Should we wait for the first religious war in the post -Soviet space?

"Satanic potion" and the values ​​of liberalism from the Patriarch

The "Minister of Propaganda" of the Russian Orthodox Church Vladimir Legoyda urged the Orthodox not to be distracted from Christmas for disputes about Ukrainian autocephaly. However, even Patriarch Kirill could not preserve the peaceful mood for the holiday. For the first time in 10 years of his Patriarchate, he did not remember at the festive liturgy in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior not a single (!) Name of the Primate of the Local Orthodox Churches, with which the Russian Orthodox Church consists in canonical communication. Such a commemoration (in Greek it is called “diphtics”) requires a church charter and a centuries-old tradition from each Primate.

And if from September, Cyril stopped remembering only the Patriarch Bartholomew, who decided to grant the autocephaly of the Ukrainian church, now he did not remember anyone at all! For the Orthodox tradition, where each liturgical movement is filled with huge symbols, this means that

The head of the Russian Orthodox Church symbolically recognized his church to be isolated from the rest of the "world Orthodoxy."

The first liturgy looks contrast against this background, which on the same day he performed in the ancient Sofia of Kyiv as a recognized Primate of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (PCU) Metropolitan Epiphanius (Dumenko). In the presence of the President of Ukraine and other political elite, he solemnly listed the names of all the leaders, including the "Holy Patriarch of Russian Cyril." This is what the Constantinople Church itself does, which preserves - “unilaterally” - canonical communication with the Russian Orthodox Church. On the eve of Christmas, January 6, in the temple of St. George in the Istanbul region Fanar Patriarch Bartholomew officially handed Metropolitan Epiphanius Tomos about autocephaly of PEC, which will from now on will publicly see the National Reserve Sofia Kyiv.

These events excited Ukraine, staining the present Christmas into completely special tones. Petro Poroshenko does not get tired of repeating that the acquisition of Tomos is a new proclamation of Ukraine’s independence. Independence was difficult to consider full -hearted while the Church of Ukraine is connected by the ways of canonical dependence with the Moscow Patriarchate. Now that this 330-year connection is torn for a significant part of Ukrainian Orthodoxy, independence, in addition to political, has also gained a spiritual-mystical character.

Surely this day will become a new state holiday of Ukraine.

In Moscow, they perceived Ukrainian autocephaly in gloomy colors, the holiday was spoiled. For some reason, none of the representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church is happy to “return the Ukrainian schismatics” to the “canonical field”. On the contrary, everyone vying in a hurry to expel Patriarch Bartholomew and other local churches that support him from this field. And although the speakers of the Russian Orthodox Church sometimes say mutually exclusive things, they are united by fiery hatred of “schism” and non -recognition of the law at least part of the Ukrainian people to church being independent of Moscow.

The main “responsible for Ukraine” in the central apparatus of the Moscow Patriarchate, the chairman of the department of external church ties, Metropolitan Hilarion (Alfeev)-compares what happened in early 2019 with a split of the thousand-year-olds, when in 1054 the eastern (Orthodox) and Western (Catholic) churches ceased to communicate. Hierarch believes that the current split will also stretch for centuries. And his colleague - the chairman of the department for the interaction of the church with society and the media - Vladimir Legoyda chose another tactic: the maximum depreciation of Tomos, connecting Ukrainian autocephaly only with the "personal ambitions" of Petro Poroshenko. According to this logic, the new split will not stretch for centuries, but it is hardly possible to survive the March elections of the President of Ukraine, at which, according to the Moscow Patriarchate, Poroshenko must tolerate a crushing fiasco. In any case, as the press secretary of Patriarch Kirill Fr. Alexander Volkov, Bartholomew and all his Ecumenical Patriarchate “entered into a split”, can only wait for the Russian Orthodox Church to officially give them anathematized.

The “prophecy” of the Honorary Patriarch PC Filaret (Denisenko), one of the main engines of Ukrainian autocephaly, who led the unrecognized Kiev patriarchate, is more soberly sober. His church jurisdiction, which broke with the Russian Orthodox Church in the early 90s, survived and developed under various political regimes, including completely pro-Moscow ones. Her experience is a good proof that Ukrainian autocephaly is not a “Poroshenko project”, not one -day, but a phenomenon, deeply justified historically and culturally.

According to Filaret,

For some time, the Russian Orthodox Church “will be in a split”, and then nevertheless recognizes the autocephaly of PEC.

