Paul
Goble
Staunton, July 30 – Moscow plays up
the divisions within Orthodoxy in Ukraine to weaken that country and to suggest
it remains part of a Russian world, but, Russian writers have failed to acknowledge
the obvious: Orthodoxy in Russia is even more divided however much the state
tries to ensure the dominance of one branch by encouraging divisions in the
rest.
On the portal devoted to the
promotion of the non-patriarchate Orthodox in Russia, Kseniya (Mitrenina), a
nun, provides a useful guide not only to the divisions within this segment of
Russian Orthodoxy since 1917 but also to the fissiparous tendencies within it
in recent years (ostrova.org/meteo/katalog-oskolkov/).
The Bolshevik revolution split
Russian Orthodoxy into three parts, she writes, the official church which
decided to cooperate with the Soviet state, the underground or “catacomb”
church which refused to do so, and the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad which
arose in the emigration and united a large part of it.
The catacomb church and the Russian
Orthodox Church Abroad were “physically separated from one another by the iron
curtain.” But from the end of the 1980s, the Church Abroad began to “return” to
Russia, even as by that time, the numbers of followers of the Catacomb church
were very small.
Thus, by 1991, there was “not one
Orthodoxy” in Russia “but several” – the official Moscow Patriarchate, church
groups tracing their origins to the émigré or catacomb churches who are known
as the True Orthodox Churches, and “all the other Orthodox church groups” which
don’t accept the one or the other, Kseniya says.
The situation has been complicated
by the fact that in Soviet times, the Church Abroad viewed the Patriarchal
church as “the Red Church” and did not want to have anything to do with it, but
after the fall of communism, parts of it began to make their peace with the
patriarchate while others remained completely hostile.
The Russian nun then lists “the
remnants of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad in Russia” and how they arose:
·
1995. The Russian Orthodox Autonomous Church
separated from the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad. It is gradually
disappearing, however.
·
2001.
The Russian Orthodox Church Abroad establishes communion with the Moscow
Patriarchate but that leads to a split between the followers of Metropolitan
Lavr and Metropolitan Vitaly.
·
2002.
Vitaly’s church splits from the Russian True Orthodox Church.
·
July
2006. It divides again into one headed by Bishop Vladimirin the US and Bishop
Aleksey in Kyiv.
·
November
2006. It splits again with the rise of a Protopresbyter in Paris.
·
May
2007. Metropolitan Lavr takes his church into the Patriarchal church and so his
group ceases to exist. But that leads to a new split with those who refuse to
go along following Metropolitan Agafangel in Odessa.
·
June
2007. The Russian True Orthodox Chruch divides into two parts, one following
Metropolitan Antony which becomes infamous for its sympathies for Hitler, and
another headed by Metropolitan Damaskin who promotes monarchy.
This pattern of dividing and reuniting has
continued since then, the Russian nun points out, providing details on each of
the splits, where the leadership of each group now is, and what its prospects
are. But that doesn’t end the picture of the complexity of Orthodoxy in Russia,
she points out.
There are as well followers in Russia of the
Orthodox Church in North America, several groups of Greek old style believers,
the followers of Metropollitan Rafail,, and several ecumenical and renewal
groups, including the Apostolic Orthodox Church, the Ukrainian Autocephalous
Orthodox Church, and so on.
The very fissiparousness
of Orthodox churches gives the Kremlin enormous opportunities to play divide
and conquer at any one point, but it also means that any church structures it
does put in place almost certainly will begin to deteriorate and fall apart
even before the ink is dry on any agreement among the hierarchs.
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