Contemporary Russian studies of the role of the Patriarchate of Constantinople in the development of the crisis of the unity of world Orthodoxy

Abstract

This article presents an analysis of the church-historical grounds for the termination of Eucharistic communion between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Patriarchate of Constantinople that took place in 2018. In this paper, this topic is considered through the prism of domestic research. The study of the relationship between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Patriarchate of Constantinople moves in several thematic directions: doctrinal, church-historical, geopolitical. The novelty of the analysis is the attempt to systematize modern Russian research and trace the links between current approaches and the pre-revolutionary academic tradition. The historical and canonical dominance of the Patriarchate of Constantinople over other Local Churches did not lead to doctrinal supremacy. Many ecclesiastical-legal judgments that have come out of the modern research environment can conditionally be attributed to two theoretical models of the dispensation of Ecumenical Orthodoxy. Based on the analysis of the historical precedents of the “Phanariotic” foreign policy, most historians and canonists came to the following disappointing conclusions: the diplomatic strategy of the Patriarchate of Constantinople was based on considerations of political pragmatism and personal gain, and was not guided by the fundamental principle of “inter-Orthodox solidarity”. The experience of relations between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Patriarchate of Constantinople in the previous two centuries, as well as contemporary events, lead to an important conclusion: it is necessary to strengthen the research direction in the field of Inter-Orthodox relations, which includes a spectrum of church-historical, church-legal, ecclesiological, geopolitical issues.