Orthodox Church of Kazakhstan Says Moscow’s Insistence It Refer to Its Being Part of Moscow Patriarchate in All Declarations Unnecessary

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 28 – In yet another sign of the weakening of the Moscow Patriarchate across the former Soviet space, the Orthodox Church of Kazakhstan has dismissed the ROC MP’s insistence that the Kazakh church refer to its being part of and thus subordinate to the Moscow one.

            Following a meeting of the Holy Synod of the ROC MP last week at which the Moscow church called for all Orthodox churches in the former Soviet space to refer to their being part of and thus in principle subordinate to Moscow, Kazakh commentators and now the Orthodox Church of Kazakhstan has reacted in a way that highlights the weakening of Moscow’s position.

            Yevgeny Ivanov, the press secretary of the Astana and Almaaty hierarchy of the Orthodox Church, responded to query from the Orda.kaz news agency about how his church would respond to Moscow’s demarche (orda.kz/pravoslavnuju-cerkov-v-rk-objazali-upominat-v-nazvanii-moskovskij-patriarhat-chto-otvetili-v-mitropolichem-okruge-404756/).

            Ivanov said “We have a statue of the Orthodox church of Kazakhstan, a document which regulates our church life here in Kazakhstan … In it are indicated tow different names for the church: the Orthodox church of Kazakhstan and the Metropolitan district of the Russian Orthodox Church in the Republic of Kazakhstan.”

            “In addition,” he continued, “we can use abbreviations of these names. For example, the Kazakhstan metropolitan district, the Metropolitan District in the Republic of Kazakhstan and so on. All these names are of equal value.” Because that is the case, the recent statement of the Moscow church’s Holy Synod “in fact changes nothing.”

            “The Russian Orthodox Church has a Belarusian exarchate, an African exarchate, and a Central Asian Metropolitan District,” Ivanov said. And he reminded Orda.kaz that “one should not confuse the Metropolitan District with the Astana and Almaaty bishprics, since these are among the 12 subdivisions of the district on the territory of Kazakhstan.”

            What Ivanov did not do was rush to assert that his church would follow Moscow’s call or felt any need to do so, an indication that even the official hierarchy of Orthodoxy in that Central Asian country no longer feels that it has to behave so slavishly even if it has not yet moved to seek complete independence from Moscow and autocephaly for itself.