Paul
Goble
Staunton, October 6 – The Moscow
Patriarchate and pro-Russian groups in Ukraine have lashed out at Metropolitan
Vladimir, the head of the Ukrainian Orthodox of the Moscow Patriarchate, for
his support of the Ukrainian government’s plan to seek greater integration with
Europe even at the cost of ties with Moscow.
But these outbursts are unlikely to
bring the Ukrainian churchman or his church to heel. Instead, they almost
certainly will further exacerbate tensions between Kyiv and Moscow religiously
and politically and likely lead to more active consideration of a single and
nationally independent Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
If that happens, it will seriously
weaken the Moscow Patriarchate, nearly half of whose sees and congregations are
in Ukraine, and it will undermine the influence of Patriarch Kirill, who has
won preferment from the Kremlin largely on the basis of his abiity to be useful
to the Russian government both at home and abroad.
(For background on this case, see “Window
on Eurasia: Ukrainian Branch of Moscow Patriarchate Back’s Kyiv’s European
Course,” October 2, 2013, available online at windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/search?q=ukrainian+orthodoxy+europe).
Russian media in Ukraine and in the
Russian Federation have reported numerous instances of criticism by hierarchs,
priests, and parishioners of the Ukrainian Orthodox metropolitan’s decision to
sign the declaration in support of Kyiv’s European policy (kommersant.ua/doc/2311544, iarex.ru/interviews/41864.html,
ruskline.ru/news_rl/2013/10/03/ne_dopustit_prevraweniya_ukrainy_v_novyj_sodom/
and
But perhaps the most interesting and
instructive comment on this case comes from a Russian journalist who has
frequently followed Moscow’s line with regard to non-Russian religious organizations
and nationalities, Gleb Plotnikov, in a comment to Rosbalt.ru (rosbalt.ru/ukraina/2013/10/02/1182659.html).
Noting that Metropolitan Vladimir’s
signature on the churchmen’s declaration supporting the pursuit of European
integration, Plotnikov says that many are asking whether this constitutes “betrayal”
or “a split” in the church given that Moscow Patriarch Kiril has declared that
Ukraine exists within the Russian world.
But what people should be asking are
two simple questions “how could such a thing happen?” and what answer is the
Moscow Patriarchate likely to give?
On the one hand, he says, “there is
a mass of internal contradictions in the ranks of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church
o the Moscow Patriarchate. There is a
pro-Moscow party there, the leaders of which exploiting the illness of the
head, attempted to remove their competitors from key posts in the church
hierarchy.”
The voices of such people aren’t
going away, but Metropolitan Vladimir has made it clear where he stands. Thus,
when some Ukrainians picking up on Moscow’s campaign against homosexuality attempted
to emulate that effort in Ukraine, “supporters of Vladimir inside the church
publically declared that there are more important social problems in the country
than the truggle with single-sex relations.”
And “on the other hand, the
Ukrainian church is supporting European intengration not because cunnning
independence types are sitting in its offices. It is doing so instead for the
same reasons that make it similar to the Russian Orthodo Church, namely, a
readiness always and in everything to support the authorities.”
“The Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the
Moscow Patriarchate iin Ukraine like the Russian Orthodox Church in Russia is
part of the state achine. The Ukrainian machine is now going West. From this
point of view, the declaration of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow
Patriarchate ought not to be a media event.”
But what is does mean, Plotnikov
says, is that “soon there will be one additional Orthodox church in Europe.”
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