First things first, as I wade into “think piece” territory once again. I am, of course, a convert to Eastern Orthodox Christianity. I converted into parishes linked to the ancient church of Antioch (currently based in Damascus) and now attend a growing parish in the Orthodox Church in America, which grew out of the work of Russian Orthodox missionaries long ago.
Why clear that up? It’s important, in light of some of the complex issues linked to the threat of war in Ukraine. I have been to Kiev twice and was blessed to worship with monks in the Kiev Pechersk Lavra. I know more than a few Russian and Eastern European Orthodox believers and I don’t think I’ve met anyone who is overly fond of Vladimir Putin (to say the least). Attempting to understand what many Russians think and believe about Ukraine has nothing to do with approving of Putin or wanting to see an invasion by Russian troops.
Moving on. The other day I spent an hour or so on the telephone with GetReligion patriarch Richard Ostling, working through some of the unbelievably complex and explosive issues surrounding Ukraine and the churches therein. The results are in an Ostling “Memo” with this headline: “In reportage on Russia and Ukraine, don't neglect the importance of two rival churches.”
May I encourage GetReligion readers to check that out or even, if you read this piece before, glance through the two sections of it, in light of ongoing events?
Ukraine's ecclesiastical history, like its political history, is highly complex. The saga began with the A.D. 988 "baptism of Rus" in Kyiv (Russians prefer "Kiev") when Prince Vladimir proclaimed Orthodoxy the religion of his realm and urged the masses to join him in conversion and baptism.
Russians see Christendom's entry into Eastern Europe as the origin of their homeland and the Russian Orthodox Church. Russian President Vladimir Putin cites this history to support his claim for Ukraine as a client area within greater Russia instead of a validly independent nation. His post-Soviet Kremlin maintains close bonds with the Russian Church's Moscow Patriarchate, which in turn has centuries of ecclesiastical authority within Ukraine.
The key to all of this is understanding that highly European (with Catholic roots) Western Ukraine is a radically different place — in terms of language and faith — than Eastern Ukraine, with strong ties to Russian history and culture.
Is there one Ukraine? That is a painful and explosive question and, caught in the middle is Kiev/Kyiv.
Back to the Ostling “Memo.” This is long, but important:
A signal moment occurred in Istanbul in 2019 when the 81-year-old Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew formally bestowed a "tomos" recognizing the "autocephaly" (full independent, self-governing status) of the new Kyiv-based church on the basis of Orthodoxy's "one country, one church" principle.
This provoked a severe global split in Orthodoxy between churches that accept Bartholomew's claim to have a universal authority to decide this issue versus those who support conciliar Orthodox traditions backed by the mighty Russian church, which has temporarily severed its already tenuous bonds with the Ecumenical Patriarchate. This intricate squabble, complete with accusations of sizable bribes by U.S. President Donald Trump's State Department to foil Russia, gets reasonably even-handed treatment here.
The Kyiv-based church was reconfigured at a 2018 unity council in Ukraine that elected a new young leader to succeed the problematic founder and incorporated a small circle of clerics that quit the Moscow-linked church and members from a third Orthodox denomination that had broken from Moscow in 1918 after the Communist takeover. Ukraine's then-President Petro Poroshenko called the 2018 actions "the final acquisition of independence from Russia," adding, "Ukraine will no longer drink Moscow poison."
Significantly, the Moscow Patriarchate's ongoing parishes in Ukraine — considered a "fifth column" by ardent nationalists — retain the traditional Old Slavonic liturgy while the Kyiv church uses the Ukrainian language in worship. This difference suggests the cultural dynamics that would emerge during a potential civil war.
Another crucial point of tension: The Moscow patriarch retains the loyalty of the monks in the highly symbolic Kiev Pechersk Lavra (the Monastery of the Kiev Caves, founded in 1051), a strong monastic community that is at the core of Slavic Orthodox identity.
With that in mind, please check out this, well, very AMERICAN essay that ran in The Tablet: “A Church Divided — Tensions between Russia and Ukraine reach Orthodox churches in the United States.” There are many passages in this piece that would cause fierce debates among some Orthodox Christians.
In terms of religious issues, the key question is whether the Ecumenical Patriarch — leader of the tiny remnant church in Istanbul — has a kind of papal authority to bless the creation of a Ukrainian Orthodox Church, cutting centuries of religious and cultural ties to Moscow that way, way, way precede Putin.
What you don’t hear in this piece, or many others, are the voices of the Orthodox I know — folks who want to see Putin stay out of Ukraine and who want to see the Ukrainian church schism solved by Orthodox patriarchs at the global level, as opposed to the Ecumenical Patriarch backed by NATO-Europe (and some would say the United States).
Many of these Orthodox here in America are, like me, converts. This is interesting, since the goal of the Tablet essay is to consider the impact of the Ukrainian conflict on U.S. churches and, thus, converts.
