Paul
Goble
Staunton, December 4 – The decision
of the Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church to allow the Ukrainian
Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate some greater flexibility and to
begin talks with the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate have
two serious consequences, Igor Kryuchkov says.
On the one hand, the two deepen the
split of world Orthodoxy, already riven by feuds among its various branches, the
religious affairs commentator says; but on the other “they open the possibility
for strengthening the influence of the Moscow Patriarchate in Ukraine,” a goal the Kremlin very much seeks (gazeta.ru/politics/2017/12/03_a_11028542.shtml?updated).
The first
decision, to allow the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate to
administer its affairs from Kyiv did not change anything, ROC MP sources say.
Instead, this decision was taken so that the church in Ukraine would not fall
afoul of Kyiv’s hostility to any organization “’with an administrative center
in the aggressor country.’”
And thus while it attracted a fair
about of attention and overreading – for a discussion of that, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2017/12/moscow-patriachate-hasnt-freed.html
– it is the second action by the ROC MP hierarchs that is far more important
not only in Ukraine where it puts Orthodox there in a difficult position but in
the Orthodox world more generally.
The relationship between the ROC MP
and the UOC KP is fraught because the latter demands recognition of itself as
an autocephalous church, and the ROC MP, committed to the principle of its
self-proclaimed “canonical territory” across the entire former Soviet space is
not prepared to take that step.
But the announcement by the
hierarchs of the ROC MP that the Moscow church is now prepared to enter into
talks with the UOC KP represents a breakthrough because the UOC KP is
interested in only one thing: recognition of its self-standing status in the world
of Orthodox Christianity.
Russian news agencies say, Kryuchkov
continues, that the ROC MP intends to establish a special commission headed by
Metropolitan Ilarion, the head of the Moscow patriarchate’s department of external
relations, raises the stakes in Ukraine, given that the UOC KP has indicated
that it will never rejoin the ROC MP as Moscow has demanded.
As a source close to the UOC KP
points out, there is no “generally recognized procedure for recognizing a new
autocephaly” within Orthodoxy. On the
one hand, some think that it can be offered only by the Mother Church, in this
case, the ROC MP, which at least up to now has been unwilling to do that.
And on the other, some believe that
it can be extended by the Constantinople patriarchate. Those who believe that
placed great hopes in the Crete meeting last summer that was supposed to
attract all Orthodox patriarchates but which in fact didn’t: The Bulgarian,
Georgian and Antioch ones refused from the outset, and the ROC MP subsequently
joined them.
The ROC MP blamed Constantinople for
the failure of this meeting, “the first in 300 years,” Kryuchkov says. The real problem is that Constantinople views
itself as the monarch among Orthodox while other Orthodox churches, including the
Russian one view themselves as equal in standing.
The decisions this past week in
Moscow, however, raise some important issues. By giving the UOC MP
administrative independence at least nominally, the ROC MP has “strengthened
the trend toward the differential of the positions of Constantinople and
Moscow.” That risks leading to new conflicts among the Orthodox churches and
thus Orthodox powers.
But the ROC MP has also “raised the
political stakes in Ukraine. Having strengthened the autonomy of Ukrainian
autonomy, the ROC MP has put before the Kyiv authorities a hard choice: either
to continue the struggle with influence in two Orthodox bishoprics, both of
which are now subordinate to Kyiv or change its approach, which will lead only
to a deepening of a religious split.”
And at the same time, because the
ROC MP would like to emphasize its equality with Constantinople, Moscow may be
quite pleased to at least discuss some kind of approach to autocephaly for the
Orthodox in Ukraine, thus showing that it can do that “without an agreement
with Constantinople.”
No comments:
Post a Comment