Complications in Tbilisi’s Friendship with Kyiv: The Georgian Orthodox Church and Ukrainian Autocephaly (original) (raw)
Related papers
Przegląd Zachodni, Journal of the Institute of Western Affairs in Poznań, Special Issue, 2019
The aim of the article is to analyse the place and importance of the Orthodox Church in the society and political culture of Ukraine after 2013. The new political realities following the Revolu-tion of Dignity, the annexation of Crimea and the war in Donbas created new challenges for the Or-thodox Church in Ukraine. Particularly important is the influence of the Russian Orthodox Church’s authority over the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate.At the turn of 2018 and 2019, by a decision of Patriarch Bartholomew I and with the support of the Ukrainian political authorities, a new reality became fact in Ukrainian Orthodoxy. However, the creation of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (as a metropolis) does not mean that the split has been overcome. There will be two hostile, equal and comparably strong structures in Ukraine, politically backed by Ukraine and Russia, and this will draw those countries into conflicts over their religious structures and the wealth that their communities possess. At this stage, the Orthodox Church of Ukraine will rely primarily on the potential of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kiev Patriarchate, and this fact in turn will hinder the transfer of bishops and priests associated with the Moscow Patriarchate. The rift will be difficult to repair.
Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe
Annotation The object of the study is provided by the conflict of interests of the Ukrainian society and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-(MP) against the backdrop of the 2022 full-scale Russian war against Ukraine. The article considers the impact of new legislative initiatives aimed at minimizing the destructive Russian influence, including on the religious area. The main content and contradictions of certain points of the Decree of the Council of the UOC (MP) dated May 27, 2022, as a result of which the religious denomination declared independence from the Moscow Patriarchate, are analyzed. The main reasons for the rejection of the Moscow Patriarchate by the UOC and their influence on the decisions of church leaders are identified. Also included are the independent decisions of more than 400 UOC parishes to transfer to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine. In the context of illustrating the reasons for the refusal and contradictions, certain facts of the destruction by the Russian army of churches in Ukraine subordinate to the UOC-MP (friendly fire) are pointed out. This study is aimed at establishing the motives, results, and consequences of rethinking the subordination of one's own religious activity to a denomination that, despite its dependence on the Moscow Patriarchate, is actively functioning in Ukraine during the ongoing Russian-Ukrainian war.
SOFT, SHARP AND EVIL POWER: THE RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH IN THE RUSSIAN INVASION OF UKRAINE
Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe, 2022
This paper examines the enactment of soft/sharp/evil power by the Russian Orthodox Church and its leaders during a month before the major exertion of hard power by the Russian military and one month after the invasion of Ukraine. In the period from January 25 until March 25, 2022, 27 messages of the leading actors in the Church–Patriarch Kirill and Metropolitan Hilarion, head of the Department of External Church Relations (DECR)–are closely examined. The results are presented and discussed in four thematic sections: 1) soft power: the religious approach to the Russian World; 2) Sharp power: the territorial expansion of the Church with the help of the Russian state; 3) Evil power: Church leaders on war and peace; 4) Comparison with the messages of Russian political leaders (President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov). The soft power the Russian Church exercises for the benefit of Russian foreign relations is manifest in the strong emphasis on the spiritual unity of Russian and Ukrainian people within the religious narrative of the Russian World. This soft power takes the form of sharp power vis-à-vis the Ukrainian invasion and vis-à-vis those, who recognize the autocephalous Orthodox Church of Ukraine. The influence of the Russian Church in support of the Russian government’s invasion has also a dimension of evil power, that is, power exercised in service to immoral or unethical state actions such as the unwarranted invasion of Ukraine by Russian military forces. Finally, both religious and political leaders are similar in denying the agency (including autonomous existence) of the nation-state and the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, they consider both the Orthodox Church of Ukraine and post-2014 Ukrainian government to be tools of outside forces (be it the West, the United States, or the Ecumenical Patriarch), and they threaten and attempt to punish everyone who supports those whom they have selected out as targets.
Orthodox Religion and Politics in Contemporary Eastern Europe, 2018
This book explores the relationship between Orthodox religion and politics in Eastern Europe, Russia and Georgia. It demonstrates how as these societies undergo substantial transformation Orthodox religion can be both a limiting and an enabling factor, how the relationship between religion and politics is complex, and how the spheres of religion and politics complement, reinforce, influence and sometimes contradict each other. Considering a range of thematic issues, with examples from a wide range of countries with significant Orthodox religious groups, and setting the present situation in its full historical context, the book provides a rich picture of a subject which has been too often oversimplified.
