The Russian Church and the Patriarchate of Constantinople: Topical Issues of Relations

The paper represents the interim results of a study conducted by the Russian Expert School Research Centre and reveals the politics, as well as scientifi c and expert mechanisms, used by the United States when applying the religious factor for geopolitical purposes. It also examines the way the United States exploits the religious agenda to put the direct political pressure on Russia. The purpose of the study is to identify the mechanisms used by the United States to deliver international pressure on world Orthodoxy and the Russian Orthodox Church. In 1998, the USA adopted the Law on International Religious Freedom, which secured the right of the USA to interfere with religious processes occurring in other countries. For the practical implementation of this law, the United States established an extensive network of governmental institutions, as well as non-governmental structures, formally independent from the government but closely related to it, that would provide ideological, political and administrative support in this area. These institutions and structures involved off icials, scientists, experts, journalists, religious leaders and theologians interested in promoting American national interests. In the 2000s, the weakening of the international infl uence of the Russian Orthodox Church and the weakening of Russia’s role as the centre of world Orthodoxy became the key direction for the international religious policy of the United States. The USA used the Patriarchate of Constantinople as the main tool to split the Russian Church and world Orthodoxy. The strongest strike intended to reduce the infl uence of the Russian Church was infl icted by the United States in Ukraine, where, after the coup d’etat 2014, the сanonical Orthodox Church (Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate) found itself in the most vulnerable position. The United States has launched a system struggle against the Russian Orthodox Church, which includes theological, expert and media levels, as well as events of direct (administrative and physical) pressure on the Moscow Patriarchate parishes. The United States aims the global vector of this activity at dividing and weakening world Orthodoxy, and the local one — at destroying historical spiritual ties between Orthodoxy in Russia and Orthodoxy in Ukraine.

The modern problems of obtaining autocephaly of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church are analyzed. The centennial struggle for autocephaly of the UOC proves that the problem of obtaining independence from the Russian Orthodox Church îf the Moscow Patriarchate (ROC MP) is very complicated, both according to the legislation of Ukraine and the canons of the church law. The Kyiv metropolis was an integral part of the Patriarchate of Constantinople from 988 to 1686, when it was, from the point of view of many Orthodox churches, illegally and not canonically annexed to the Moscow Patriarchate. In this movement the Orthodox Church was divided into three separate churches – the UOC of the Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP), which now calls itself simply «the UOC»; UOC of the Kyiv Patriarchate (KP), established in 1992 and not recognized by the Ecumenical Orthodoxy as canonical and God-inspired, and The Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (UAOC), which arose in 1919-1921. It should be noted that in the period of the Ukrainian Revolutions of 2004 and 2014 and at the beginning of the war in the Eastern Ukraine, the hierarchs of the UOC-MP organized an open antiUkrainian and anti-constitutional campaign, both behind the walls of temples, and at mass events. During the presidential election, this church illegally campaigned for one a pro-Russian Candidate only. In these conditions, the question of the separation of the UOC from the Moscow Patriarchate became more pressing and urgent.Proponents of autocephaly point out that the grounds for granting UOC Tomos for autocephaly are identical to that of the Polish version of 1924. However, we consider the obvious difficulties that distinguish the situation with Orthodoxy in Ukraine, compared with the UOC of Poland. In order to make the Russian Orthodox Church not to interfere in the internal affairs of Ukraine, not to agitate against the state of Ukraine, include in the name of the UOC the phrase that it is an Orthodox Church in Ukraine with a center abroad – in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine two bills – No. 4511 and No. 5309, which since 2016 it was never accepted, because they duplicate the existing Law and contradict Art. 35 of the Constitution. However, as we see, de facto the ROC (MP), directly and indirectly, is campaigning for so-called – «Russian World». For example, just recently the Russian edition of «Orthodoxy and World» published an interview with a member of the Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate and a supporter of Ukrainian autocephaly by the Metropolitan of Prussia Elpidophor, from which the publication dropped unwanted phrases.On April 22, 2018, the Holy Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate adopted a petition from the President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko to the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew to give Tomos on autocephaly to the Orthodox Church in Ukraine, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Resolution in support of this appeal, and the appeal of the hierarchs of the Ukrainian Orthodox churches – KP and UAOC and some of the ÌPs. Similar Tomos is now awaiting northern Macedonia. History shows that the procedure for the delivery of Tomos for autocephaly is not easy, long-term.The analysis shows that, despite the difficulties of securing the separation of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church from the Moscow Patriarchate by legislative means, there are grounds to expect that the UOC of Tomos would be still received. This decision is not obvious, since some autocephalous Orthodox churches against it and support arguments of the Russian Orthodox Church. The petition of the state authorities concerning the autocephaly of the church is a long-standing claim by the Patriarchate of Constantinople. Thus, Ukraine has to wait for the decision of the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I to hold the Unifying Synod.

