Orthodoxy in Two Manifestations? The Conflict in Ukraine as Expression of a Fault Line in World Orthodoxy [1 ed.] 3631886993, 9783631886991

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In 2018/19, the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople initiated the establishment of an autocephalous (independent) Orthodox Church in Ukraine. This process was met with harsh criticism by the Russian Orthodox Church and eventually led to a split in the entire Orthodox world. The contributions to this volume examine this conflict and discuss the underlying causes for it in a broader perspective. They deal with several aspects of Orthodox theology, history, church life and culture, and show the existence of a serious rift in the broader Orthodox world. This became visible most recently in the conflict over the Ukrainian Church autocephaly, yet it has a longer, and more complex historical background.

Thomas Bremer teaches Ecumenical Theology and Eastern Christian Studies at the Department of Catholic Theology, University of Münster, Germany. His research interests include Orthodoxy in Ukraine, in Russia, and in the Balkans, interchurch relations, and the role of Churches in conflict situations. Alfons Brüning is a historian and scholar of religion, and is the director of the Institute for Eastern Christian Studies, Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands. His expertise covers the religious history of Eastern Europe, confessionalism, nationalism, and modern social teaching of Orthodox Christianity. Nadieszda Kizenko is Professor of History and Director of Religious Studies at the State University of New York (Albany, USA). Her research focuses on Orthodox Church history in Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus, with special interests in confession, hagiography, and liturgy.

Th. Bremer / A. Brüning / N. Kizenko (eds.) · Orthodoxy in Two Manifestations? The Conflict in Ukraine

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ERFURTER STUDIEN ZUR KULTURGESCHICHTE DES ORTHODOXEN CHRISTENTUMS

Thomas Bremer / Alfons Brüning / Nadieszda Kizenko (eds.)

Orthodoxy in Two Manifestations? The Conflict in Ukraine as Expression of a Fault Line in World Orthodoxy

ISBN 978-3-631-88699-1

www.peterlang.com

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05.09.22 13:20

Orthodoxy in Two Manifestations?

ERFURTER STUDIEN ZUR KULTURGESCHICHTE DES ORTHODOXEN CHRISTENTUMS Herausgegeben von / Edited by Vasilios N. Makrides

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Note on the quality assurance and peer review of this publication Prior to publication, the quality of the works published in this series is reviewed by the editor in collaboration with external referees.

Thomas Bremer / Alfons Brüning / Nadieszda Kizenko (eds.)

Orthodoxy in Two Manifestations? The Conflict in Ukraine as Expression of a Fault Line in World Orthodoxy

Bibliographic Information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data is available online at http://dnb.d-nb.de. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress.

Cover image: Saint Sophia Cathedral, Kyiv, Ukraine (Source: © Rbrechko, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/)

ISSN 1612-152X ISBN 978-3-631-88699-1 (Print) E-ISBN 978-3-631-88713-4 (E-PDF) E-ISBN 978-3-631-88714-1 (EPUB) DOI 10.3726/b20057 © Peter Lang GmbH Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften Berlin 2022 Alle Rechte vorbehalten. Peter Lang – Berlin · Bern · Bruxelles · New York · Oxford · Warszawa · Wien All parts of this publication are protected by copyright. Any utilization outside the strict limits of the copyright law, without the permission of the publisher, is forbidden and liable to prosecution. This applies in particular to reproductions, translations, microfilming, and storage and processing in electronic retrieval systems. This publication has been peer reviewed. www.peterlang.com

Table of Contents Abbreviations ........................................................................................................ 7 Preface ................................................................................................................... 9 Thomas Bremer, Alfons Brüning, Nadieszda Kizenko Introduction: Orthodoxy in Two Manifestations? The Conflict in Ukraine as Expression of a Fault Line in World Orthodoxy ............................................ 11 I. Orthodoxy: Global and Local John H. Erickson Territorial Organization of the Orthodox Church: Historical and Canonical Background to a Current Crisis ................................................... 23 Vera Tchentsova The Patriarchal and Synodal Act of 1686 in Historiographical Perspective ...... 45 II. Conceptualizations Heta Hurskainen The Social Concept of the Russian Orthodox Church and the Social Ethos of the Ecumenical Patriarchate: A Comparison of Central Aspects ................... 73 Regina Elsner Toward an Orthodox Social Ethos? Socio-Ethical Negotiations in Ukrainian Orthodoxy ...................................................................................... 97 Kathy Rousselet The Russian Orthodox Church and the Russkii Mir ......................................... 121 Alfons Brüning “Kyivan Christianity” and the “Churches of the Kyivan Tradition”: Concepts of Distinctiveness of Christianity in Ukraine before and after 2019......................................................................................... 145 III. Ecclesiological Issues Nicholas Denysenko Conciliarity in Ukrainian Orthodoxy ................................................................ 173

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Ioan Moga Synodality as Syncephaly? A Plea for a Pastoral-Participative Renewal of the Pan-Orthodox Practice of Synodality ..................................................... 193 Evgeny Pilipenko The Idea of “Unity” in Orthodoxy .................................................................... 209 Nadieszda Kizenko Contemporary Liturgical Practices in the UOC and OCU and their Implications ....................................................................................... 237 Sergii Bortnyk Church and Exclusivism in Ukrainian Orthodoxy ............................................ 259 Lidiya Lozova and Tetiana Kalenychenko The Role of the Laity: Some Observations from Inside ................................... 287 Pavlo Smytsnyuk The New Orthodox Church in Ukraine: Ecumenical Aspects and Problems ... 303 Thomas Bremer New Approaches in Ecclesiology? Reflections Induced by the Ukrainian Crisis ........................................................................................... 333 IV. Church, State and Society Elena A. Stepanova The Place of the Church in Society: Provider of a Moral Code?...................... 353 Aristotle Papanikolaou The Ascetical as the Civic: Civil Society as Political Communion .................. 379 Nathaniel Wood Church and State in Orthodox Christianity: Two Versions of Symphonia ....... 397

Adalberto Mainardi Afterword .......................................................................................................... 419 List of Contributors ........................................................................................... 425

Abbreviations

AUOCC CEC EP KP MP OCU ROC SC SE

(All-)Ukrainian Orthodox Church CommiWtee Conference of European Churches Ecumenical Patriarchate (Constantinople) Ukrainian Orthodox Church – Kyivan Patriarchate Moscow Patriarchate Orthodox Church of Ukraine Russian Orthodox Church Bases of the Social Concept (Russian Orthodox Church) “For the Life of the World” – Towards a Social Ethos of the Orthodox Church UAOC Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church UCCRO (All-)Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations UGCC Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church UOC Ukrainian Orthodox Church UOC-KP Ukrainian Orthodox Church – Kyivan Patriarchate (or KP) UOC-MP Ukrainian Orthodox Church – Moscow Patriarchate (or UOC) UOCC Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Canada WCF World Congress of Families WCC World Council of Churches

Preface The manuscript of this volume was finalized in November 2021; formatting of the text was finished in January 2022. The articles included in this book were conceived in an academic context and atmosphere in the best sense, where the analysis of concepts, together with efforts to understand, and possibly reconcile, various viewpoints and approaches is ultimately supposed to contribute to the bridging of gaps and elimination of prejudices. Our Ukrainian colleagues readily joined us in this effort. The war launched on Ukraine by the Russian Federation on February 24, 2022, has brought cardinal changes to the original context and atmosphere. The voices of some Orthodox leaders have tried to justify this war, or even to endow it with pseudo-religious meaning and motives. But this war is simply a crime. A crime cannot have any hidden or overt religious justification, and there is little, if any, possibility for dialogue, academic or otherwise, between scholars of Christianity committed to peace and those misusing Christian teaching for the justification of an aggressive war, which violates all standards of international law established for decades. Here too, then, is new a fault line in Orthodoxy, which already has been noticed with concern. The war, and its repercussions among the churches, will display, and already have displayed, their effects in world Orthodoxy. The fault line addressed in our volume is another one. There can be, and hopefully will be in new circumstances, a dialogue between adherents of different theological or historiographical concepts of whatever label and categorization, be that “liberal,” “traditional,” “conservative,” or something else. This dialogue can take place once it is clear that it is supposed to happen on the ground of shared basic ethics and scholarly convictions and principles. Among the most important of them are mutual respect and the condemnation of violence. At this moment, we can only hope that the articles in this volume retain their value for future encounters and exchange of thoughts, in a safe, recovered, and flourishing Ukraine, and beyond. The idea for this book arose shortly before summer 2020. We would like to express our gratitude to all our authors for reacting promptly to our requests, for submitting their excellent contributions, and keeping the occasionally short-term deadlines. We also must express our thanks to the student assistants of the Ecumenical Institute, University of Münster, and to Dr. Sebastian Rimestad, Weimar, for their valuable help with the formal corrections and the formatting of the manuscript.

