Kirill’s Description of Ukraine and Belarus as ‘Russian Land’ Certain to Further Weaken ROC MP in Ukraine and Elsewhere

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Feb. 28 – Patriarch Kirill’s declaration yesterday that Ukraine, Belarus and Russia are one single “Russian land” (interfax-religion.ru/?act=dujour&div=370) may be consistent with Vladimir Putin’s thinking and even please the Kremlin leader, but its consequences for the Orthodox church across the former Soviet space almost certainly will not.

            A the very least, Father Andrey Kurayev says, Kirill’s words will cost the Russian Orthodox Church members and priests in Ukraine where neither will want to identify with a country that is invading their own. That in itself may lead to massive losses for the Russian church there (rosbalt.ru/russia/2022/02/27/1946225.html).

            Indeed, the Orthodox in Ukraine who have remained loyal to the Moscow Patriarchate may exit the Moscow church that Russian influence in Ukraine will plummet still further, the Russian Orthodox priest who has often criticized the Patriarchate in the past says. And that may lead to the collapse of the Russian church there.

            All this may come to a head in May when the Moscow patriarch has scheduled a church council to which 100 Ukrainian churchmen still loyal to his structure have been invited. Whether they even show up is very much in question, but if they do, they are almost certain to make demands Kirill won’t like.

            And beyond that, Father Andrey says, Kirill’s doubling down on the Russian identity of the Russian Orthodox Church will lead to the loss of its membership and authority elsewhere across the former Soviet space, quite possibly sparking new demands for autocephaly in countries where that possibility has not yet gained much support.

            So by playing to an audience of one in the Kremlin, Patriarch Kirill has not only failed in his responsibility to oppose violence on religious grounds but has quite possibly lost ground for his church across the former Soviet space which he claims is the core of what he refers to as its “canonical territory.”

            Andrey is blunt: “Already in 2014,” he says, he “remarked that the very first Russian soldier who crosses the border of Ukraine will be the gravedigger of the Russian Orthodox Church with that country.” Now that such soldiers have arrived in massive numbers and Kirill has made his remark, that outcome is even more inevitable.