First, see this:
After the collapse of the Soviet Union and Ukrainian independence in 1991, a split emerged. Some Ukrainian Orthodox leaders wanted to be independent, while others wanted to remain loyal to Moscow. In 2019, the faction favoring independence received permission from the Patriarch of Constantinople to form the Ukrainian Orthodox Church with its head (called a metropolitan) in Kyiv. While the Ukrainian Orthodox Church is autonomous, the imprimatur of the Patriarch of Constantinople confers legitimacy upon it, since the Patriarch’s authority traces its own origins back to the Emperor Constantine, and the establishment of a Christian capital in Byzantium in the fourth century.
Once it broke away, the independent Ukrainian church united existing Ukrainian Orthodox churches in the country to form one unified national Ukrainian Orthodox Church under a single metropolitan. The result is that Ukraine now hosts two rival Orthodox churches: one oriented toward Moscow, and another toward Constantinople.
The Patriarchate’s decision to back the creation of a Ukrainian Orthodox Church was the catalyst for a formal split, wherein the Russian Orthodox Church in Moscow broke Eucharistic communion with Constantinople. As the word “communion” suggests, this is a fracturing wherein adherents of the Russian Orthodox Church may not partake, at Ukrainian Orthodox churches, in the bread and wine that are believed to be the genuine body and blood of Christ, a practice meant to unify believers with God and with each other. Likewise, neither may members of the new Ukrainian Orthodox Church partake at Russian churches.
This unattributed statement of fact is precisely what supporters of Constantinople would say: “While the Ukrainian Orthodox Church is autonomous, the imprimatur of the Patriarch of Constantinople confers legitimacy upon it, since the Patriarch’s authority traces its own origins back to the Emperor Constantine, and the establishment of a Christian capital in Byzantium in the fourth century.”
This is what journalists and news consumers need to do after reading that kind of material: Ask if other Orthodox churches — start with the ancient Church of Antioch — agree with that point of view, as opposed to arguing that a schism this serious should be addressed by Orthodox leaders at the GLOBAL level.
Let’s move on to some other important material, which focuses on Pittsburgh as an Orthodox case study:
While the Orthodox presence in the U.S. dates back to the 18th century with Russian missionaries in Alaska, its presence in Pittsburgh begins with immigrants to the city from Eastern Europe and the Middle East, arriving in the 19th and early 20th centuries seeking steel jobs. While they would build ethnic churches as their respective communities took hold in their new country, they built them close to each other out of a sense of spiritual kinship, and they all recognized the authority of the Orthodox Church in Moscow. Ties to ethnic churches and national jurisdictions in their countries of origin became more important after 1917 and the weakening of the Orthodox Church in Russia under the Bolsheviks.
“The irony is that the consequences [of the schism between Ukrainian and Russian Orthodox churches] in the United States are much greater than they are in Moscow,” said Father Thomas Soroka, an Orthodox Priest in Pittsburgh, “because we have these parallel jurisdictions.” He describes attending a meeting of Greek, Ukrainian, Antiochian, and Serbian Orthodox clergy in Pittsburgh. “In America, unlike in Russia, unlike in Turkey, unlike in Greece, our friends, our relatives go to the Russian church or the Greek church or the Serbian church or the Antiochian church or the OCA [Orthodox Church in America] church. When there is a schism like this, it causes tremendous practical difficulties for us in America.” Whereas in Russia, he said, while “it’s a very serious matter to break communion with another church, there are no practical consequences ultimately, because there are no Greek churches in Russia.”
“Here in America, there are Greek Orthodox churches just down the road from a Russian Orthodox church, which is just down the road from a Serbian church, which is just down the road from a Ukrainian church,” said Soroka. “So all of a sudden, we priests find ourselves not being able necessarily to commune with one another and serve with one another.”
Soroka identifies two practical effects: scandalizing converts and complicating pastoral relations between clergy.
One more point. I know that’s it’s impossible not the see all of this through a POLITICAL lens. However, I think that it’s crucial for journalists to at least attempt to understand the history and information on both sides of this argument. Find voices on each side who can clearly debate the, yes, Byzantine puzzles that result.
This history is painful and, especially in the Soviet era, bloody. For example, Eastern-Rite Catholics were horribly abused in Western Ukraine. That’s part of the mix, as well.
Here is one final piece of material from The Tablet:
Contra Marx, at least with regard to Ukraine and Russia, religion is far from an opiate. It is a stimulant, with religious politics clearly tied to international politics. Prior to the creation of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Ukrainian police raided the buildings and homes of priests affiliated with Orthodox churches favoring Moscow, to search for evidence of inciting hatred and violence. And it was former Ukrainian Petro Poroshenko who hosted the 2018 stakeholders’ meeting of Ukrainian Orthodox religious leaders around the same time, to discuss breaking away from Moscow. Poroshenko called the 2019 inauguration of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church a historic moment, when Ukraine “finally received its independence from Russia.”
Current Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky struck a more conciliatory tone shortly after the Ukrainian Orthodox Church’s institution, urging unity. More recently, given that Constantinople is now Istanbul, it is significant that Zelensky has signaled support for the Constantinople-backed church (and vice-versa), in light of Turkey’s support for Ukraine during its ongoing tensions with Russia. The U.S. State Department, in turn, publicly voiced support for the institution of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in 2018, and backs the Constantinople Patriarchate over the issue of religious freedom in Turkey.
Does that sound like these very old religious issues are a side show? No way.