Due to the fact that the tradition of close relation between the Orthodox Church and the state has formed since the time of the Byzantine Empire, the reflection of foreign policy ambitions of the Greek government on the foreign activity of the Patriarchate of Constantinople seems absolutely justifiable. In the early XX century, North America was a center of Greek migration, and simultaneously, the territory of proliferation of the authority of the Russian Orthodox Church; therefore, the United States spark particular interest in this case. The Patriarch of Constantinople attempted to dispute the jurisdictional affiliation of the United States by issuing the corresponding tomos. This article is dedicated to interaction between the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople and the Russian Orthodox Church in the territory of the United States during the 1908 – 1924. The author explores the influence of Greece upon the relationship between the two Orthodox jurisdictions in North America. The activity of the Patriarchate of Constantinople in the United States is compared to political events of Greece. The history of Orthodoxy in the United States in the first quarter of the XX century is highly researched however, the actions of church organizations are not always viewed from the perspective of the foreign policy of the countries involved. The conclusion is made on the possible influence of the Greek governmental forces on the Patriarchate of Constantinople, which in turn, stepped into the jurisdictional conflict with the Russian Orthodox Church.

This article studies the US administration's policy towards the Orthodox Church, its historical genesis and the factors influencing the current situation in the Orthodox world. The key role in this direction of the US politics belongs to the Constantinople Patriarchate as a tool for confronting Russia and dividing the Orthodox world. The author examines the connections of the new US President Joe Biden with the Constantinople Patriarchate, including the facts of Constantinople's support of Biden's political course. Constantinople's latest social document and hierarchical actions demonstrate loyalty to the US Administration's policy and globalist ideas, in addition to Constantinople's attempts to politicize the religious factor in promoting “democracy”. The cooperation between the Constantinople Patriarchate and US Administration, which began in 1940s, resulted in high dependence of this church structure upon the US political interests. The author states that Fener and Washington support each other and coordinate their actions: they have attempted open aggression against the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church and the Russian Orthodox Church as a whole, which resulted in destroying the unity of the Orthodox world. The Constantinople Patriarchate's affiliation with the political interests of the United States and the Democratic Party leads them to avoid criticizing abortion and LGBT ideology and preventing the development of modernist tendencies within their Church. This causes discontent among priests and laymen, as well as their departure for other jurisdictions, including the Russian Orthodox Church. In the coming years, the dramatic events in the Orthodox world will most likely continue, and the US will proceed using one of the oldest local churches in its political interests.

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.

The article examines the views of one of the outstanding Greek theologians, Metropolitan Hierotheos (Vlachos), as part of the “Theory of Primacy of Power” of the Patriarch of Constantinople in connection with the so-called Ukrainian question. After the Russian Orthodox Church broke off Eucharistic communion with the Patriarchate of Constantinople in October 2018, Metropolitan Hierotheos outlined his theory on granting autocephaly from the position of the Church of Constantinople. This theory, in essence, is a distortion of Orthodox ecclesiology, since the institution of primacy violates equal relations between Local Orthodox Churches. At the beginning of the article, Metropolitan Hierotheos’s theory of an autocephalous Church is examined. His confidence in the special right of Constantinople to grant autocephaly is unfounded, since one Local Church is granted an excessive privilege that goes beyond its honorary rights and obligations. The Metropolitan’s theory of the gradual granting of autocephaly is examined in detail: 1) “by oikonomia” by the Patriarch of Constantinople, and then 2) “by akrivia”, by the All-Church Council. In any case, the Metropolitan supports the Patriarch of Constantinople in his actions leading to a schism, which complicates the possibility of restoring peace between the Local Orthodox Churches. In conclusion, the author summarizes: the anti-Russian rhetoric of Metropolitan Hierotheus testifies to his biased and unscientific approach to the history of Russia and the Russian Church. His distorted understanding of history allows him to “justify” the decisions of Constantinople, which radically violated peace and harmony in the Ecumenical Church.

