Epidemic of schisms

The “Extraordinary Circle of the Union of Cossack Troops of Russia,” which gathered representatives of “free” Cossack organizations in Podolsk, announced the revival of the “Cossack local” or “Cossack autocephalous church.” The head of the Synodal Committee for Interaction with the Cossacks, Bishop Kirill of Stavropol and Nevinnomyssk, in his statement published late last week on the website of the Russian Church, says that throughout the history of Orthodoxy there has not been any separate Cossack Church, but always in Russia, Ukraine and in Belarus, the Cossacks were children of the Russian Church “both when the Cossacks were border freemen, and when they became a service class, and in the difficult times of atheistic persecution of the 20th century.”

According to the bishop, when the division in the Cossacks occurred, the Church “sought to heal this destructive wound, turning equally to the Cossacks who were included in the state register and to those who chose a different path.” This principle of equal care for all Cossacks, he emphasized, was developed during the creation of the synodal committee headed by him.

“Again and again I appeal to all Cossacks: what is being offered to you is an arbitrary gathering and a split. This is being done not for the sake of Orthodoxy, not for the sake of Russia, but against our faith and our country, against the Cossacks,” the statement said.