Teologia, 2019
This article presents an analysis of the complex interdependencies between the nature of regional confl icts, broader geopolitical projections and their implications for religious institutions in Ukraine, especially for the majority church in the country, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. After a general introduction, the fi rst part analyzes certain Ukrainian and broader Eastern European geopolitical variables with the scope to demonstrate coercive mechanisms aimed to projecting power at regional levels. The fi rst chapter of part I presents some general geopolitical facts related with the Ukrainian confl ict. The second chapter deals with more specifi c geopolitical facts. It presents two examples of how big global actors play with geopolitical complexities. The third chapter presents a recent incident between Russia and Ukraine, which shows that the struggle for controlling the region of the Black Sea is ongoing. The second part deals with the autocephaly of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and its immediate ecclesial and geopolitical implications. The fi rst chapter is aimed to provide evidence of interest for the problems we deal with in this article. The second chapter proves the important place and role played by religion in Ukraine. The third chapter explains the “Ukrainian issue” from an ecclesial perspective. The fourth chapter offers a short historical overview of six facts which determine the “Ukrainian issue” today. The fi fth chapter presents the recent events related to the granting of autocephaly to the newly established Ukrainian Orthodox Church which unites together two already existing Orthodox Churches in Ukraine (the Ukrainian Orthodox Church – Kiev Patriarchate and the Ukrainian Autonomous Orthodox Church.) Chapter six presents and analyzes the fi rst reactions of some Orthodox Churches to this decision. This article is concluded with some remarks.
Russian Church and Ukrainian War
The Expository Times, 2022
The war in Ukraine that began in February 2014 and escalated in February 2022 to the extent unseen in Europe since the World War II, cannot be adequately comprehended without taking into consideration its religious dimension. This article explores the evolution of the “Russian world” ideology, which the leaders and speakers of the Russian Orthodox Church render in quasi-theological terms. It explains why the Russian patriarch Kirill decided to back it and turned it from an elitist to mass ideologeme. These explanations are given in the sociological framework of the public space, social contract, and civil religion. The main argument of the article is that the church wanted to regain for itself a central place in the Russian public square after the decades of exile from it under the Communist regime. In result of supporting the war, however, the church is endangered to be marginalised in this square again.
Smytsnyuk, The New Orthodox Church in Ukraine Ecumenical Aspects and Problems
Orthodoxy in Two Manifestations? The Conflict in Ukraine as Expression of a Fault Line in World Orthodoxy, edited by Thomas Bremer, Alfons Brüning and Nadieszda Kizenko, New York, Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2022
The articles in this volume reflect upon divisions within the Orthodox churches, taking recent events in Ukraine as a case study. In my article, I explain that the fault line, inspired by the Constantinople vs. Moscow split, exists not only within the world of Orthodoxy, but also beyond. In fact, with the granting of autocephaly to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU), other Christian denominations and ecumenical institutions—both within and outside Ukraine—have been drawn into the conflict, and forced to choose sides. This article explores the issue, with particular attention given to the Catholic-Orthodox relations. At the international level, the autocephaly of the OCU, and the subsequent break of communion between Moscow and Constantinople, jeopardizes the official theological dialogue between the Orthodox and Catholic churches. This dialogue, conducted within the framework of a Joint Commission, has been traditionally marked by high levels of inter-Orthodox tensions, but now, with the departure of Moscow, risks losing its representativeness. The Ukrainian crisis might have repercussions on multilateral ecumenical relations as well, especially if the OCU, supported by Constantinople, decides to seek membership within international bodies, such as WCC or CEC. As far as the Ukrainian context is concerned, Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church (UGCC) has been nurturing a rather positive relationship with the Patriarchate of Constantinople. Nothing of the sort has ever occurred between UGCC and the Patriarchate of Moscow. I claim that it was the desire to have a legitimate and open-minded interlocutor on the Orthodox side, rather than the patriotic ethos of Ukrainian Catholics, that has led to such a quick and public embrace of the new Orthodox church by the UGCC. The Heads of both the OCU and the UGCC have immediately expressed their desire to work on a developing of a roadmap for an intense dialogue. However, almost two years after the proclamation of the OCU’s autocephaly, there has been practically no sign that those declarations will be realised any time soon. I highlight the possible causes of this failure. Both the Latin rite Catholic church in Ukraine and the Protestants have been rather silent regarding the inter-Orthodox crisis. However, with the passing of the time and the solidification of the inter-jurisdictional borders of their Orthodox partners, both Roman Catholics and Protestants are likely to be cooperating with both the OCU and the UOC. The crisis provoked by the emergence of the OCU can either become an opportunity for ecumenical dialogue, or, on the contrary, a source of further tension.