Russian Orthodox Church’s presence in Africa has traditionally been limited to the support of African Orthodox churches and the spiritual care of Russians. Russian Orthodox Church never tried to carry out missionary work among the locals. In the 1920s and 1930s Orthodox parishes arose in Africa, but most of the church infrastructure was located in the north of the continent. The first Russian parish in southern Africa was formed after the Second World War in Johannesburg; its emergence was associated with the post-war wave of emigration from the USSR. Russian Orthodox parishes on the continent have been in a crisis since the late 1950s, caused by the mass departure of Russians and other Europeans from the gained independence African countries. The 1990s marked the beginning of a new period in the history of Russian Orthodoxy in Africa. The revival of church life in Russia has also affected our compatriots abroad — members of the diplomatic corps, specialists who worked in the countries of the continent. An important milestone, which actually led to the rupture of relations between the Moscow and Alexandria Patriarchates, was the recognition by the latter in 2019 of the autocephaly (granted by the Patriarch of Constantinople) of the schismatic Orthodox Church of Ukraine.

The Moscow Patriarchate is a transnational subject of political relations which acts both inside and outside the Russian Federation. It has specific goals: to maintain the integrity of its canonical territory and to gain dominance within the Universal Orthodox Church. It is in competition with the Patriarchate of Constantinople, it makes alliances with Slavic Orthodox churches and it pursues diplomacy. The activity of the Moscow Patriarchate is of interest to the Russian government. This article examines relations between the Russian Orthodox Church and other Orthodox churches and their significance for Russian foreign policy.

Russian Orthodox Diocese of Finland, taking advantage of the church and international policy, illegally transferred to the Patriarchate of Constantinople in 1923 and its relations with the Russian Church were interrupted for two decades. At the end of the Great Patriotic War, a movement for the reunification of the two churches began, but there was no unity within the Finnish Church on this issue, and the efforts of the Moscow Patriarchate’s hierarchy led to limited results. The article reveals the history of the participation of Petter Nortamo, a Finnish pastor who converted to Orthodoxy and tried to speed up the process of the return of the Finnish Archdiocese to the Russian Orthodox Church, unknown to Russian scientists. One of the characteristic features of his activity was the active involvement in this process of political parties and associations of socialist orientation, as well as the press (in particular, the Democratic Union of the People of Finland). The article disputes the reading of this story by the Finnish historian Juha Riikonen, who sees this primarily as a political background. Nortamo’s active contacts with Metropolitan Grigory (Chukov) and Patriarch Alexy I, his ordination to holy orders in Leningrad indicate that the church component was decisive in his activities. However, Nortamo’s efforts were not enough to solve the problem of the relationship between the Finnish and Russian Orthodox Churches, and his death coincided with the end of such attempts. The Patriarchate of Constantinople played a significant role in freezing the process of church reunification. To this day, the figure of Nortamo remains unknown in Russian historical science.

In 988, under the leadership of Kinyaz Viladimer, Russians accepted Christianity through the Patriarchate of Constantinople and entered a new phase in their history. With Christianity, the Russians were introduced to writing and, most importantly, to religious texts. At the same time, this religious conversion also led to the acceptance of the belief of chosenness, which had spread to Christianity from Judaism. Nestor, a Russian priest who lived in the 12th century, wrote in his work that although Russians were the last community to accept Christianity, they would undertake important missions in the future. He also attributed a mission to the Russian society by referring to the biblical passage that the feet will be the head and the head will be the feet. However, in the mentioned centuries, the Eastern Roman Empire was still the center of Orthodoxy. For this reason, the Russian Orthodox Church would remain for many years as a Metropolitanate under the Patriarchate of Constantinople. However, the increasing Ottoman pressure on Constantinople from the 1400s onwards created several historical opportunities for the Russians. In particular, the Byzantine agreement with the Pope of Rome in Florence in 1439 mobilized the Russian Church. Using this agreement as a pretext, Moscow severed its relations with Constantinople. In 1453, the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople, the center of the Orthodox world, opened a new page in Russian Theo-politics. Russian priests believed that Nestor's prophecy had been fulfilled and Moscow developed the concept of the Third Rome. Appearing in the 16th century, the Moscow-Third Rome concept soon became the ideological basis for the formation of the Moscow kingdom. In this article, the concept of Moscow Third Rome, which is one of the important turning points in Russian history, is analyzed through an analytical method. The background of the concept, the conditions that led to its emergence, its historical development and its reflections on the present day are emphasized.

