch Bartolomé using unpleasant methods. A group of hackers connected to the Kremlin, recently indicted in the United States, stole thousands of emails from Patriarch Bartolomé's aides. That was counterproductive: the patriarch did not use e-mail and no compromising material emerged from his aides.
On August 31, Patriarch Kirill made an urgent visit to Istanbul to dissuade Patriarch Bartholomew from issuing a volume. The two do not look each other in the eye. While patriarch Kirill regards Western values as antithetical to Russian orthodoxy, Patriarch Bartolomé supports closer ties with Western churches, including the Vatican.
Patriarch Kirill argued that Moscow has led the Ukrainian Orthodox Church for 300 years, but this sounded empty in the corridors of Patriarch Bartholomew's headquarters in Istanbul. For Bartolomé and other patriarchs, the historical record is clear: the Patriarchs of Constantinople never officially approved of Russia's claims about the Ukrainian church. Patriarch Kirill returned to Moscow empty-handed.
Moscow has resorted to traditional intimidation, issuing unspecified threats and denouncing Patriarch Bartolomé as agent of the United States and the Vatican. When the threats failed, on September 14, the Russian church issued a formal statement condemning Bartholomew's intention to grant autocephaly to Ukraine. As a sign of a definitive break, Moscow also announced that it would stop using Bartholomew's name in prayers.
Mr. Putin's geopolitical goal of turning Ukraine into a satellite state instead has given Ukraine a renewed sense of its national identity. The spiritual imperialism of Russia has also decreased to the Russian Orthodox Church. These expansionist, holy and worldly policies are leading to greater isolation from Russia.
Mr. Khodarkovsky, professor of history at Loyola University in Chicago, is the author of "Russia's Century: A Journey in 100 Histories", Bloomsbury.
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