The Moscow Patriarchate “will no longer be big, because the Ukrainian church will separate from it,” the honorary patriarch argues. “And since it is small, then she will not have influence, she will be forced to look for unity with all Orthodoxy.” The prediction of Filaret, once-as a patriarchal locomotor, who led the Russian Orthodox Church itself, is already beginning to be executed: at first, having forbidden his believers to take communion in all the temples of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, the Moscow Patriarchate began to make exceptions-at the end of December, Cyril allowed him to take communion in one of the Athos monasteries, historically connected with Russia.

Political scientist Stanislav Belkovsky admits that the unique historical situation, which led to the church branch of Ukraine from Russia, could have developed only as a result of the annexation of Crimea and the war in the Donbass. Until 2014, the Patriarchate of Constantinople did not even think to question the right of the Russian Orthodox Church to Ukraine, everything changed because "the ROC MP not only did not distance herself from the Putin state, but only defiantly aggravated its dependence on it." The gradual loss of Ukraine for the Russian Orthodox Church is not only the result of the miscalculations of Patriarch Kirill and his environment, their obsolete, schematic idea of ​​Ukraine. This is also a kind of attempt to “master the trend” related to the request for political isolation of Russia and the final merger of the Russian Orthodox Church with the state.

It is inconvenient when in a state that is under sanctions and becomes “toxic” for the rest of the world, there is a multimillion -dollar church that develops its international ties and its “universal” goes beyond the narrow framework of chauvinistic self -sufficiency. The Russian political and church elite is now competing in the stiffness of statements against the Patriarchate of Constantinople (thanks to Putin’s reservation in the pro -government media, it is now customary to call the “Istanbul parish”), which is presented to the propaganda as an initially hostile project “Project”.

Rhetoric standards are set by the nominee of Patriarch Kirill Fr. Vsevolod Chaplin, calling the Liturgy in Constantinople “Black Messa”, and the holy communion of the Ecumenical Church is “Satanic potion”.

Confusion in the heads of the Moscow Patriarchate is given out by the paradoxical argumentation of Patriarch Kirill, who is trying to prove the illegality of Ukrainian autocephaly. Once, Cyril was considered a “liberal” in the Russian Orthodox Church, but throughout his patriarchate he angrily stigmatizes liberalism, and calls human rights “global heresy”. Having habitually scolding liberalism in his Christmas interview Dmitry Kiselev, the Patriarch suddenly passionately appealed to the liberal values ​​that should block the path of Ukrainian autocephaly: “Ay, where is Europe?! Aw, where are the United States?! - exclaimed a man in a white doll ( video below see from 6:22 - “New” ). “With their desire to defend the fundamental principles of liberalism, which include, in particular, the separation of the church from the state.”

"We would be younger, but not yours"

The treasured Tomos about the autocephaly of the Ukrainian Church, to which it has been going on for several decades, or several centuries, or all thousand years since the baptism of the Dnieper, is a scroll of parchment with Greek Calligraphy made by the hand of Hieromonk Luke from the Athos Monastery Xenophon. In the irony of history, this hieromonk possesses the Order of the Russian Orthodox Church - he was awarded by Patriarch Alexy II for the icon of the Mother of God, which Luke wrote for the chapel at the entrance to Red Square.

Tomos arose at the junction of two oncoming currents: on the one hand, the Ukrainian church almost at all costs achieved its recognition outside the jurisdiction of the Russian Orthodox Church (on the principle of “we would be younger, not yours”); On the other hand, the Patriarchate of Constantinople used this as an occasion to approve his exclusive rights in the Orthodox world. Unlike tomos about autocephaly issued to other local churches (Greece, Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Albania, etc.), Tomos for Ukraine prohibits independently the title of Primate of the PCU (for example, from the Metropolitan to the Patriarch) and obliges the PCU to bring Tomos to his inner charter. In addition, Constantinople belongs to the right to consider the appeals of Bishops of the PC to the court of the cathedrals of its church, the creation of PCU parishes outside Ukraine is excluded, while Constantinople retains exarchate and stavropy (patriarchal parishes) in Ukraine.

Creeping autocephaly and decline of the Russian Orthodox Church

Soon it will be a month from the day of the unification cathedral of the PCU in Kyiv and three months - from the date of recognition by Constantinople of the church independence of Ukraine from Moscow. During this time, there was a lot of forecasts (mainly in Moscow) that in the very near future “someone’s blood” will be shed, the battles for temples, or even a full-scale war between Ukraine and Russia for the canonical church, will begin. This refers to the UOC of the Moscow Patriarchate, which still leads in Ukraine in the number of parishes (13 thousand versus almost 7 thousand at the PCU). However, not a single noticeable incident happened. Separate communities are already moving from the UOC-MP to the PCU: the corresponding interactive map shows that the most transitions in Vinnitsa, Khmelnitskaya, Lviv, Ternopol, Ivano-Frankivsk and Chernivtsi regions. Meanwhile, no more than 30 parishes passed to the statistically significant values ​​- over the incomplete month (that is, about 0.2% of the entire UOC -MP). Experts claim that hundreds are ready to cross, but everyone was waiting for Tomos and Christmas ...