Relations between the Ukrainian Church and Constantinople were difficult. This goes back as far as 988, when the Christianisation of the Rus created a strong alliance between Kiev and the Byzantine Empire. There were times when Constantinople had no influence over the Kiev Metropolis. During the Mongolian invasion in 1240, the Ukranian region was broken up and Kiev lost its power. The headquarters of the Kiev Metropolis were first moved to Wlodzimierz nad Klazma in 1299 and then to Moscow in1325. In 1458 the Metropolis of Kiev was divided into two; Kiev and Moscow, but Kiev still remained under the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Constantinople. Since that time, the orthodox hierarchs of Moscow no longer adhered to the title Bishop of Kiev and the whole of Rus and in 1588 the Patriarchate of Moscow was founded. In 1596 when the Union of Brest was formed, the orthodox church of the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth was not liquidated. Instead it was formally revived in 1620 and in 1632 it was officially recognized by king Wladyslaw Waza. In 1686 the Metropolis of Kiev which until that time was under the Patriarchate of Constantinople was handed over to the jurisdiction of Moscow. It was tsarist diplomats that bribed the Ottoman Sultan of the time to force the Patriarchate to issue a decree giving Moscow jurisdiction over the Metropolis of Kiev. In the beginning of the 19th century, Kiev lost its Metropolitan status and became a regular diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church. Only in the beginning of the 20thcentury, during the time of the Ukrainian revolution were efforts made to create an independent Church of Ukraine. In 1919 the autocephaly was announced, but the Patriarchate of Constantinople did not recognize it. . The structure of this Church was soon to be liquidated and it was restored again after the second world war at the time when Hitler occupied the Ukraine. In 1992, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, when Ukraine gained its independence, the Metropolitan of Kiev requested that the Orthodox Church of Ukraine becomes autocephalous but his request was rejected by the Patriarchate of Moscow. Until 2018 the Patriarchate of Kiev and the autocephalous Church remained unrecognized and thus considered schismatic. In 2018 the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople looked into the matter and on 5thJanuary 2019, the Orthodox Church of Ukraine received it’s tomos of autocephaly from Constantinople. The Patriarchate of Moscow opposed the decision of Constantinople and as a result refused to perform a common Eucharist with the new Church of Ukraine and with the Patriarchate of Constantinople.

The tomos by the Patriarch of Constantinople that granted autocephaly to the Orthodox Church in Poland in 1924 did not end the efforts to independence that Church. The main question was the recognition of the act by all of the other Orthodox Churches. The greatest problems were encountered in contacts with the Russian Orthodox Church, which believed that only it had the right to issue an act allowing the Orthodox Church in Poland to become independent. There was an exchange of correspondence between the heads of the both Churches (1923–1928), which did not lead to an agreement, but at the same time showed their stances.

In January 2019, the Ukrainian Orthodoxy received what is known as the tomos from the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, which established the independent Orthodox Church in Ukraine. The granting of autocephaly to the Orthodox Christians of Ukraine caused a deep crisis in the Orthodoxy and a conflict between Constantinople and Moscow. The Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) condemned the Ecumenical Patriarch’s action and accused the Patriarchate of Constantinople of encroaching on the ‘canonical territory’ of the ROC. The author examines the foundations of this formation of a new Orthodox Church, the religious and political factors influencing the process of its establishment, and the reaction of the Russian Orthodox Church leadership and Russian politicians. He also reflects on the consequences for relations within Orthodoxy, for ecumenical dialogue, and for contacts between Ukraine and Russia.

John Paul II and ecumenism
 A turning point for the approach of the Catholic Church to the question of the unity of Christians was brought by the Second Vatican Council which began in 1962. Observers from Churches and separate communities were invited to participate in the Council. The events which illustrate John Paul II’s engagement toward the reconciliation of Christians i.e. the Encyclical Slavorum Apostoli (2.06.1985), The apostolic Letter Orientale lumen (2.05.1995), The Encyclical Ut unum sint (25.05.1995), The Declaration Dominus Jesus (6.08.2000). The inauguration of the Anniversary Year of 2000 in the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls and the “Ecumenical Remembrance of the Witnesses of Faith of the 20th Century” as crucial events in the field of the reconciliation of Christians. The ecumenical contacts with the Orthodox Church. The first of such contacts was John Paul II’s visit to Istanbul in 1979 and the meeting with the ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople, Dimitrios. Further meetings with the representatives of the Orthodox Church took place: in 1987 in the Vatican; in 1991 during the Synod of the Bishops of Europe; in 1994 the solemnities of the Station of the Cross on Good Friday were attended by the Patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew I; in 1999 John Paul II visited Romania. The contacts with the Russian Orthodox Church, which sometimes was not satisfied with John Paul II’s contacts with e.g. Georgia in 1999, the Ukraine and Kazakhstan in 2001. The pope never made a visit to Russia due to the lack of consent on the part of the Orthodox Church. The history of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre and the Society of of Pius X. With the establishment of the Society Lefebvre started to openly oppose the decisions of the Second Vatican Council. When he began to illegally confer Holy Orders in 1976, Pope Paul VI divested him from the authority of executing episcopal duties. John Paul II is presented as an indefatigable champion of ecumenism. He was a remarkable guide in this journey, he never lost sight of his goals and he set out directions of action. His appreciation of the current situation was also accurate.

