Moscow Patriarchate, Facing Losses Not Only in Ukraine, Sets Up Special Structure to Limit Them

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Mar. 26 – The Moscow Patriarchate, which has always positioned itself as ethnically Russian but super-national, has not only “lost Ukraine” because of Putin’s war there but is losing its position in other former Soviet republics and more generally, Novaya gazeta commentator Aleksandr Soldatov says (novayagazeta.ru/articles/2022/03/27/iskhod).

            In the hopes of reversing but at least limiting these losses, the Moscow Patriarchate has decided to create within its central offices “an Administration for the affairs of bishoprics in the countries of the near abroad (http://www.patriarchia.ru/db/text/5910999.html). But in the view of most observers, this step almost certainly is too little and too late.

            Dissident Orthodox priest, Father Aleksandr Shramko, says a close reading of the Patriarchate’s announcement strongly suggests that many in that hierarchy are aware that the new office won’t halt the collapse of the Moscow Patriarchate’s empire (t.me/popoffside/1327 reposted at ahilla.ru/sozdat-v-strukture-mp-upravlenie-po-delam-eparhij-v-stranah-blizhnego-zarubezhya/).

            In its announcement, the Patriarchate speaks of “countries of the near abroad,” a remarkable departure from its past practice of presenting itself and its bishoprics and parishes outside of Russia but within the borders of the former Soviet Union as ethically Russian, on the one hand, but supernational, on the other.

            Such words are another sign that Patriarch Kirill is now in the bunker along with Putin and that “his patriarchate is gradually step by step migrating toward being a semi-official administration of the Russian state.” Even more striking is the document’s failure to specify precisely which “eparchates” will be overseen by the new structure.

            Most of the former Soviet republics now have nominally or really independent Orthodox churches, and “in a purely eparchal status remain only the structures of the Russian Orthodox Church in Azerbaijan, Armenia and Lithuania.” The first two of these have remained more or less obedient, but the third is now increasingly at odds with Moscow.

            Metropolitan Innokenty, the head of the Moscow church in Lithuania, has denounced Putin’s war in Ukraine and pointedly stressed that he and his fellow religious “live in a free and democratic country” and that “Lithuania is not Russia” (ahilla.ru/litovskij-mitropolit-mp-my-reshitelno-osuzhdaem-vojnu-rossii-protiv-ukrainy/).

            From that to a demand for autocephaly is only a small step, Shramko says, and this leads to the conclusion that “the Russian Orthodox Church is disintegrating before our eyes.” The new structure won’t stop that, and its head, Metropolitan Pavel, has a history which suggests he may unwittingly accelerate this process in much the same way he did while in Belarus.

            While Pavel prevented the Moscow church in Belarus from pursuing independence now, he acted in ways that undermined the influence of the Moscow Patriarchate in Belarus and the levers of power it had had before his time. It thus appeared to some that he restored order, but a closer examination shows he made the continued existence of that order impossible.

            Something similar is likely to happen with him and his new post in the coming weeks, Shramko suggests.