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Finally, we are indebted to Prof. Vasilios N. Makrides, Chair of Religious Studies (Orthodox Christianity) at the University of Erfurt, for his readiness to include our manuscript in this book series. Münster/Nijmegen/Albany – March 15, 2022 Thomas Bremer, Alfons Brüning, Nadieszda Kizenko

Introduction: Orthodoxy in Two Manifestations? The Conflict in Ukraine as Expression of a Fault Line in World Orthodoxy Thomas Bremer, Alfons Brüning, Nadieszda Kizenko The conflict around the emergence of a Ukrainian autocephalous church, from summer 2018 onwards, has led to a split in world Orthodoxy into two main camps. One camp is represented by the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, which edited the tomos, the deed granting autocephaly and includes three more autocephalous churches which have recognized this act. The other is the Patriarchate of Moscow, which severely opposed the new ecclesial structure in Ukraine and regards it as schismatic. Some churches have made statements supporting Moscow’s position, others keep by now a neutral position. Although Ukraine is the focus and the cause of this conflict, the argument has exposed deeper fault lines within world Orthodoxy. Many of them are not purely theological by nature. Beyond dogmatic or ecclesiological issues, these fault lines pertain to questions such as church and state, church and society, social ethics, secular historical narratives or the use of history respectively. Such fault lines are not exclusive to Ukraine, despite displaying some Ukrainian peculiarities, different from other regions which have their own. These fault lines need to be identified and addressed; otherwise, the Ukrainian issue cannot be solved but remains on the level of a factual argument. In its reaction, Moscow broke sacramental communion with the See of Constantinople and prohibited its believers from receiving the sacraments from the other side; after three more Orthodox churches recognized the autocephalous Church in Ukraine in 2019 and 2020,1 Moscow reacted in the same way. Constantinople refrained from responding in equal terms, and still allows its believers to join services in the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) and to take the sacraments there. The Patriarch of Moscow does not commemorate the first hierarchs of those four churches anymore, whereas they do commemorate him when they celebrate liturgy. Nonetheless, in administrative and ecclesiastical terms the split is a manifest reality. On the other hand, the particularities of the Orthodox ecclesiastical landscape allow for inconsistency in dealing with this general rupture. Some of the autocephalous Orthodox churches have disapproved of the new Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) and joined the Russian Church in its rejection of the autocephaly, 1

The Church of Greece, the Patriarchate of Alexandria, and the Church of Cyprus.

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though not breaking communion with the churches that have recognized the new Church.2 In other cases, local synods have issued cautious statements attempting to keep some kind of neutrality; others yet have attempted to seek a solution. This leads to an odd phenomenon. At the local level, communion often continues between members of churches which have officially positioned themselves in favor of, or against the OCU, and therefore joined opposite camps—while at the level of the patriarchates almost all contacts have ceased. Most churches are in communion with both Constantinople and Moscow even though these two are not in communion among themselves. Therefore, the split—already often called a schism—concerns not only Orthodoxy in Ukraine but runs through the entirety of Orthodox Christianity. And the reason for it is not just a concrete act or the rejection of it, namely granting autocephaly to the OCU or denying it, but rather the fact that there is different perceptions and positions in central issues within Orthodoxy which have not been addressed. Thus, the current situation is not a complete surprise. The argument is not only about whether there can be a Ukrainian autocephalous church, and who is entitled the right to grant this (or any) autocephaly. It is also about what the features of such a church are supposed to be in the world of the 21st century,3 and where it would position itself, or, more generally, what the features of Orthodoxy are supposed to be. The very question of autocephaly is not new for the Orthodox world. It has a different nature in the early 21st century than it had in antiquity, or in the 15th century, or during the 19th century, when so many of today’s national churches gained theirs. Exploring circumstances in terms of (geo-)political developments and societal situation, historical experience and its current articulation and the like, which accompany the emergence of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine and its search for a place in both the Orthodox world and Ukrainian society, is among the aims of this volume. Observers of the current developments have repeatedly noted that, despite multiple historical experiences, Orthodoxy to date does not have clear-cut and commonly accepted canonical pathways towards autocephaly.4 The paths towards ecclesial independence were largely conditioned by the respective historical circumstances. The fact that most churches which became autocephalous after antiquity have prior to that been a part of the Ecumenical 2 3 4

Above all, the Serbian Orthodox Church and the Polish Orthodox Church. For an outline of the general background, see Victor Roudometof, Globalization and Orthodox Christianity: The Transformations of a Religious Tradition (New York: Routledge, 2014). The issue is discussed in great length in: Autocephaly: In Search of Unity in Diversity, ed. Edward G. Farrugia and Željko Paša (Rome, forthcoming). For an outline of historical examples for autocephaly previous to the Ukrainian case, see Paul Brusanowski, “Autocephaly in Ukraine: The Canonical Dimension,” in Churches in the Ukrainian Crisis, ed. Andrii Krawchuk, Thomas Bremer (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), 47–78.

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Patriarchate, which therefore was the first in the canonical order and the “mother church” at the same time, makes it even more difficult to develop a theory of gaining and granting autocephaly. So does the fact that several autocephalies were granted twice, by different churches, due mostly to changed political circumstances. The current conflict, far from representing just a single jurisdictional disagreement concerning a locally and thematically limited issue, illustrates also more general differences which have their repercussions in other parts of the Orthodox community in the conditions of a globalized world. Indeed, they may relate to problems relevant not only for Orthodoxy, but for World Christianity as a whole. The relationship between the local church and the respective worldwide community is an issue that does not concern only Orthodoxy but also other churches. Here, the question is relevant what “church unity” means. The Ukrainian case shows that the claim to be one in faith is not enough for keeping a community together. The tensions between the different schools of thought were apparent already earlier. The 2016 “Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church” on Crete, the long road which had led to that event, the eventual absence of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) and of three other churches, made the differences in the Orthodox world obvious. The conflict about the Ukrainian autocephaly, therefore, is strangely autocatalytic; it is one, and perhaps just another, concrete manifestation of large-scale virulent Orthodox Christian disagreements, while its outbreak reinforces already existing differences, which could not be healed before. This larger perspective is essential to adequately address the Ukrainian case. The Ukrainian conflict is unlikely to be solved unless controversial issues are understood and addressed on a more general level. While it is still basically true that the different Orthodox churches inside Ukraine and elsewhere continue to agree in all central theological questions and principles, such as apostolic tradition, dogma, liturgy, mysteries, and the like, the Orthodox community is now nonetheless threatened by a real and lasting division. Stating this paradox makes clear that the controversial issues which are in the background can also not be reduced to “external” matters or mere questions of “politics” which would leave the allegedly pure and untouched sphere of faith and theology undisturbed. It is still ultimately theological issues which are currently at stake. Beyond just outward events and local confrontations, the conflict touches upon matters central for the role and position of Orthodox Christianity in the world of the 21st century. Among those central problems are ecclesiology in a global age, the relation to “the secular world,” human rights and Christian morality, church and state, and church and civil society. Much has to do with the way in which the modern, globalized, pluralistic world is being perceived, understood, and conceptualized. A larger part of Orthodox Christianity in the European East still struggles to overcome the shadows of the Communist past, experiencing the

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challenges of the post-communist era. Others perceive current developments more as a challenge in a secular, perhaps even post-secular age, when roles and positions of religion in society and politics are generally being redefined. The latter position can frequently be seen among Orthodox who live in Western, traditionally non-Orthodox countries. These two perspectives on occasion interact and can appear in quaint combinations. Perhaps, as some of the articles of this volume show, this is also the case in current day Ukraine, among others. Certainly, there is no clear understanding what “secular” means, and that (and how) it needs to be distinguished from “secularism.” Dealing with these challenges, on the other hand, provokes to reflect in a new way on “tradition.” For Orthodox Christianity in particular, the role of (Christian) tradition has always been a main point of reflection, with the important distinction between “Tradition” and “traditions” on the one hand, and a new predilection for “traditional values” in some churches on the other hand. Ecclesiology has been a central issue in 20th century ecumenical dialogues, but mostly in terms of apostolic succession, the relationship between ministry and the community, and the relationship between synodality and primacy. Orthodoxy has stated its position in these questions clearly. The actual shape of the Christian Church, however—what it actually looks like, and what it should look like—is obviously an issue for internal Orthodox disputes under the conditions of modernity, which is under-addressed. Modernity, on the other hand, brings about themes like church and state, church and nation, church and society, which are not part of “classical” ecclesiology, but stand in the background of modern realities. Among the terms engaged to come to a feasible concept are such like canonical territory, or civilization, next to episcopal, synodal, or lay-centered approaches. There have already been controversies concerning such themes and problems throughout the entire Orthodox community for some time, mostly among theologians, but also among church leaders. It is perhaps important to emphasize that the whole spectrum of current positions is present in all churches and often runs contrary to such outward divisions as that between Moscow and Constantinople. There is not one simple fault line between two camps. We deal rather with blurred boundaries and flexible transitions between a variety of positions. It is not a question of this or that autocephalous church, it is a question of positions within Orthodoxy. So what we have to deal with is the question of local and global Orthodoxy, the conceptualizations of the questions, the concrete forms of ecclesiology which are an expression of the different positions, and the relationship to secular structures, i.e. to the state and to society. These deliberations form the framework for this volume, which is accordingly structured in four parts. It does not intend to “resolve” the problem, or to decide who is “right” and who is “wrong.” It rather aims at shedding more light on the general differences and larger dimensions of disagreement behind the Ukrainian conflict, which, as said before, appears as both

