Paul Goble
Staunton, April 23 – Having lost
much of its position in Ukraine and thus its utility to the Kremlin, the Moscow
Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church has gone on offensive in Asia,
seeking to shore up its own status in international Orthodoxy and prove to Vladimir
Putin that Patriarch Kirill remains a most valuable ally for Moscow’s foreign
policy.
As part of this offensive, the ROC
MP is establishing exarchates on the canonical territory of the Ecumenical
Patriarchate in Asian countries, appealing primarily but not exclusively to
ethnic Russians living there and sparking confusion and disputes among the
Orthodox.
Like many intra-church
controversies, this one is often anything but clear to those beyond the church;
but it is crystal clear that the ROC MP is making these moves for political rather
than religious reasons, as an act of revenge against Constantinople, an effort
to promote the idea of Moscow as the Third Rome, and a means of showing the Kremlin
how useful Kirill is.
The situation in the Far East with regard
to Orthodoxy is described by Metropoiltan Ambosius of Korea whose church is now
under attack from Moscow. His interview on this subject (theorthodoxworld.com/exclusive-how-the-moscow-patriarchate-tramples-on-church-canons-and-undermines-orthodox-unity-in-korea/)
has attracted positive and negative comments by Russians (ahilla.ru/mitropolit-korejskij-amvrosij-rpts-i-russkoe-gosudarstvo-prodvigayut-ideyu-moskva-tretij-rim/ and regnum.ru/news/polit/2615971.html.)
His Eminence’s words deserve extensive
quotation because they explain why what the Moscow Church is doing is so
political and so destructive and thus provide a window into the ways in which
Patriarch Kirill, pursuing his own longstanding goals, has become more
aggressive abroad since the Ecumenical Patriarch granted Ukraine autocephaly.
Ambrosius says that “under the pretext of
their disagreement with the Ecumenical Patriarchate on the issue of Autocephaly
for the Orthodox Church in Ukraine, the Moscow Patriarchate has established an
Exarchate and Diocese within the jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in
the Far East and throughout East Asia.”
“Until
just before Christmas 2018,” he continues, “there was only one Orthodox Church
in Korea, that of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, which was – please allow us the
term – a “model” for Orthodoxy all over the world. There was a single local
bishop, the Metropolitan of Korea, because we, as a Church, do not separate the
country – as the great powers unfortunately divided it between South and North
70 years ago.
“Under the Metropolitan of Korea’s omophorion
all Orthodox Christians who reside on the Korean peninsula belonged to the one,
unified Church regardless of their ethnicity. In other words, in Korea, for
many decades, we have been following the canonical tradition of the Ancient
Church, which was the existence of a single Bishop in each geographical area
who, as the responsible spiritual father, cared for the liturgical and pastoral
needs of his multinational flock.
“The anomalous phenomenon of the existence of many
bishops, and indeed of the same title and in the same region, is a situation
that emerged with the emigration of Orthodox believers during the 19th century
from Orthodox countries to the New World. Anyone who has even a basic knowledge
of the Church’s Canon Law immediately understands its irregularity.
“Moreover, the decision of the Fourth Pan-Orthodox
Conference for the Orthodox Diaspora at the Orthodox Center of the Ecumenical
Patriarchate in Chambesy (June 6-13, 2009), which was signed by all Orthodox
Churches, including His Beatitude Kirill, Patriarch of Moscow, called for the
restoration of the canonical order of the Ancient Church.
“This official decision shows clearly that the recent act
of the Moscow Patriarchate in Korea, and in other parts of the Far East, East
Asia, Europe, and Latin America, are entirely anomalous or contrary to Orthodox
ecclesiology and canonical tradition.
“I strongly believe that the Patriarchate of Moscow’s
decision to suspend commemoration of the Ecumenical Patriarch, well before
Autocephaly was granted to the Church of Ukraine was a pretext designed by
Moscow in order to begin implementing a premeditated plan conceived several
decades ago.
“Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, when he was still Archbishop
of Smolensk and Kaliningrad, visited St. Nicholas Cathedral in Seoul, the
cathedral of the Korean faithful under the spiritual care of the Ecumenical
Patriarchate. After the Sunday Divine Liturgy, he told a local person of
Russian descent, “You see all these? (meaning the church and the
surrounding buildings). They were once ours, and were taken by the Greeks!”
“The claims of the
Patriarchate of Moscow in Korea began in the early 1990s. We have in our
possession documents from the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department of External
Affairs asking the Protestant Churches for money to build a church in Seoul. We
have reports from the Korean media, apparently planted by the Russian
authorities, in which they “explain” that the Russians have no church for their
liturgical needs.
“Thus, they
deliberately ignore the existence of the Orthodox Metropolis of Korea, under
the Ecumenical Patriarchate, in which they have a church and a priest as well
as everything else necessary for their liturgical and pastoral needs in their
own language.
Asked
whether “an Orthodox Church under
the Russian jurisdiction been established?” Ambrosius responds: “Unfortunately, yes.
In a private room allotted to them by the afore-mentioned “Mr. So,” on December
30, 2018, they began conducting Church services with a priest sent by the
Patriarchate of Moscow and being assisted by “Mr. So,” an Orthodox priest.
“Some people have
left us and attend the new church, apparently for ethno-racial reasons. But
many more faithful still belong to the Orthodox Metropolis of Korea. The
saddest thing, however, is that the representatives of the Moscow Patriarchate
do not only call Russians and other Slavophones, but also Koreans, Americans
and other English speakers, trying to convince them to attend their church.
They even call or meet young children and try to influence them, exploiting
them at their tender age.
“The Moscow Patriarchate has done and continues to do the
same and even worse things in other Southeast Asian countries where there are
Metropolises of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. In Indonesia, for example, not
only did they occupy a church that was erected through the donations of
Orthodox Christians in Greece, but they also claimed members of the clergy, who
had studied and were ordained through the care of the Ecumenical Patriarchate.
“All these abusive acts are “accomplishments” of the
Metropolitan of East America and New York Hilarion (ROCOR), which the
Patriarchate of Moscow has appropriated.
“Unfortunately, I
do not think the Patriarchate of Moscow is interested in the unity of the
Orthodox Church. On the contrary, I believe it lives by the anti-Christian
doctrine of “divide and conquer.”
“Now that the
masks and pretenses have fallen, we see that the supposed “good relations”
between the Ecumenical Patriarchate and the Patriarchate of Moscow were not
always good; but not by the fault of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, which has
tolerated Moscow’s challenges with great patience.
“And now that the
Ecumenical Patriarchate is supposedly “schismatic,” the representatives of the
Patriarchate of Moscow act as if they are free to do whatever they wish all
over the world, implementing their premeditated “Third Rome” plan to become
themselves the Ecumenical Patriarchate.
“The impact [of
what Moscow is doing] is very ugly. It is, to speak frankly, a huge scandal.
For decades, we have proclaimed that the Orthodox Church is one. In the
ecumenical dialogues in which we are participating, we emphasize that fragmentation
into different denominations is a point of decline. We keep repeating that we
must stop this evil, at all costs.
“Now, the situation caused by the Moscow Patriarchate,
not of course because of dogmatic or canonical reasons, but for purely
political ones, confuses and scandalizes our dialogue partners. They ask us to
explain what is happening. We answer them that we hope and pray daily for logic
and orthodox ecclesiological consciousness to prevail over worldly aspirations
and political expediency.
“I honestly
wonder, when, finally, will we understand that politics and diplomatic
alliances are ephemeral phenomena? That, economic and secular power, upon which
so many people base their lives, have an expiration date; and that only the
Church of Christ remains unchanged and salvific throughout the centuries?”
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