KYIV – The Russian Orthodox Church is severing its relationship with the spiritual authority of the Orthodox Christian world following a Synod, or assembly of church hierarchy, that was held in Minsk on October 15.
The decision could signal the widest rift in the religious world since the 1054 schism that divided western and eastern Christianity or the Reformation of 1517 when Roman Catholicism split into new Protestant divisions.
It was in response to the move by the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople four days earlier, after it also held a Holy Synod and announced it will proceed with the process of giving Ukraine its own fully self-governed church.
Moscow reacted swiftly with Russian President Vladimir Putin convening an emergency meeting of the Security Council on October 12.
“In the event that the events which are developing take the course of illegal activities, then of course, just as Russia defends the interests of Russians and Russian speakers – and Putin has spoken about this many times – Russia will defend the interests of the Orthodox,” Dmitry Peskov, the Russian president’s spokesman, said afterward. “This is an absolutely grounded and absolutely understandable position.”
Russian vows to “protect Orthodox believers… sounds like déjà vu all over again, since Russia used the same pretext in 2014 when it started the conflict in eastern Ukraine,” said Margo Gontar, co-founder of Stop Fake news, in a commentary written for the Washington-based Atlantic Council on October 13.
The Ecumenical Patriarchate, which is based in Istanbul, has essentially laid the groundwork for granting Ukraine ecclesiastic self-rule. It revoked a canonical letter dating to 1686 that led to Moscow annexing Ukraine’s Orthodox jurisdiction.
Igor Palkin
The Russian Orthodox Church’s Patriarch Kirill (left) addresses an assembly of hierarchs, or Synod, in the Belarusian capital of Minsk on October 15.
After a Synaxis, or consultative meeting of hierarchs, in early September, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, known as the “first among equals” among all Orthodox primates, said his predecessor – Patriarch Dionysios IV – under “great political pressure” was forced to give Moscow permission to ordain the metropolitan of Kyiv that year.
A Stavropegia was established in Kyiv to represent the Ecumenical Patriarch. Two exarchs were dispatched to Ukraine as emissaries who “are objective catalysts who facilitate the process of granting a Tomos” for self-government, religious expert Oleksandr Sagan told The Ukrainian Weekly.
Anathemas were lifted for Filaret Denysenko, patriarch of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church – Kyiv Patriarchate (UOC-KP), and Metropolitan Makariy Maletych, head of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (UAOC).
As a result, it makes it “impossible for us to continue Eucharistic communion with its [Ecumenical Patriarchate’s] hierarchs, clergy and laity,” the Russian Orthodox Church said in its post-Synod statement.
The Ukrainian Orthodox Church – Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP) is currently the only canonically recognized Orthodox Church in Ukraine. It is subordinate to the Russian Orthodox Church but has rights of autonomy.
There are about 250 million to 300 million Orthodox believers worldwide. The most reside in Russia, followed by Ukraine.
“More than 12,000 of the Russian Church’s almost 35,000 parishes are in Ukraine, and losing even a small number of these would be a terrific blow to Russia and to Vladimir Putin’s concept of a ‘Russian world’,” said English historian Andrew Wilson in a commentary for the European Council on Foreign Relations that was published on October 11. “So catastrophic, in fact, that the Russian Church is hardly likely to acquiesce quietly in the loss.”
Nearly two-thirds of Ukrainians identify with the Orthodox faith, and nearly half of those as parishioners of the UOC-KP, according to a nationwide poll conducted on August 30-September 9 jointly by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, the Razumkov Center and the SOCIS Center for Social and Marketing Research. Seventeen percent said they identify with the UOC-MP.
Moscow’s move to sever ties is a form of self-imposed sanctions, UOC-KP spokesman Archbishop Yevstratiy Zorya told The Ukrainian Weekly on October 15.
“Moscow is behaving in a way that it is isolating itself as it has done politically ever since it annexed [the Ukrainian territory of] Crimea in 2014,” he said.
Two principal steps remain before Ukraine could be granted autocephaly, he said, outlining a road map.
“A Sobor [council] of bishops must be held, and elections must take place to vote in a new Church leader,” the archbishop said, adding that Ukraine “is in an extraordinary situation.”
Archbishop Yevstratiy said that autocephaly is “not a question of ‘if’ but ‘when,’ ” noting that the remaining steps should be done by the end of the year in order to avoid the “political turbulence” when Ukraine will hold presidential elections in March 2019 and parliamentary elections seven months later.
He also warned that Russia could try to interfere with the ecclesiastic elections.
“If Russia interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential elections and the referendum in the United Kingdom to leave the European Union, what makes you think it won’t try to disrupt these?” he asked rhetorically. “We must understand these dangers, so should society… it should be vigilant.”
Potential provocations are also expected with regard to church properties being forcibly taken over.
The October 11 Holy Synod in Istanbul appealed to “all sides involved that they avoid appropriation of churches, monasteries and other properties, as well as every other act of violence and retaliations, so that the peace and love of Christ may prevail.”
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko also promised to ensure that violence doesn’t ensue at church properties. The Internal Affairs Ministry has already increased security nationwide at places of worship.
Since 2014, when Moscow invaded Ukraine, including the easternmost regions of Luhansk and Donetsk in a war that has killed more than 10,400 people, nearly 100 UOC-MP parishes switched over to the Kyiv Patriarchate, Archbishop Yevstratiy said.
“More people individually have simply left with their feet and attend UOC-KP churches,” he said citing recent survey findings.
Other reasons include the fact that the UOC-MP treats the Donbas war as a civil war and not an act of Russian aggression, the archbishop said.
The UOC-MP has also been accused of supporting or abetting separatism.
Former Russian Federal Security Service Col. Igor Girkin, who led the takeover of Donetsk Oblast city of Sloviansk in April 2014, admitted that monks from the UOC-MP-controlled Sviatohirsk monastery fought with him against Ukrainian forces.
Speaking on the Russian Independent Studio television program on October 12, Mr. Girkin added that his personal security detail was made up of monks from the monastery located 30 kilometers (18.6 miles) north of Sloviansk.
A “lay brother from the monastery led one of our Sloviansk brigade subunits,” he said, adding that “clerics from the Sviatohirsk Monastery blessed” the armed units that he led.
UOC-MP spokesperson Archbishop Klyment has said that “not once” has the Church supported separatism in Ukraine, or given Russian-led forces shelter or logistical support.