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expression and reinforcement of already existing controversies. While Ukraine therefore forms a central subject of this volume, it is not the only one. There is an obvious need to go a step further. In addressing the conflict concerning Ukrainian autocephaly and the emergence of the OCU, one by now can already rely upon a number of studies thoroughly describing the chain of events leading to the current situation, or various contributions outlining the argumentation of each side.5 Our volume therefore also does not want to narrate well-known events and stories once again. In order to achieve this goal, we will firstly have a glance at questions of general character. On the global level, John H. Erickson discusses the question of the territorial structure of the Orthodox Church. He does that in a historical perspective which reveals that the idea of “territory” is the central ecclesiological issue. He also shows that for Orthodox Christians, attachment to by-gone empires and imperial structures may have limited their field of vision and their capacity for adaptation in a post-imperial world. Finally, he offers suggestions for moving beyond the present de facto schism between the churches. Addressing both questions of ecclesiology and historical memory, Vera Tchentsova deals with the divergent interpretations of the events in 1686, which eventually ended in a transfer of jurisdiction over the Kyiv Church from Constantinople to Moscow. The crucial point stands in the appropriate understanding of the procedure of liturgical commemorations of patriarchs as explained in the documents of 1686. Addressing this specific point in historiography offers the opportunity to follow and assess the evolving views on the transfer of the diocese of Kyiv from the 19th century till the current political debate and to identify the scholarly rationale at play behind the today’s divergent historical narratives. The second part of this volume addresses the theological concepts, which lie behind the divergent positions. A first competition of concepts concerns the relatively new field of Orthodox social ethics. The Russian Orthodox Church has published in 2000 a document on social ethics, and the Ecumenical Patriarchate followed in 2020. Heta Hurskainen discusses both documents in a comparative perspective and analyzes how Orthodoxy approaches the challenges of our time in very different ways, which is connected to theological presuppositions that can be found in the two Churches. How questions of social ethics are discussed in Ukraine today, beyond the relationship between state and church, is the topic Regina Elsner addresses which presents in a certain way a concretization of the respective documents. The country is characterized by the emergence of a vibrant civil society since the 1990s, a context of confessional pluralism, and a search for identity between pro-European and pro-Russian tendencies, which has generated 5

For the pre-2018 development, see Churches in the Ukrainian Crisis, ed. Andrii Krawchuk and Thomas Bremer (see n. 4). For the later events, see Orthodoxy and Autocephaly in Ukraine ed. Heather Coleman, special issue of Canadian Slavonic Papers/Revue Canadienne des Slavistes, 62, no. 3–4 (2020).

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an exceptional discourse about socio-ethical issues. Her paper examines the socioethical engagement of Ukraine’s Orthodox churches and the impact of local actors since the country’s independence. Next to divergent interpretations of particular historical events—like the Union of Brest or the change of jurisdiction from Constantinople to Moscow in 1686 (as analyzed in the mentioned contribution by Vera Tchentsova)—Ukraine has become, or always been, an arena for competing grand narratives, in which Orthodox Christianity plays a central role. Some years ago, the Russian government and the Orthodox Church alike promoted the idea of a “Russian World” (Russkii Mir), a kind of civilizational understanding of the world. Kathy Rousselet in her contribution explores the different steps in the development of this concept, its function between religious identity and geopolitical application, and its current role. Although the concept in church circles has suffered a certain setback in connection with the annexation of Crimea through the Russian state, and has rarely been referred to since then by Russian hierarchs, it is, according to Rousselet, far from obsolete. It still retains the function of identifying a Russian cultural sphere, which goes far beyond the borders of the Russian Federation as a state, and can be compared to other—notably, post-colonial—concepts like the Commonwealth or the French francophonie. Alfons Brüning investigates a kind of alternative concept, namely the idea of a “Kyivan Christianity,” which has evolved over the last decades by a subsequent merger of earlier Greek Catholic (“Churches of the Kyivan tradition”) and Orthodox diaspora concepts. However, just like ancient ideas of “Holy Russia,” the imagination of a distinct face of Christian religion in the Kyivan lands has a longer pre-history, and is currently adjusted to modern needs. Perhaps similar to the “Russian World,” the concept operates with several basic patterns, but beyond that is a matter of discourse rather than offering clear-cut definitions in every respect. Also the narrative of a distinctive Ukrainian, “Kyivan” form of Christian religion over time has changed its accents and dissociative potential. Whereas in former periods dissociation from Poland and Roman Catholicism often played a dominant role, in current debates the emphasis on distinctiveness from Russian narratives is clearly prevailing. In its third part, this collection of papers deals with the theological side of the problem. Given that in theology (in the narrower sense) there are no differences between the churches involved, it is mostly on ecclesiology. Here, too, the churches have slightly different approaches. Nicholas Denysenko analyzes the significance of synodality in Ukrainian Orthodoxy which has its beginnings much earlier than in the 1990s, namely in the autocephaly movement in the early 1920s. He describes the development of the synodal idea throughout Ukrainian history and reflects of the possible significance of synodality for Ukrainian Orthodoxy in the future. The global level of synodality is addressed by Ioan Moga. He first discusses the concrete application of synodality on the basis of statutes in several autocephalous churches of mechanisms of conflict regulations. In a second step,

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he opens the perspective of a “theology of synodality” which would understand synodality as a communicative event. The events in Ukraine ask the question about unity—what does it mean, how can it be achieved? Evgeny Pilipenko brings the issue of church unity into the broader theological context within the Orthodox tradition based on the biblical Revelation. In modernity, the idea of unity has been refracted in the theological quest; so he discusses the systematic coverage of the most important principles by Orthodox theologians and presents the perspectives that have been outlined for ecclesial thought and practice. An important aspect in which the church unity becomes concrete is liturgy. The Orthodox churches in Ukraine already have in some regard different liturgical uses. Nadieszda Kizenko researches how the OCU changed liturgical elements, above all by dropping those who refer to Russia, and thus displayed her loyalty to the Ukrainian cause—therefore one cannot speak of a proper liturgical reform but rather of an adaption. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) mostly sticks to the conventional use as it does not see liturgy as the main field to express church allegiance. The situation of two churches in the country also leads to the question of exclusivism which is discussed by Sergii Bortnyk. His article addresses a multi-layered problem. Exclusivism can rely to the issue of salvation—is there salvation only in a concrete church, or can it be attained also without belonging to this church? But exclusivism, once more, does not have only theological implications and consequences. It can also refer to the position of a church in society, and its relationship to the state. Bortnyk’s contribution, therefore, also analyzes the respective documents of the Orthodox churches in Ukraine and also statistical data from 1989 to the present day. Exclusivism, furthermore, also pertains to historical memory, insofar as a fundamentally different attitude of the UOC and the OCU (or its predecessors) to many historical events can be observed. Tetiana Kalenychenko and Lidiya Lozova deal with the question of what the role of laypeople in both churches in Ukraine is. In the end, it is the “normal” believers, who will make the decision of which parish to attend and with which church to affiliate. The concrete experience on the ground shows that there is a broad range of approaches, like people who are Orthodox but refuse to identify with one of the churches, or initiatives for dialogue between members of the churches. Thomas Bremer discusses in his article possible ecclesiological consequences of the Ukrainian case, above all the question whether the territorial principle which is common for both the Orthodox and the Catholic churches can offer a solution for such cases. He proposes to consider a shift in the ecclesiological paradigm which would enable two churches in communion with each other to exercise jurisdiction over the same territory. Pavlo Smytsnyuk addresses the ecumenical dimensions of the establishment of the OCU, starting with the mostly positive reaction by the other Ukrainian churches. On the international level, the new situation has consequences for bilateral ecumenical dialogues (above all that

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between the Orthodox and the Catholic churches), but also for the multilateral ecumenical organizations like the World Council of Churches. It is to be seen whether the current crisis will become an opportunity for ecumenical dialogue, or, on the contrary, a source of further tension. The fourth and last part addresses issues of church, state, and society in Orthodoxy. Here, too, one can distinguish at least two fundamental approaches, namely whether the Church is a part of the society, or rather stands vis-a-vis society. Elena Stepanova analyzes the ROC’s engagement in the sphere of morality in which a distinctiveness of the Russian culture and religion in comparison with Western countries is underlined. In the end, the relevant debates demonstrate the opposition of two basic strategies: interpreting morality as a set of rigid propositions (authorized by either religious or secular powers), to which an individual has to subordinate through their unchallenged recognition, or the right of a person for autonomous moral choice, as well as bearing responsibility for it. Different from what the guiding narrative of the Russian Orthodox Church and its “traditional values” discourse would suggest, also contemporary Russian society offers numerous examples for both approaches, presenting an image rather of “multiple moralities.” Aristotle Papanikolaou offers an analysis of the current situation and discusses the relationship of Orthodoxy to democracy. He shows that the rejection of pluralism is a typical feature for Orthodox churches in the post-communist world, and develops a theological pattern for political engagement, drawing from the ascetic tradition of the Orthodox Church. Finally, Nathaniel Wood considers the role of the state in an Orthodox understanding of politics, by comparing the approaches of the Ecumenical Patriarchate and the ROC, i.e. a “church with a state” and a “stateless” church. He shows how both churches have reimagined the notion of symphonia in competing ways in their respective contexts, and how they approach secularism, liberalism, and human rights. We have asked Adalberto Mainardi to read through the whole manuscript and to wrap up the baselines of the volume, and also to show where further research is needed, in a concluding chapter. This way, we hope to achieve the main goal of our book: its starting point is that the conflict cannot be solved without an appropriate understanding of its actual nature and its dimensions. Our volume has the— perhaps both humble and ambitious—aim to contribute to such a better understanding.