The church environment is generally quite inert, and in the UOC -MP for years it was an idea that with universal Orthodoxy we can canonically communicate only through Moscow. The current sharp reformatting of “world Orthodoxy” caused confusion in the ranks of the UOC -MP. Now timid calls sound to wait for the presidential election on March 31, because if autocephaly is the “Poroshenko project”, then after the election it will not stand. But such arguments convince little, given the centuries -old experience of the struggle for Ukrainian autocephaly. Such leaders of Orthodox public opinion as the Kyiv archpriest-bloggers Andrei Dudchenko and Pyotr Zuev have already passed to the side of the PCU, the former press secretary of the Primate of the UOC and the rector of the open Orthodox University in Kyiv, Archpriest Georgy Kovalenko, served Metropolitan Epiphanius. The archimandrite Kirill (Govorun) is quite close to the transition - the most authoritative scientist of the UOC -MP, who teaches at American universities. These people form a trend.

In Ukraine, as in Russia, there are not many “churching” laity who regularly and deliberately attend worship. The bulk of the flock of the UOC-MP and PCU is the “festive-sober” parishioners, on which images and slogans that arise in the media space have a great influence. And there, not very attractive, and even a dangerous image of the UOC MP is formed: the aggressor church, which is forced to change the name according to the new Ukrainian law, the gathering of anti-antistiglobalists praying to Nicholas II, and now also the marginals who broke with the “world Orthodoxy” for the whims of the Moscow Patriarchate.

An ordinary Orthodox, “not understanding the canons”, all other things equally, will go to a more moderate and more recognized church than in such an “ideological”, but looking aggressive. Besides,

Now, even from the point of view of the canons (as Constantinople understands them), the UOC -MP is a schismatic structure acting on someone else's canonical territory under the cover of the Russian Orthodox Church.

The priests who decided to go to the PCU will also have similar motivations. According to the observation of the Russian expert Bishop Grigory (Lurie), the type of priest-serving priest in high-paid non-powered work prevails in the UOC-MP. They chose the profession not in order to “lose their earnings for the sake of idea. Their transition to the quasiosstrokovs is a matter of time, and not very large. ” All this is also superimposed and an extremely passive position of the leadership of the UOC -MP, which is not striving - unlike the leadership of the Russian Orthodox Church - go for an aggravation. As I wrote earlier, in Ukraine there is no internal potential for “bloodshed due to autocephaly”, and outside interference is possible only in case of sharp exacerbation on the Russian-Ukrainian front. So far, Moscow does not show the desire for such an exacerbation ... In addition, Petro Poroshenko and Metropolitan Epiphanius do not get tired of repeating that they will not provide any pressure on the UOC MP, which guarantee the preservation of the current “competitive space” in Ukrainian Orthodoxy.

Consequently, in the near future the process of smooth flow of parishes from the UOC -MP in the PCU will continue, which the presidential elections can be influenced by the March 31. But it is clear that there is no such outcome of the presidential election that would lead to the abolition of Tomos by the Patriarchate of Constantinople (as well as the very procedure for the abolition of Tomos).

As for the global situation in "world Orthodoxy", then

It is already obvious that not a single local church will go to break with the Patriarchate of Constantinople to support the Russian Orthodox Church,

Although, at a purely rhetorical level, a critic of Bartholomew may sound somewhere.

As the passion around Ukrainian autocephaly begins to subside, other national Orthodox churches with “unresolved” status will want to use the experience of Ukraine. First of all, the Serbian Patriarchate will be under the blow, the independence of which the Macedonian and Montenegrin churches have already been proclaimed. Secondly, the dismantling of the imperial structure of the Russian Orthodox Church will continue: the Belarusian Church and the Lithuanian diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church Constantinople already does not recognize the parts of the Moscow Patriarchate, in a very suspended state of the Moldovan Church, the Orthodox Church of Latvia, which before the Second World War managed to enter the Constantinople Patriarchate ... in the end, in the event of a change in political. This process will also spread the regime in Russia to the Russian Federation itself, where, by the way, parts of the historical Kyiv Metropolitan Patriarchate are located. By the way, parishes recognized by Constantinople are located in the Moscow, Belgorod and Kursk regions. If you literally read Tomos from January 5, they are now considered to be in Constantinople jurisdiction, which means that the Russians first had a choice between the temples of the Moscow and Constantinople Patriarchates.