Paul
Goble
Staunton, November 8 – The reason
that the Kremlin and the Moscow Patriarchate are so alarmed by the prospect of
an independent autocephalous Ukrainian Orthodox Church is that it undercuts
Vladimir Putin’s drive to rewrite Russian history “from official imperial
positions” and calls attention to the rapid disintegration of his “’Russian
world,’” Boris Sokolov says.
In recent weeks, the Russian
historian continues, Vladimir Putin and Patriarch Kirill have become ever more
hyperbolic in the expression of their fears about the meaning of Ukrainian
autocephaly, lashing out not only at the Ukrainians but at the Universal Patriarch
and his supposed work as an agent for the Americans.
In an important article in Kyiv’s Den’ newspaper, Sokolov makes it clear
that this alarm in Moscow reflects not any concern about religious faith – the Moscow
Patriarchate is ever more obvioiusly a state agency – but about the falling
apart and contraction of the Russian sphere of influence in the region (day.kyiv.ua/ru/blog/politika/putin-i-raspadayushchiysya-russkiy-mir).
And that in turn means,
although Sokolov does not make this point explicitly, that while neither Putin
nor Kirill is prepared to go to war for the faith, both may be more than
willing to do so in the name of preserving that rapidly dying “’Russian world.’”
Three other developments reported
this week only underscore that conclusion. First and in an indication that
Moscow secular and religious is losing out in the religious struggle in
Ukraine, Metropolitan Aleksandr has left the Moscow church in Ukraine and
declared his affiliation to the Universal Patriarch, the first such Moscow
hierarch there to do so.
Not surprisingly, he is being called
“the first traitor” by Russian nationalist and Orthodox outlets – see, for
example, stoletie.ru/vzglyad/pervyj_predatel_406.htm.
But he is unlikely to be the last, and Aleksandr’s decision to the extent that
it isn’t an effort by Moscow to penetrate Ukrainian institutions is likely to
be the harbinger of others.
It is also a reminder that for many
Orthodox leaders and faithful in Ukraine (as is the case elsewhere), their
religion is more important to them than Putin’s politics. They don’t want to continue to be misused. And
that too ensures that the process of autocephaly in Ukraine – and thus ever
more solid Ukrainian independence politically as well – is going to
proceed.
Second, Censoru.net has published the
latest figures showing the declining number of people outside of the Russian
Federation who know and use the Russian language. Given that Putin has made the
Russian language the second most important aspect of Russian identity – the first is loyalty to the
Kremlin – that is not a good sign for his Russian world either (censoru.net/30736-mesto-russkogo-jazyka-v-mire.html).
And third, in an indication of one
of the ways Moscow hopes to respond, the Moscow Human Rights Bureau has
declared that ever more Russians abroad are suffering from discrimination and
that “Russophobia is one of the forms of racism” (ng.ru/politics/2018-11-07/3_7347_rusofob.html).
By making that argument or more
precisely by having a human rights group do so, the Kremlin clearly hopes to be
able to mobilize those opposed to racism in all its horrific forms to speak out
against any actions it deems discriminatory against ethnic Russians and Russian
speakers abroad and thus amplify Moscow’s moves in defense of Putin’s “Russian
world.”
And this effort has a collateral
benefit as far as the Kremlin is concerned. It distracts attention from the fact
that Putin’s Russia is ever more frequently discriminating against non-Russians
at home, limiting the use of the native languages of more than a quarter of the
population and the powers of those federal instituitons that ostensibly were
supposed to protect the of these nations.
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