I. Orthodoxy: Global and Local

Territorial Organization of the Orthodox Church: Historical and Canonical Background to a Current Crisis John H. Erickson To speak of “the territorial organization of the Orthodox Church” or of “canonical territory” raises questions about the meaning of several words. These include “territory” and its derivatives as well as related words that frequently are used in present-day inter-Orthodox discussion: place, topos, locus, local, pomestnyi [...] The etymologies and literal meaning of these words suggest a particular portion of physical space, generally a rather small portion, but such words can also be understood metaphorically, and their semantic range varies considerably from one language and culture to another. In any case, “territory” cannot be adequately defined simply by reference to lines drawn on a map. Only slightly less problematic is the word “canonical” and with it “uncanonical.” How are the ancient texts that form the canonical corpus common to all the Eastern Orthodox churches to be understood and applied today? Vague or contradictory appeals to “tradition,” to “the traditional interpretation” of this or that canon, or to “the traditional practice of the church” raise troublesome questions about the coherence and consistency of Orthodox tradition itself. Further questions arise about issues much debated in contemporary Orthodoxy. For example, what is the meaning of “autocephaly” or “diaspora”? And behind these questions lies an even more basic one: What do we mean by Church? Whether spatially or temporally, the Church confessed in our creeds is not reducible to its institutions and organizational structures. Beneath issues dividing Moscow and Constantinople today lie methodological problems that are endemic to the Eastern Orthodox but certainly not limited to them. We tend to look at history in the wrong way. We project our present preconceptions and preoccupations onto church life of the past. We construct stories, some more plausible than others, out of materials from the past in ways that help explain our present situation and that provide a vision—or at least an agenda—for the future. Such stories require sympathetic but critical attention. We should consider not only what they tell us but also what they fail to tell us. Today, unfortunately, the stories being told by Moscow and Constantinople portend a future of division. The de facto schism between them that arose over Ukraine has implications for all the Orthodox, whether in lands with universally recognized autocephalous or autonomous churches or in the so-called diaspora. At stake are not only inter-Orthodox relations at every level of church life but also wider issues of Christian unity, whether short term (e.g., common participation in ecumenical activities) or long term (e.g., closer ties with the Oriental Orthodox and Catholics).

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Postmodern critiques have drawn attention to methodological problems inherent in the study of history, including the history of the Church and its institutions. They note the temporality of both the historian and the past that the historian tries to capture. They are uneasy with efforts to distinguish the essential from the accidental, the permanent from the occasional, the inevitable from the contingent. Roman historian Raymond Van Dam captures the present mood with this startling demand: “One imposing requirement for interpreting the past is to forget the future. In hindsight the actual course of events may seem to have been a natural, almost inevitable, outcome […] But this sort of retrospective teleology thoroughly obscures the underlying contingency of past events and the fundamental uncertainty of our modern interpretations.”1 I take “fundamental uncertainty of our modern interpretations” to be an appeal for hermeneutical modesty. When attempting to interpret the past, neither historians nor theologians should pretend to omniscience. I take Van Dam’s reference to the “contingency of past events” as a reminder that “people in the past were living in their present, unaware of future outcomes.”2 The present of Christians in antiquity was quite different from our own. It was marked by considerably greater diversity whether in the articulation of doctrine, the structuring of church communities, the negotiation of social and cultural frontiers, or the quest for sanctity, whether in the ante-Nicene period or in the post-Nicene. Ecumenically inclined historians sometimes speak of the “undivided church of the first millennium.” There was no such thing. Even if we limit our purview to Constantinople and Rome and ill-advisedly refer to them as East and West, official hierarchical communion between these sees was broken for extended periods during the first millennium and, of course, beyond. At the same time, less hierarchically structured expressions of communion—pilgrimage to sacred sites, the cultus of the saints, pursuit of the religious life, even scholarly activity—continued to unite Christians in many ways. If we take own institutional present as the standard by which we measure and evaluate the past, as the goal toward which that past has inevitably led, we run the risk of overlooking possible charismatic pathways to reconciliation along the way. 1

2

Raymond Van Dam, The Roman Revolution of Constantine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 9. For a recent critique of teleological approaches to the history of the papacy in Late Antiquity, see George E. Demacopoulos, The Invention of Peter: Apostolic Discourse and Papal Authority in Late Antiquity (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013); and of the church of Constantinople, Justin Matthew Pigott, Reading Councils Backward: Challenging Teleological Perspectives of Constantinople’s Ecclesiastical Development from 381 to 451 (D.Phil. dissertation, Australian Catholic University, Brisbane, 2016). Joanne Freeman, “I’m a Historian. I See Reason to Fear—And to Hope,” The Atlantic, August 17, 2020, https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/08/historian-historictimes/615208/.

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Standard scholarly works on church history spend considerable time on the age of the ecumenical councils, and especially the first four. While coverage of political and intellectual background is not absent, this often is skewed in ways that obscure the present in which protagonists interacted and struggled. It obscures, first of all, how much major players in the controversies of the day had in common with each other. As Khaled Anatolios observes of the fourth-century trinitarian controversies, the protagonists “were all interacting within a common narrative, a common set of Christian experiences.”3 It also obscures the distance between the present in which they interacted and our own. For students of church history today, the theological world of early Christians has grown strangely unfamiliar. This poses a problem that is at once intellectual and spiritual. To accept or even to recognize the otherness of the past requires intellectual openness and spiritual humility. Diversity in Christian antiquity also characterized church order. Consider, for example, the institution of the chorepiscopos—the country bishop—in eastern Asia Minor, Syria and, with a slightly different articulation, in Gaul. Canon 6 of the Council of Sardica (343 AD) offers a clue to its eventual disappearance: “It is not permitted to ordain a bishop in a village or petty town, for which even a single presbyter is sufficient, lest the name and authority of bishop should be made of small account.”4 Quite different was the situation in Roman Africa, where nearly every village and town had its own bishop, who exercised full episcopal authority within a notably egalitarian collegial framework. Canonical norms against transfer of bishops from one see to another were rigorously enforced; chairmanship and speaking order at councils was determined by seniority of ordination rather than by prestige of one’s see.5 A similar situation obtained in Pontus.6 Different yet again was the situation in the Syriac east. The inclusive character of its worship, spirituality, and community life is beautifully illustrated in the festal verse homilies of Jacob of Sarug (d. 521 AD), who “identifies every member of the gathered church as crucial to, and fully participant in, the activity of liturgical celebration. Naming each group by gender, age, ethnicity, social location, and 3 4

5

6

Khaled Anatolios, Retrieving Nicaea: The Development and Meaning of Trinitarian Doctrine (Grand Rapids MI: Baker Academic, 2011), 58. Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, ser. 2, vol. 14, ed. and trans. Henry Percival (1899, reprint), 420, emphasis supplied; cf. Hamilton Hess, The Canons of the Council of Sardica A.D. 343: A Landmark in the Early Development of Canon Law (Oxford: Clarendon, 1956), 100–103. Maureen A. Tilley, “The Collapse of a Collegial Church: North African Christianity on the Eve of Islam,” Theological Studies 62, no. 1 (2002), 3–22; and R. A. Markus, “Carthage – Justiniana Prima – Ravenna: An Aspect of Justinian’s Kirchenpolitik,” Byzantion 49 (1979), 292–299. John D. Zizioulas, “The Development of Conciliar Structures to the Time of the First Ecumenical Council,” in Councils and the Ecumenical Movement [World Council of Churches Studies, 5] (Geneva: WCC, 1968), 34–51, on 42.

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ecclesiastical rank, Jacob effectively erases the lines between lay, monastic and ordained as liturgical celebrants.”7 Eventually the pattern that we are familiar with from accounts of turmoil during the trinitarian and christological controversies comes to prevail, at least within the Roman Empire. Ambitious prelates maneuver for appointment to prestigious sees or try to avoid appointment to insignificant ones. Transfers from one see to another—in principle “uncanonical”—become more common. Top-down hierarchical structures attempt to maintain good pastoral leadership by establishing workable processes for episcopal appointments and review. Generally speaking, these processes reflected the patronage system that characterized public life in the late Roman Empire. As Brian Daley points out, “to have been confirmed as a candidate for Church office and ordained by an important metropolitan, especially if the election process had been contentious, put both a bishop and his whole Church in that metropolitan’s debt.”8 Of course, patron-client relationships sometimes frayed or even broke down completely, as happened multiple times in the course of the christological controversies. Eventually, however, among both Catholics and Chalcedonian Orthodox, patronage comes to be officially regulated whether through legislation or traditional practice. The resultant hierarchical structures gave these churches a measure of stability and resilience that they maintained well into the 20th century, but we should not regard this as the only possible outcome—as natural, inevitable, and the only “canonical” way to structure church life. For most Christians in the first centuries of the Constantinian era, one aspect of their present did give the illusion of being eternal, and that was Rome and its empire. The last triumph in the Eternal City was celebrated in 404 AD by the western Emperor Honorius conjointly with his half-Vandal generalissimo Stilicho. Just six years later the city would be sacked by the latter’s Visigothic rival Alaric. But very few in that frightening present (Augustine being the most notable exception) could imagine a world without the Roman Empire. Consulships continued to mark political time; panegyrists continued to court potential patrons; rival dynasts continued to vie for the imperial purple; pan-imperial councils continued to address dogmatic and disciplinary issues. By the mid-5th century, such councils were becoming ever more self-referential and—one might say—selfimportant. The ecumenical council takes shape as an institution at once ecclesiastical and imperial. Its horoi (decisions, definitions) were intended to establish 7 8

Susan Ashbrook Harvey, “To Whom Did Jacob of Sarug Preach?” in A Ministry of Reconciliation: Essays in Honor of Metropolitan Maximos Aghiorgoussis, ed. Thomas FitzGerald (Brookline MA: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 2015), 185–199, on 194. Brian Daley, “Position and Patronage in the Early Church: The Original Meaning of ‘Primacy of Honor’,” Journal of Theological Studies NS 44 (1993), 529–553, here 543– 544.