Reviewed by: The Orthodox Church and Civil Society in Russia, and: Russian Society and the Orthodox Church: Religion in Russia after Communism, and: Russkaia pravoslavnaia tserkov': Sovremennoe sostoianie i aktual'nye problemy [The Russian Orthodox Church: Contemporary Condition and Current Problems] Irina Papkova Wallace L. Daniel , The Orthodox Church and Civil Society in Russia. 251 pp. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2006. ISBN 1585445231. $29.95. Zoe Knox , Russian Society and the Orthodox Church: Religion in Russia after Communism. 257 pp. London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2005. ISBN 0415320534. $170.00. Nikolai Aleksandrovich Mitrokhin , Russkaia pravoslavnaia tserkov': Sovremennoe sostoianie i aktual'nye problemy [The Russian Orthodox Church: Contemporary Condition and Current Problems]. 648 pp. Moscow: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2004. ISBN 5867933245. Post-Soviet Russia has been characterized by a visible resurgence of the country's arguably most important cultural institution, the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC). After seven decades of alternating persecution and soft repression by the atheistic Soviet state, the Church has experienced a remarkable renaissance, both in terms of recovered physical infrastructure and in social status.1 Visitors to today's Russian Federation will observe the ongoing renovation and reconstruction of church buildings, the proliferation of kiosks selling religious materials on many city streets, the ubiquitous Orthodox clerics offering commentary to the mainstream television stations, and other daily manifestations of Orthodoxy's pervasive public presence. President V. V. Putin is, according to reliable accounts, a practicing Orthodox Christian, as are an increasing number of officials in the government apparatus.2 Accordingly, scholars have begun to explore both the extent [End Page 481] and the implications of this phenomenon. Broadly, analysts have looked at the following issues: the degree to which Russian society can really be called Orthodox; the relationship between the Church and the political regime, specifically Orthodoxy's role in democratization; the position of the Russian Orthodox Church within civil society; and the contribution of Orthodoxy to the creation and maintenance of a cohesive post-Soviet Russian identity.3 The deepening of the research agenda can be easily traced: if at first scholarship on post-Soviet Russian Orthodoxy found expression exclusively in academic articles or conference anthologies, since 2004 several serious monographs on the subject have been published both in Russia and in the West, three of which are reviewed here. The disciplinary background of scholars currently working on today's Russian Orthodoxy is quite varied; it includes sociologists, anthropologists, political scientists, and, less frequently, historians. The methodological difficulty historians experience in tackling a modern-day subject hardly needs to be stated; at the same time, two of the three authors reviewed here—Nikolai Aleksandrovich Mitrokhin and Wallace L. Daniel—are historians by training, suggesting the timeliness of an assessment of the ways that history is employed in the scholarly analysis of the contemporary Russian Orthodox Church. This review, then, focuses not just on how the three monographs treat the subject of their inquiry but also on aspects of these works that should be of particular interest to Kritika's audience. Specifically, the review stresses the pitfalls inherent in the (unavoidable, to be sure) interpretation of a contemporary phenomenon through a particular reading of history; it also brings attention to the need for a critical reassessment of the way in which scholars (historians or otherwise) in general treat fundamental assumptions regarding the historical pattern of church–state relations in Russia. All three books are welcome contributions to our understanding of the post-Soviet Russian Orthodox Church. In terms of institutional analysis, Nikolai Mitrokhin's 650-page volume is the most impressive. Based on eight years of research in over 40 dioceses, the book devotes attention to almost [End Page 482] every imaginable aspect of the ROC's activities. Mitrokhin begins by dissecting the membership of the Church, critically assessing the actual number of active Orthodox believers in Russia and their socioeconomic backgrounds and analyzing the inner workings of parish communities (35–75). He then looks at the organizational administration of the Moscow Patriarchate, its economic activities, and the internal divisions among various Orthodox factions vying for control over the Church's spiritual and political agenda (76–234). The second part of the book analyzes such related issues as the...