Moscow Patriarchate Accuses Constantinople of Distorting Orthodoxy

The highest clergy of the Russian Orthodox Church on Wednesday, as part of the Bishops’ Conference held in the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, again announced a direct confrontation with the Patriarchate of Constantinople, accusing the Phanar of distorting Orthodox teaching. The main reason was the events that took place over the past few years in Ukraine. The expert compared the situation with the schism of churches in the 11th century, but only in the Orthodox world.

The higher clergy of the Russian Orthodox Church have not gathered for large-scale events for a long time. The last time the Council of Bishops – the highest body of the hierarchical administration of the church – was held in 2017, and the Bishops’ Conference even earlier – in 2015. “The Bishops’ Conference is a meeting of the hierarchs of the Russian Orthodox Church to discuss the state of affairs in the church in the inter-council period,” Vladimir Legoyda, head of the Synodal Department for Church Relations with Society and the Media, explained to Kommersant. He noted that, since “for objective reasons, holding a council is currently impossible, a meeting was held.” In August 2022, the Synod postponed the holding of conciliar events indefinitely due to the international situation, and earlier its dates were postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic. According to the charter of the Russian Orthodox Church, we note that the Council of Bishops is convened by the patriarch and the Holy Synod at least once every four years – on the eve of the local council, as well as in “exceptional cases.”

This time the meeting was almost entirely devoted to the relations of the Russian Orthodox Church with the Patriarchate of Constantinople and the situation of believers in Ukraine. This is evidenced by report Patriarch Kirill and the document adopted by the assembled hierarchs entitled “On the distortion of the Orthodox teaching about the Church in the acts of the hierarchy of the Patriarchate of Constantinople and the speeches of its representatives.”

The confrontation between the Patriarchates of Constantinople and Moscow began in 2018, after the Ukrainian authorities decided to form their own Orthodox Church, independent of the Russian Orthodox Church. With the support of Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, the process of its creation was launched. In October 2018, the Synod of the Church of Constantinople canceled the 17th-century decree on the transfer of the Kyiv Metropolis to the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate. The Russian Orthodox Church called these steps an encroachment on its canonical territory and stopped canonical communion with Constantinople. And in December of the same year, the so-called unifying council of the Orthodox churches of Ukraine was held in Kyiv, at which they elected the head of a new church structure – the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) – Metropolitan Epiphanius of Kyiv. At the beginning of 2019 The Patriarch of Constantinople gave the church of Metropolitan Epiphanius a tomos of autocephaly. The Russian Orthodox Church then stated that the actions of Constantinople are a gross violation of church canons. Commenting on the conflict, Patriarch Kirill suggested that “there is an order for the destruction of the Russian Orthodox Church”: “This is not just a struggle for jurisdiction, it is a struggle to destroy the only powerful Orthodox force in the world. They want to squeeze canonical Orthodoxy out of the religious field of Ukraine.” A in May 2022 an urgently convened council in Kyiv of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), which remained under the jurisdiction of Moscow adopted a resolution about complete independence and independence from the ROC. Although this did not help the UOC avoid persecution by the Ukrainian authorities, who accuse the clerics of having links with the Moscow Patriarchate.

In his report, Patriarch Kirill, commenting on these events, noted that the actions of the Phanar in Ukraine prompted the “destruction of church unity”: “For a long time, its leading hierarchs, with the support of political forces outside the church and at their instigation, were secret negotiations and scheming.” The Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church noted that in 2018 he tried to explain to Patriarch Bartholomew “an objective picture of the situation in Ukraine”: “He preferred not to hear anything and in the fall of 2018, correcting the sacred canons, invaded Ukraine in order to “abolish” the hierarchy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and legalize schism, granting him an imaginary autocephaly.

The “schism,” the head of the Moscow Patriarchate is sure, made it difficult for the ROC to communicate spiritually with a significant part of the Greek Orthodox world and led to “open persecution of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church by the authorities”: “We saw the arrests and beatings of God’s servants, blasphemy of shrines. Litigation against several bishops has been initiated and continues. Cases of expulsions from churches of Orthodox communities have multiplied. The ancient Kiev-Pechersk Lavra is under threat of closure. Its main temples – the Assumption Cathedral and the Refectory Church – were confiscated from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, schismatics are active in them.

In the situation with the Latvian Orthodox Church, which last year stated about the desire to dissociate themselves from the Russian Orthodox Church and receive autocephaly, Constantinople is also guilty, Patriarch Kirill is sure. “We can recall the support of the Renovationist schism by the Patriarchate of Constantinople in the 1920s, the schismatic actions in Estonia in 2000, when we made certain compromises for the sake of church peace. The secular authorities of Latvia, inspired by the situation with their neighbors, decided to go even further and themselves proclaimed the false autocephaly of the Church of Latvia,” he explained.

Metropolitan Hilarion of Budapest and Hungary delivered a tough report “On the distortion of the Orthodox teaching about the church in the acts of the hierarchy of the Patriarchate of Constantinople.” In this regard, he mentioned Bartholomew’s claims to the primacy of power over the Ecumenical Church, claims to the role of the highest court of appeal and to the exclusive right to grant autocephaly. The speaker drew attention to the restoration of the rank of “schismatics”: “It must be recognized that the hierarchs of the so-called Orthodox Church of Ukraine do not have canonical ordination and therefore are not bishops.” He was outraged by the Phanar’s practice of accepting former clerics of the Russian Orthodox Church without leave letters: “These actions do not correspond to Orthodox Tradition, they destroy the canonical foundations.”

As Mr. Legoyda told Kommersant, the hierarchs agreed with the conclusions and sent the document for approval to the Synod.

“The decisions of the meeting can be compared with the split of churches in the 11th century, but only in the Orthodox world,” Roman Lunkin, deputy director of the Institute of Europe of the Russian Academy of Sciences, head of the Center for the Study of Problems of Religion and Society of the Institute of Europe of the Russian Academy of Sciences, commented to Kommersant. only Eucharistic communion, there was also an accusation of violating church foundations. Mr. Lunkin believes that “the most important decision was the statement of the fact that any open rupture of the UOC with the ROC will be a split, that is, further actions of the UOC under pressure from the Ukrainian authorities will be the division of the church already in Ukraine and the new territories of the Russian Federation.”

Emilia Gabdullina, Pavel Korobov