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church unity on the basis of true doctrine and in so doing to ensure imperial unity and stability, but that intention was seldom fulfilled. Despite efforts throughout this period to define and codify orthodoxy, all too often conciliar horoi prompted new rounds of controversy. The end result was sharper delineation of identity boundaries and erection of new barriers to communication and communion. A related point is easy to overlook, perhaps because it is so obvious as to be unremarkable. Catholics and Chalcedonian Eastern Orthodox shared—and still share—a Roman imperial background and perspective. They have been impacted by the religious settlement initiated by Constantine in the fourth century, not always in the same way, but still in ways that distinguish them not only from the pre-Ephesine church of the East and the Oriental Orthodox churches but also from many Christian groups that have arisen in the wake of the Protestant Reformation (for example, those of the Anabaptist and Free Church traditions as distinct from the Anglican, Lutheran and Reformed state churches of northern Europe). They share an imperial ecclesiology. Their Roman experience has affected relationships, whether cozy or antagonistic, with the civil authority and with the wider culture. This experience also has affected their conceptions of church order. Until quite recently these churches have tended to insist on the principle of territoriality even in circumstances when its strict application becomes inconvenient or unenforceable. Whether among Protestants or even Catholics, insistence on this principle has been circumscribed in various ways over the past century. Among the Orthodox, however, disagreement over the significance and application of this principle lies at the heart of current debate over “canonical territory.” Before turning to this subject, it may be useful to consider the etymology and original meaning of the word “canon.” We often think of a canon as a piece of ecclesiastical legislation, something laid down by the competent legislator for the proper organization and governance of the church as an institution. Its original meaning was much richer. The Greek word kanon referred to the plumb line used by masons and builders, a tool for determining true vertical. By extension it referred to a basic rule or principle, something that was to be found, not made. The word thus comes to be used with reference to the rule of faith, i.e., the creed. It also was used with reference to behavior: “Peace and grace be upon all who walk by this kanon, the Israel of God” (Gal. 6:16). Finally, the word was used with reference to a rule or principle of church order. Some of the earliest texts that we call “canons” emanated from I Nicaea (325 AD)—the first ecumenical council. At the time they were not called canons at all, but rather decisions, horoi. Here is an example: If any presbyter has been advanced without examination, or if upon examination he has made confession of crime, and men acting in violation of the canon have laid

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As used here, the word canon does not mean that the fathers of Nicaea had before them an earlier piece of legislation on the subject of clerical behavior. The immediate reference is to the New Testament epistle to Titus: “Now the bishop, as God’s steward, must be blameless” (Titus 1:7). But even that is not a piece of legislation but simply the church’s age-old standard or rule. When considering a text of this sort, it is important to discern the kanon behind it. What values is it trying to uphold? What disvalues is it censuring? These general observations should be kept mind when we consider I Nicaea canon 8, which so often is cited in current inter-Orthodox debate, and the principle of territoriality expressed in its concluding words: “that there may not be two bishops in the city.” It is important, first of all, to keep in mind the historical context of the council. It was summoned by Constantine soon after he defeated his last rival to become sole Roman emperor. In his newly-acquired eastern half of the empire, the church was emerging from a period of intense persecution. Disputes had arisen not only over the doctrine of the Trinity (Arius and his theology) but also over reconciliation of the lapsed and related disciplinary matters. A rigorist schismatic group, the Novatianists, or “Pure Ones,” had already been in existence for many decades. At the time of the council, many of its leaders expressed full agreement with the church catholic on trinitarian dogma (the kanon tƝs pisteos of Nicaea). They also were vigorously opposed to Arius. They even agreed on Nicaea’s rules for calculating the date of Easter. This—in the eyes of the assembled bishops and the emperor—presented an opportunity. If the schism was not over dogma, over the faith itself, but over disciplinary issues, surely it would be appropriate to find a graceful way to receive the Novatianist clergy. Canon 8 recounts the council’s solution to this problem: If in villages or in cities, all of the ordained are found to be of these only [i.e., the socalled ‘Pure Ones’], let them remain in the clergy, and in the same rank in which they are found. But if they come over where there is a bishop or presbyter of the Catholic Church, it is manifest that the Bishop of the Church must have the bishop’s dignity; and he who was named bishop by those who are called Pure Ones shall have the rank of presbyter, unless it shall seem fit to the bishop to admit him to partake in the honor of the title. Or, if this should not be satisfactory, then shall the bishop provide for him a place as country bishop [chorepiscopos] or presbyter, in order that he may be evidently seen to be [a member] of the clergy, and that there may not be two bishops in the city.10

9 Canon 9, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers (see n. 4), 23. 10 Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers (see n. 4), 20. Concerning the provision earlier in this canon for an imposition of hands on the reconciled Novatianist clergy, see the judicious comments of Peter L’Huillier, The Church of the Ancient Councils: The Disciplinary Work

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This text tries to balance strictness and economy, akribeia and oikonomia, adherence to principle and prudent pastoral flexibility. The immediate pastoral purpose of the council fathers (and very likely of the emperor) was reconciliation of the Novatianists. To this end, the council fathers laid down detailed provisions for reception and integration of their clergy, lest there be any dispute or doubt about the legitimacy of their ministry. Then, in a brief concluding clause, they call attention—almost as an afterthought—to a principle that St Cyprian of Carthage and Cornelius of Rome had forcefully insisted upon when the Novatianist schism first arose in the mid-third century: In a city there can be but one ruling bishop. The council fathers of I Nicaea duly acknowledged this principle, this venerable kanon, but their immediate concern—putting an end to the Novatianist schism— gave them ample scope for displaying prudent flexibility. Might not the present situation in Ukraine call for the same kind of flexibility? As exponents of modern Eucharistic ecclesiology have emphasized, the principle of territoriality reflects a basic tenet of the Christian faith: that in Christ Jesus, “there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female” (Gal. 3:28). At the same time, it is important to consider what this principle meant in the actual life of the early church, at the time when the ancient canonical corpus was being formed. We need to consider certain basic words: the word “city,” for example, along with the related concepts of “place” and “local”; the word “bishop,” and with it the nature and exercise of authority in the church. We cannot speak of church structures and practices as “canonical” without taking into consideration how the meaning of such words has shifted over the centuries. For example, what does it mean to speak of “the bishop and his local church”? Today such phrases are used quite often in discussions of ecclesiology, but one wonders whether St. Ignatius and other early Christian sources would recognize what is meant by them. Orthodox Christians regularly use the term “local church” to refer to the ancient patriarchates and other autocephalous churches. Of these, one—the Russian Orthodox Church—stretches over eleven time zones. Such entities bear little resemblance to the face-to-face local churches of the ancient Mediterranean world. In antiquity the Roman Empire provided the template for the church’s evolving structures for communication and communion. This was a template that took for granted the preeminent role precisely of cities in the structuring of society— most of which were quite small by present-day standards. This was, in other words, a template that differed from that provided by our own (post-)modern society, with its sprawling megacities, or, for that matter, from many other societies that could be mentioned: warrior empires, seigneurial agrarian regimes, nomadic or transhumant cultures, long-term refugee camps. The template of the ancient of the First Four Ecumenical Councils (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1996), 59–60.

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Roman world did not begin by defining the outer limits or boundaries within which social controls would be exercised. Rather, it started with a number of urban centers, each with a keen sense of its own identity, whose effective force would be variously felt over a more or less extended hinterland. Cities (and churches) were defined less by their boundaries than by their reach, which could be felt in diverse ways and at varying distances. We should avoid projecting our later notions of patriarchates, i.e., neatly defined geographical entities, each possessing something analogous to the modern state’s internal and external sovereignty, onto the church of the Roman Empire, just as we should avoid projecting later notions of papal (or patriarchal) monarchy onto it. The church was an ordered communion of local churches, just as the empire itself was an ordered commonwealth of cities. These were bound together in multiple ways. Church historians most often have focused on conciliar and primatial structures and their evolution in late antiquity, but ties of a more informal nature were also important and should be kept in mind when discussing ecclesiology. Not only bishops and church personnel but also influential laypersons, monastics and even notable ascetics were linked through what we today would call social networking, lobbying activity, elite friendships, and client/patron relationships. Formal gatherings of bishops were not the only way that a sense of communion and community was fostered. Of local churches in the Roman world, some—depending on a variety of factors—possessed certain prerogatives, privileges, honors, rights and powers. But these presbeia—these prerogatives or privileges—were not uniform or held in equal measure. Terminology in texts of the period is quite fluid. Often, though not always, context can indicate what is meant. Sometimes presbeia may mean simply seniority or precedence, but in other cases it may mean the rights and prerogatives and privileges that go with seniority. Sometimes timƝ may mean “honor” as we often understand that word today: a mark of public recognition with few if any practical consequences. On the other hand, as Brian Daley has reminded us, “honor” in the ancient world can suggest “the grateful recognition not only of political goodness but of political service,” recognition normally expressed “through bestowal of office: an institutionalized position of public responsibility.”11 Honor in this sense was inseparable from responsibility and from recognized capacity for making authoritative decisions. This raises some questions. When canon 3 of I Constantinople accorded the bishop of Constantinople the “privileges of honor,” the presbeia tƝs timƝs, “after the bishop of Rome,” was it anticipating the major role that this see would play in the eastern part of the empire in later centuries? Or as recent scholars have argued, was this at the time simply a strategic move to bolster the prestige of the new Theodosian imperial

