Paul
Goble
Staunton, August 29 – “If Russia
could come to terms with the loss of empire,” Vitaly Portnikov says, “this would
increase its influence across the post-Soviet space, strengthen the Russian
state itself, and preserve the chances for the Russian church which would not
then be viewed as a covert weapon of aggression.”
Unfortunately, the Ukrainian
commentator says, the Russia of Vladimir Putin can’t or won’t accept this loss
of empire but instead continues to pursue policies that alienate ever more people
in the non-Russian countries and consequently make their loss to Russia even
more irretrievable (graniru.org/opinion/portnikov/m.277132.html).
Sometimes, especially in recent times,
this trend and Moscow’s contribution to it has been obscured by events that
have led some in Moscow and even in capitals of the former Soviet republic to
conclude that Moscow can really turn the clock back, events like the coming to
power of a pro-Moscow president in Kyiv or the continuing occupation of the Donbass
and Crimea.
But these events on closer examination
are superficial compared to the more fundamental shifts which are taking place
in the opposite direction, Portnikov says, and they change little at least over
the longer term.
Far more important than the latest
moves of Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, he says, is the decision by the
Greek Orthodox Church to recognize Ukrainian autocephaly, the first Orthodox
church after Constantinople to do so (credo.press/226304/).
“At first glance, “this may not seem to
be the most important event … But on the other hand, it is the most
significant.”
The Greek church’s recognition of
Ukrainian autocephaly, Portnikov continues, “confirms a trend which neither
Ukrainians, who view their independence as something self-sufficient, or
Russians, the residents of the metropolitan center who need to earn the inevitability
of the historical processes which are taking place, can fully recognize.”
The Russian empire has been disintegrating
for a century. That process has been slowed at times by violent repression. But
it has not been stopped. And “no ‘Russian world,’ no Russian language, and no
Russian gas can hold it together any longer – and that concerns not only states:
it also concerns the churches.”
The Russian church grew with the
expansion of empire, and it is now contracting as the empire is. Such church
processes may be “slower and more inertial than political ones,” but they are more
profound. And the Greek action, the
first but certainly not the last, underscores that reality even if most
Russians and some Ukrainians don’t see it yet
“Ukraine, like the majority of other former
Soviet republics has been irretrievably lost by Russia, lost as a country,
nation and civilization. Each new day, month and year will only deepen this
divide because generations of people who do not have the experience of the
soviet past will be entering adulthood.”
“But Russia, which doesn’t understand
why the lost territories aren’t going to return, will continue to conduct
itself ever more aggressively and drive away even those who are connected with
it by a common cultural past and by language, just as this occurred with many
Russian-speaking Ukrainians and Ukrainian Russians after the start of the war
in the Donbass.”
Portnikov’s observation holds in
other former Soviet republics as well where cultural shifts away from Russia
are taking place even when there appear to be political shifts in the opposite
direction. In Belarus, for example,
residents are circulating petitions opposing the construction of a Moscow
church in Orsh (credo.press/226310/).
Some of the motivation behind this
petition is the usual NIMBY attitude – “not in my backyard” – but it also reflects
the fact that increasingly Belarusians view the Russian church just like Russian
culture and the Russian state as alien and even offensive, especially when
Moscow seeks to use such institutions against their interests.
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