Paul
Goble
Staunton, November 26 –Russian calls
for Turkey return the largest mosque in Istanbul to Christians have attracted
far more media attention (ria.ru/religion/20151125/1328277101.html),
the current Russian-Turkish crisis is likely to have two more important “religious”
consequences, both of which will work against Moscow’s interests.
On the one hand, Moscow’s attacks on
Turkey make it likely that the Universal Orthodox Patriarch in Constantinople
will become far more supportive of efforts in Ukraine to create a single
autocephalous Orthodox Church there independent of the Moscow Patriarchate, a
move that would cost the latter both half of its congregations and much of its influence
in the world
And on the other, Moscow’s attacks
have led Russia’s Muslims to distance themselves from Turkey, something that
the Kremlin may welcome in the short term but that will likely mean an upsurge
in the influence of more radical Islamist groups from other parts of the Muslim
world inside the borders of Russia.
The former is the more immediate
problem for Moscow. In Kyiv’s “Delovaya stolitsa” today,Ekaterina Shchetkina
discusses the complexities of this issue and concludes that “the dependence of
the Constantinople patriarch on Ankara may play an evil joke with the Russian
Orthodox Church” (dsnews.ua/society/podarit-li-turtsiya-kanonichnost-ukrainskomu-pravoslaviyu-26112015101800).
Constantinople and Moscow have long
been in conflict over who is the leading Orthodox patriarchate. Constantinople
has a centuries’ old tradition of deference to its status as the “universal”
patriarchate, while Moscow has the numbers, money and power of the Russian
state on its side.
Where this competition has played
out in recent years, Shchetkina points out, is over the issue of the status of
Orthodoxy in the post-Soviet states, with Constantinople generally backing the
national churches in these countries and Moscow insisting that they should
remain subordinate to itself.
The issue is not trivial: If Moscow
were to lose all the bishoprics and parishes and income from these churches, it
would be reduced to something less than half of its current self and would lose
enormous influence in Moscow, in the post-Soviet states and in international
Christian dialogue.
But if Moscow does retain control
over the Orthodox in the post-Soviet states, Russia will continue to have an
enormous lever of influence over the populations there as has been demonstrated
most recently by the situation in Ukraine. Consequently, many Orthodox
hierarchs there want independence from Moscow – or autocephaly as that is known
in church parlance.
The non-Russians in general and the
Ukrainians in particular have appealed to Constantinople for recognition of
this status, and the Universal patriarch as he is known has shown himself
willing first in Estonia and then later elsewhere to back those who want “national”
Orthodox churches.
That boosts his status vis-à-vis Moscow,
but the issue is complicated in the current situation by the fact that
Batholemew, the Universal patriarch, also aspires to be an Orthodox counterpart
to the pope in Rome. If he moves too far or too fast against Moscow, Moscow
will no longer play along and thus he has been cautious on the biggest of these
issues, the future status of Ukraine’s Orthodox.
Until the current crisis, many had assumed
that both sides would be cautious, but the Kremlin’s reaction to the shooting
down of a Russian plane that violated Turkish airspace and the tough line
Ankara has taken against such violations now and in the future have at a
minimum destabilized inter-church relations and may lead the Universal
Patriarch to follow suit.
Officials at the Moscow Patriarchate
have already announced that they won’t be attending an Orthodox meeting chaired
by the Universal Patriarch, and commentaries in Turkey and Ukraine have suggested
that Bartholemew may respond by being more supportive of the Ukrainian position
that Kyiv should have a single autocephalous Orthodox church.
The issue of relations between Turkey
and Russia’s Muslims is potentially more explosive but more indirectly and over
a longer period of time. Since the end
of Soviet times, Muslims from abroad have played a major role in the revival of
Islam inside the Russian Federation.
With some notable exceptions, the
more moderate foreign influence has come from Turkey, while more radical ones
have come from Iran, the Gulf States, or South Asia. Indeed, given the competing role of Turkey
and Iran, some in the post-Soviet states speak of “Turkish” and “Iranian”
mosques rather than Sunni or Shiia.
In the wake of Turkey’s shooting down of the Russian
aircraft, leaders of Russia’s official Muslim hierarchies rushed to declare
that their relations with Turkey were minimal and would presumably be cut even
further. But Russian experts suggested that the ties were far greater and cuts
could have consequences (ng.ru/faith/2015-11-26/2_muslim.html).
Roman Silantyev, a
controversial specialist on Islam with close ties to the Russian Orthodox
Church, says ties between Turkey and Russia’s Muslims are “quite active,” and
he points to the fact that Turkey was a major funder behind the reconstruction of
the Cathedral mosque in Moscow.
Leonid Syukiyainen, a specialist at
Moscow’s Higher School of Economics, also sees ties between Russia’s Muslims
and Turkey’s Islamic institutions as being quite large and influential,
although he suggested it would be a mistake now to be looking for “a Turkish
trace” everywhere among the Muslims of Russia now that bilateral tensions are
high.
And Georgy Engelgardt, a specialist
on Islam at the Moscow Institute of Slavic Studies, called attention to what is
likely to become a major problem in the future. He said that many Muslim
leaders in Russia looked ot Turkey as “a serious alternative” to Muslim groups in
the Persian Gulf.
If relations between Russia’s
Muslims and Turkey collapse, there will be a vacuum, he suggests; and it is
likely that it will be filled by others, including many who are far more
radical and Islamist.
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