11 Daley, “Position and Patronage” (see n. 8), 531.

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house and its chosen place of residence—a canon that for now was toothless, with no legislative clout?12 If I Constantinople canon 3 was vague about the content of presbeia, that was not so with the council of Chalcedon. At critical points the council distinguished between the merely honorific on the one hand and specific rights relating to jurisdiction and practical influence on the other. When Emperor Marcian formally received the council’s definition of faith, he decided to honor the little city of Chalcedon with “the rank (presbeia) of a metropolis; but we wish to honor it only with the name (onomati monǀ […] timƝsantes), and the proper role of the metropolitan city of Nicomedia is to be preserved.”13 On the other hand, there was nothing merely honorific about the presbeia conferred on the throne of Constantinople by canon 28. The canon is very clear on this point: “the metropolitans—and they alone—of the dioceses of Pontus, Asia and Thrace, as well as the bishops of the aforementioned dioceses who are among the barbarians, are to be ordained by the aforementioned most holy throne of the most holy Church of Constantinople.”14 Canon 28 gave Constantinople certain clearly specified—and clearly delimited—rights with regard to ordinations—to which we shall return. Two other canons (9 and 17) gave Constantinople certain less clearly defined rights in matters of judicial appeal. According to canon 9, “if a bishop or cleric has something against the metropolitan of the province in question, let him appeal either to the exarch of the diocese or to the see of the imperial city of Constantinople.” Similarly, according to canon 17, “if someone has been wrongly treated by his metropolitan, let him make an appeal either to the exarch of the diocese or to the see of Constantinople.” Were these provisions meant to apply, like the jurisdictional details of canon 28, only to the three minor civil dioceses of Pontus, Asia and Thrace? Or were they intended to recognize Constantinople as an alternative court of appeal for a much wider geographic area?15 Posed in this way, these questions present a false dilemma. Already during the period between 381 and 451 AD, appellate cases were being heard in Constantinople that arose not only in the three minor civil dioceses but also elsewhere in the eastern part of the empire, most conspicuously in the diocese of Orient, whose “exarch” would eventually bear the title of patriarch of Antioch, and also 12 See Neil McLynn, “‘Two Romes, Beacons of the Whole World’: Canonizing Constantinople,” in Two Romes: Rome and Constantinople in Late Antiquity, ed. Lucy Grig and Gavin Kelly (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 345–363, here 353–355; followed by Pigott, Reading Councils Backward (see n. 1), 106–107. 13 As cited by Daley, “Position and Patronage” (see n. 8), 544. 14 For discussion of the text of canon 28 and the circumstances of its drafting, see L’Huillier, Church of the Ancient Councils (see n. 10), 267–296, whose translation is largely followed here and in my discussion of Chalcedon canons 9 and 17. 15 For discussion of this point, see L’Huillier, Church of the Ancient Councils (see n. 10), 231–236, 251–254.

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in Eastern Illyricum.16 It is important, however, to recognize why appeals and other inter-diocesan matters might be directed to Constantinople. Its location provided a convenient venue for appellate cases. Thanks to the frequent presence there of visiting eastern prelates, whether for a celebratory event or for otherwise unrelated ecclesiastical matters, an enlarged synod could easily be assembled to address judicial matters. The point here is that Constantinople’s rights in matters of appeal were distinguished from the see’s rights in matters relating to ordination, which were much more limited. As Chalcedon canon 28 clearly specified, “the metropolitans—and they alone—of the dioceses of Pontus, Asia and Thrace […] are to be ordained by the most holy throne of the most holy Church of Constantinople.” Similar distinctions were made with regard to the presbeia of other major sees. The Council of Sardica, for example, gave Rome specific but very wide rights in matters of appeal, but this did not mean that Rome enjoyed comparably wide rights in matters of ordination, which were limited to the suburbicarian provinces of Italy; and neither the canons of Sardica nor other canons of the period directly addressed the question of Rome’s wider role within the communion of the churches. Quite simply, at the time of Chalcedon the prerogatives of major sees were not uniform or evenly distributed, and the bases for these various prerogatives were not always clearly defined. The patriarchal system of later centuries had not yet fully emerged—and, a fortiori, the modern system of autocephalous churches. Even in the age of Justinian the meaning and practical significance of terms like presbeia remained fluid. While that emperor’s Novella 131 chapter 2 (“Concerning the precedence of patriarchs”) has been seen as “canonizing” a pentarchy of patriarchates, chapter 3 immediately goes on to the archbishop of Justiniana Prima, confirming his primatial authority over much of the Balkan peninsula as granted previously in Novella 11—autocephaly, one might even say today. Chapter 4 continues with the bishop of Carthage, whose authority within the African church would be hard to characterize at any time in antiquity, whether before or after reconquest from the Vandals in 533–534 AD.17 16 In 421 a rescript of Theodosius II (Codex Theodosianus 16.2.45) gave Constantinople appellate jurisdiction over Eastern Illyricum, which by that point was administratively part of the Eastern Empire. The purported rescript claiming to abrogate it is a later fabrication. 17 On Justinian’s policies with regard to ecclesiastical organization, see especially Markus, “Carthage – Justiniana Prima – Ravenna” (see n. 5). Although the 6th-century city of Justiniana Prima was abandoned around 615 AD, the ecclesiastical title and prerogatives of the archbishopric of Justiniana Prima enjoyed a long afterlife, stretching through the Byzantine period well into the Ottoman period until suppression of its autocephalous status in 1767. For one segment of this afterlife, see Eleanora Naxidou, “An Aspect of the Medieval History of the Archbishopric of Ohrid: Its Connection with Justiniana Prima,” Byzantinoslavica 64, no. 1 (2006), 153–168. For another, see Tom Papademetriou, Render unto the Sultan: Power, Authority, and the Greek Orthodox Church in the Early Ottoman Centuries (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015), 130–132, 217–219 and passim.

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In Chalcedon canon 28, what is the meaning and application of the phrase “bishops of the aforementioned dioceses who are among the barbarians”? This is perhaps the most divisive question being raised in inter-Orthodox debate today. It is quite clear, first of all, that this did not mean unlimited authority over bishops among the barbarians whoever and/or wherever they may be—over all the “diaspora” we might say today. It did not mean authority over regions of the upper Nile, which not only were adjacent to Egypt but also derived their earliest ecclesiastical structure from there, nor did it mean authority over regions to the east of the civil diocese of Orient, where similar considerations apply. In addition, given the concern for consistency with earlier canons evident elsewhere in canon 28, it is unlikely that the council tried to modify the provisions of canon 2 of I Constantinople, which had stated that “the churches of God among the barbarian peoples [en tois barbarikois ethnesi] are to be governed according to the custom which has prevailed from the time of the Fathers.”18 Still more can be said about this phrase from Chalcedon canon 28. It is inserted, rather awkwardly, into provisions otherwise dealing with ordination of metropolitans and their provincial suffragan bishops in Pontus, Asia and Thrace— of metropolitans, and them alone, by Constantinople, but of their suffragans following the provisions for provincial ecclesiastical organization established in earlier canons (chiefly canons from the councils of I Nicaea and Antioch). The phrase clearly refers to bishops in some way related to “the aforementioned dioceses” but where the Roman political system, with its provincial organization, was not fully in force. As L’Huillier reminds us, “The borders of the empire were not conceived of as a fixed and immovable line.”19 In principle the empire was universal. Its effective frontiers were not. Sometimes Roman control extended into outlying regions. Sometimes it collapsed altogether. Either way, Christianity continued to spread, but not necessarily because of intentional activity on the part of a “missionary” or imperial sponsor. Merchants, chieftains, captives, slaves, ascetics and other unlikely agents also played a role, going back at least to the Gothic raids on Pontus and Cappadocia in the third century. If anything, the importance of this “mission from below” increased as the empire’s northern borders became increasingly porous after the Battle of Adrianople (378 AD). Whether on the distant fringes of imperial control or at the heart of the empire in New Rome itself, the presence of the barbarian Other offered new challenges but also new opportunities for mission and evangelization. Inevitably this involved boundary crossing, whether geographical, ethnic, linguistic, or cultural.20 That would be the case with St. John Chrysostom and his Gothic mission 18 Discipline Generale Antique (Codificazione canonica orientale, Fonti 9), ed. PericlesPierre Joannou (Grottaferrata: Tipografia Italo-Orientale “S. Nilo,” 1962), I.i.46–47. 19 L’Huillier, Church of the Ancient Councils (see n. 10), 279. 20 Of recent literature see Andrea Sterk, “Mission from Below: Captive Women and Conversion on the East Roman Frontiers,” Church History 79, no. 1 (2010), 1–39; Noel

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church in Constantinople. As the inserted phrase in canon 28 suggests, concern for culturally sensitive ministry after the model of the saint had not been forgotten at the time of the Council of Chalcedon.21 Historians—and church historians among them—are not oblivious to change, but generally speaking they prefer to describe this in terms of organic development or slow evolution. They prefer to trace out continuity in the institutions they study rather than identify discontinuities. As a result, they have difficulty recognizing disruptions so massive that they radically alter the physical and cultural landscape. This, I believe, has been the case for those who study the history and territorial organization of the Orthodox Church. They have difficulty addressing collective historical trauma—crushing defeats, deportations, holocausts, or even natural disasters. Coping mechanisms vary. Denial is one possibility; we struggle to forget what has been deeply painful or shameful. Another possibility is anger; we let old grievances become markers of our identity. One disruption in late antiquity deserves greater attention than generally is given to it: the arrival in the Roman Empire of bubonic plague (Yersinia pestis) in 541–542. The plague’s empire-wide spread, its amplifications and episodic recurrences would continue into the mid-8th century.22 Standard histories of late antiquity recount the empire’s near-collapse from the mid-6th century onward. Military pressures—Avar incursions to the north, wars with Persia in the east, and eventual Arab conquests across Africa and greater Syria—resulted in major displacements of populations. But this was a period not just of displacement but of depopulation. The plague struck both urban and rural populations, from Constantinople (which during the first outbreak alone lost perhaps half its pre-plague Lenski, “Captivity and Romano-Barbarian Interchange,” in Romans, Barbarians, and the Transformation of the Roman World: Cultural Interaction and the Creation of Identity in Late Antiquity, ed. Ralph W. Mathisen and Danuta Shanzer (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2011), 185–198; Jonathan Peter Stanfill, “John Chrysostom and the Rebirth of Antiochene Mission in Antiquity,” Church History 88, no. 4 (2019), 899–924; Andrew Fear, “Bishops, Imperialism and the Barbaricum,” in The Role of the Bishop in Late Antiquity: Conflict and Compromise, ed. Andrew Fear et al. (New York: Bloomsbury, 2013), 209–227; and Christopher Haas, “Mountain Constantines: The Christianization of Aksum and Iberia,” Journal of Late Antiquity 1, no. 1 (2008), 101–126. 21 See comments of Cyril Hovorun, “On Formation of Jurisdictional Limits of Eastern Churches in the 4–5th Centuries,” (2007), 7–10, https://www.academia.edu/1808175/ Jurisdictional_Limits_of_Eastern_Churches_in_4–5th_Centuries; and Maria Cesa, Impero tardantico e barbari: la crisi militare da Adrianopoli al 418 [Bibliotheca de Athenaeum, 23] (Como: Edizione New Press, 1994), especially 76–90 (on the Gothic community in Constantinople). 22 On the plague itself and on the related subject of climate change during the concurrent Little Ice Age of late antiquity, see Kyle Harper, The Fate of Rome: Climate, Disease, and the End of an Empire (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2017), especially 206– 245.

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population of half a million) to tiny hamlets of under a hundred inhabitants.23 Any prospect of rapid demographic and economic recovery was checked by repeated recurrences of the disease. Following its spectacular last explosion in Constantinople in 747, Emperor Constantine V had to resort yet again to forced migration in order to repopulate his devastated city.24 Displacement and depopulation were accompanied by deurbanization. This is reflected in episcopal subscription lists for church councils of the period. For III Constantinople (680–681 AD) and the Synod in Trullo (691–692 AD) practically none of the cities of central and western Greece, the Danube provinces and Illyricum are named. Although lists for Asia and Anatolia suggest that most sees still survived from earlier times, “archaeology shows that all, or nearly all, had been reduced to the condition of villages, or of fortresses.”25 Constantinople was now the city, the seat of both imperial and ecclesiastical authority. Subsequent cultural revivals in Constantinople’s medieval empire would not include revival of the conciliar and primatial structures that had characterized the early church. Elections of metropolitans come to take place in the synodos endƝmousa in Constantinople rather than in provincial councils, as had been prescribed in the relevant ancient canons. No doubt this was convenient, given that metropolitans spent so much of their time in the imperial capital. Convenient also was the increasingly common practice of electing and ordaining even bishops in the imperial capital.26 Changes such as these effectively eliminated conciliarity at the local level and significantly diminished it at the provincial level. The canons remained largely unchanged, a reminder of an earlier ecclesiology, but their interpretation and application did not. The earlier meaning of some words (e.g., “exarch”) completely changes.27 New institutions appear—for example, the stavropegial monastery, i.e., a monastery directly under the jurisdiction of the patriarch and thus not subject to the local bishop. Along the way, the operative model or image of the church changes. In the ante-Nicene period (here we idealize!) the church was envisioned as a circle, with the bishop in the midst of his local church and other ministers relating to him and to each other in the unity of Eucharistic celebration. In the post-Nicene period, it was envisioned as a polycentric communion of Eucharistic communities linked through conciliar and primatial structures reflective of the political organization of the Roman Empire. In the Byzantine period, the church comes to be envisioned as a vast pyramidal 23 For Constantinople and the Bavarian village of Aschheim respectively, Harper, Fate of Rome (see n. 22), 226, 230. 24 Ibid., 243. On forced resettlement of prisoners and other populations throughout this period, see J.H.W.G. Liebeschuetz, The Decline and Fall of the Roman City (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 288–293 and literature cited there. 25 Ibid., 292. 26 For a convenient summary of these developments, see J.M. Hussey, The Orthodox Church in the Byzantine Empire (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), 326. 27 L’Huillier, Church of the Ancient Councils (see n. 10), 231–235 and nn. 295, 304, 308.

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structure, with the patriarch and his substantial bureaucracy at its apex. In short, in its institutional expressions the Byzantine church comes to be very similar to its counterpart in the medieval west, the Roman papacy—something that was recognized at the time by distinguished churchmen on both sides.28 Viewed from our own present, of course, it is easy to overlook how much alike the Byzantine and Roman churches were in the Middle Ages. We have grown accustomed to placing them in opposition through most of their history. We forget how much contemporaries have in common, even when they quarrel. For several centuries, despite adverse changes in circumstances, RomanByzantine imperial ideology remained largely intact, and with it the sense of belonging to a single Christian commonwealth. But this began to change in the wake of the 1204 Latin conquest of Constantinople. The 13th century saw the establishment of a new autocephalous church in the Balkans, the Serbian archbishopric of Peü (1219), and the reestablishment of another, the Bulgarian patriarchate of Trnovo (1235). Both came into existence through bilateral treaties between the emerging Serbian and Bulgarian kingdoms and the Greek rump empire of Nicaea. Autocephaly was on its way to becoming an expression of national and political independence, “the status symbol of a new ‘Christian nation’,” as Alexander Schmemann put it.29 Whereas autocephaly formerly had meant independence on a purely ecclesiastical level, now it was related to political independence. Also evident in this period is an incipient sense of ethnic identity. This is most conspicuous among the Balkan Slavs. For example, the bishops ordained by St. Sava for his newly autocephalous church were Serbs as distinct from Greeks, and in places where there was a Greek incumbent, he was ousted. A similar shift in sense of identity can be seen in some Greek circles. Intellectuals at the court of Nicaea praised classical letters and art and even began to use the word Hellene—Greek— in a positive sense. (Hitherto it had meant pagan as opposed to Christian.) At the same time, a new sense of (Orthodox) universalism can be detected. Old symbols of unity and order—the emperor and his once-universal empire, the pentarchy of patriarchs—were fading in significance. Taking their place on the institutional level was the patriarch of Constantinople, who effectively replaced the emperor as symbol of the unity of the Orthodox Christian world. Taking their 28 On similarities between Rome and Constantinople in this period see Dimiter Angelov, “The Donation of Constantine and the Church in Late Byzantium,” in Church and Society in Late Byzantium, ed. Dimiter Angelov (Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, 2009), 91–159, esp.105–143. Among other things, Angelov discusses canonist Theodore Balsamon’s use of the Donation of Constantine to boost the authority of the chartophylax and other high officials of the patriarchal court, whom he regarded as equals to the cardinals of the papal court. 29 Alexander Schmemann, Church, World, Mission (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1979), 85–116, on 98. For more on developments during this period, see John H. Erickson, “Autocephaly in Orthodox Canonical Literature to the Thirteenth Century,” St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 15 (1971), 28–41, 34–40.

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place on the spiritual and ideological level was what some modern scholars have referred to as “political hesychasm” or the “hesychast international,” so-called because many exponents of hesychast spirituality also advanced a social, cultural and political program that profoundly affected the entire Orthodox world. These agents of institutional and cultural continuity would provide a measure of leadership, stability and unity during the centuries of Ottoman domination that followed. In this Byzance après Byzance, shared religion, now reinforced by marginalization, continued to unite Orthodox Christians, trumping—at least for a time— whatever power ethnicity, language and similar factors might have had to divide them.30 Nationalism, replete with romantic myths about national origins, language and character, would emerge as a significant factor in Orthodox church life only in the late 18th and 19th century—and with nationalism, the modern autocephalous church. The first stirrings of this modern nationalism in the Balkans can be felt among educators and other intelligentsia, who promoted the study of national language, history and culture. But as Paschalis Kitromilides observes: Nationalism became a real, as opposed to a theoretical problem for Orthodoxy once the peoples of the Balkans rose up in arms against Ottoman rule in the early nineteenth century. The protracted revolts in the Balkans […] provided the crucible for the transformation of the Orthodox religious communities of the Balkans into modern nations. Part of the transformation involved the radical reshaping of local ecclesiastical communities from branches of ecumenical Orthodoxy into components of new nations.31

If revolts were the crucible for this transformation, the new nation states themselves were largely responsible for forging it through mass media, educational programs, the modernization of the military and other state institutions.32 But was 30 On Nicolae Iorga’s, Byzance après Byzance: Continuation de l’Histoire de la vie byzantine (Bucharest: Institut d’études byzantines, 1935), see the recent bibliographical study by Ovidiu Olar, “Byzance après Byzance: Nicolae Iorga’s Paradigm,” Mapping Eastern Europe, July 13, 2021, https://mappingeasterneurope.princeton.edu/item/byzance-apresbyzance-nicolae-iorgas-paradigm. 31 Paschalis Kitromilides, “The Legacy of the French Revolution: Orthodoxy and Nationalism,” in The Cambridge History of Christianity, ed. Michael Angold, vol. 5: Eastern Christianity (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 229–249, on 229. 32 See, among others, Victor Roudometof, “From Rum Millet to Greek Nation: Enlightenment, Secularization, and National Identity in Ottoman Balkan Society, 1453–1821,” Journal of Modern Greek Studies 16 (1998), 11–48; and Paschalis M. Kitromilides, “‘Imagined Communities’ and the Origins of the National Question in the Balkans,” Eastern European Quarterly 19 (1989), 149–192. For discussion of Orthodoxy and national identity today, in this case Greek, see Victor Roudometof, “Greek Orthodoxy, Territoriality, and Globality: Religious Responses and Institutional Disputes,” Sociology of Religion 69 (2008), 67–91, https://doi.org/10.1093/socrel/69.1.67.

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this process inevitable, determined by the conditions of modernity and its accompanying secularism? In the closing decades of the 19th century, the obsolescence of the multi-ethnic, multi-confessional empires of the Ottomans, Hapsburgs and Romanovs was by no means self-evident whether to their conservative governments, their cultural and economic elites, their general populations, or indeed to outside observers. While assassinations and terrorist attacks were already part of their present, only the rare few could have predicted the wars, genocides, concentration camps, and ethnic cleansings of the 20th century. Recent scholarship, drawing on a wide range of hitherto inaccessible archival sources, has drawn attention to efforts during this period, particularly on the part of Russia, to defuse western-inspired nationalism by providing a supranational alternative putatively more in keeping with the traditional religious and cultural values of the Balkans and Near East.33 More concretely, for Russia this meant support for the patriarchate of Constantinople and other expressions of pan-Orthodox cooperation even when self-interest might point in other directions. Wellplaced Russian churchmen, scholars, diplomats and public intellectuals of NeoByzantine orientation regularly pleaded the patriarchate’s cause, assuring cultural collaboration and generous, but carefully calibrated, financial support. In addition, the steady flow of pilgrims rich and poor, whether to the Holy Land or to Mount Athos or to Russia’s own newly-discovered sacred sites in Crimea, helped build a sense of Orthodox familial identity that crossed lines of ethnicity, language, education, and social status.34 Meanwhile the patriarchate of Constantinople was burnishing its own claims to historical continuity and authority. Readers of popularizing works on Orthodox church history will be familiar with discussion of the millet system and the place of the Patriarch of Constantinople within it during Ottoman times. For a long time, the widely accepted view was that “the Ottoman Empire integrated non-Muslim populations by bestowing their spiritual leaders,” such as the patriarch of Constantinople, “with fiscal and administrative jurisdiction, while at the same time facilitating the exercise of religious functions.”35 Fewer readers will be 33 Denis Vovchenko, Containing Balkan Nationalism: Imperial Russia & Ottoman Christians, 1856–1914 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016), 4–6, 12–13, 67–69, 132– 143, 188–190, 218–225 and passim; and Lora Gerd, Russian Policy in the Orthodox East: The Patriarchate of Constantinople (1878–1914), (Warsaw/Berlin: De Gruyter Open, 2014), especially 30–39. 34 Mara Kozelsky, Christianizing Crimea: Shaping Sacred Space in the Russian Empire and Beyond (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2010), passim; and more recently Mara Kozelsky, “Religion and the Crisis in Ukraine,” International Journal for the Study of the Christian Church 14, no. 3 (2014), 219–241, https://doi.org/10.1080/1474225X. 2014.957635. 35 Antonis Hadjikyriacou, “Beyond the Millet Debate: Communal Representation in PreTanzimat-Era Cyprus,” in Political Thought and Practice in the Ottoman Empire, ed. Marinos Sariyannis (Rethymno: Crete University Press, 2019), 71–96, on 72.

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familiar with Benjamin Braude’s ground-breaking 1982 study of “Foundation Myths of the Millet System” and the extensive scholarly debate that it provoked,36 but most scholars today would accept the basic lines of Braude’s argument. They would agree with conclusions reached by Antonis Hadjikyriacou in a recent article summing up the millet debate: Whatever the millet system may have been, it is overrated. At most, if it functioned as anything resembling a centralized and institutionalized system, it did so from the second half of the nineteenth century onward […] Projecting the mid-nineteenth century experience […] back to an immemorial past was a legitimation tool that claimed historical depth, institutional status, and the legal weight of custom and tradition. The historical record, however, does not back these claims.37

The Orthodox leadership in Constantinople excelled at projecting 19th-century aspirations onto the past, though of course they were not the only ones doing it. This is evident from the abundance of material artifacts of this period—from the grandiose Great School of the Nation in Constantinople to paintings, posters, postcards and other ephemera—that celebrate Patriarch Gennadios Scholarios and his (mythic) meeting with Mehmed the Conqueror in 1453.38 Depictions of this meeting and allusions to it served several purposes. Against the irredentist rhetoric and ethnocultural claims emanating from Athens, they proclaimed the unbroken continuity of the Greek cultural heritage in Constantinople even as Byzantine imperial rule ceded to Ottoman. Against the various centrifugal ethnic and nationalist movements of the day, they witnessed to the loyalty of nation and church to the Ottoman Empire. Against growing secular pressures, whether from state threats

36 Benjamin Braude, “Foundation Myths of the Millet System,” in Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Empire: The Functioning of a Plural Society, ed. Benjamin Braude et al. (New York and London: Holmes & Meier, 1982), 1, 69–88; and Hadjikyriacou, “Beyond the Millet Debate” (see n. 35), 71–73, nn. 1–5. Also useful for the early Ottoman context is Elizabeth A. Zachariadou, “The Great Church in Captivity: 1453–1586,” in The Cambridge History of Christianity, ed. Michael Angold, vol. 5: Eastern Christianity (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 169–186, esp. 172–173; and for later periods, Paraskevas Konortas, “From Ta’ife to Millet: Ottoman Terms for the Ottoman Greek Orthodox Community,” in Ottoman Greeks in the Age of Nationalism: Politics, Economy, and Society in the Nineteenth Century, ed. Dimitri Gondicas et al. (Princeton, NJ: The Darwin Press, 1999), 169–179. 37 Hadjikyriacou, “Beyond the Millet Debate” (see n. 35), 95. 38 For assessment of the literary sources relating to this mythical meeting see Braude, “Foundation Myths” (see n. 36), 77–79. For further on the nature and purpose of these mid-19th century artifacts see Vovchenko, Containing Balkan Nationalism (see n. 33), 236–237. For the wider cultural and geopolitical context of these developments see Dimitris Stamatopoulos, “Ecumenical Ideology in the Orthodox Millet (19th–20th Century),” in Economy and Society on Both Shores of the Aegean, ed. Lorans Tanatar Baruh et al. (Athens: Alpha Bank Historical Archives, 2010), 201–247, esp. 209–213.

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to the church’s privileges or from lay elements within the community, they attested to the importance of the church’s traditional hierarchical structures. But the story-line presented through these artifacts surely underplays the disruption that accompanied the fall of Constantinople in 1453. It ignores the degraded position of patriarchs during the first centuries of Ottoman rule, when they seldom enjoyed long, uninterrupted tenures and in effect served as tax-farmers for the sultan.39 For both individuals and institutions, the transition to Ottoman rule may have been more traumatic than the mid-19th-century narratives suggest. For the Patriarchate of Constantinople, the last decades of the 19th century were also a period of diminishing resources. Issuance of a tomos of autocephaly to a new daughter church typically included some financial compensation in return, but this did not make up for loss of a fixed income. Subsidies from Russia were welcome, but generally there were strings attached. Growing dependence on subsidies from Greece could compromise the patriarchate’s traditional ecumenical role within the Ottoman Empire and beyond. Handouts from rich bankers could create pastoral problems within the wider community. One untapped resource remained: the Greek colonies abroad, a far-flung diaspora in the sociological sense of the word, whose homelands real or imagined lay within the Ottoman Empire when it was at its height. But that empire no longer ruled Greece and many other homelands. Now that empire was widely vilified. This could create problems for the patriarchate and its patrons, who benefited in various ways from their position within the empire. Further complicating matters was energetic Russian mission activity among the autochthonous populations of the Russian Empire and beyond, including China, Japan, Korea and North America. These issues were on the minds of churchmen both in Constantinople and in Greece during the closing decades of the 19th century and the opening decades of the 20th. Along the way, the referent of “diaspora” shifts, from people dispersed from their place of origin (their “homeland”) whether as colonizers or as refugees or what have you, to the place (“foreign land”) where they now lived, in the midst of alien peoples, trying to fashion a home away from home. A new round of Balkan wars, the coming of World War I and revolutions in Russia revealed the fragility of the imperial present and fostered plans and visions for the future that ranged from the apocalyptic to the merely ambitious. Relentless Communist persecution of the Russian Orthodox Church nearly liquidated it, bringing an end to its once-enormous influence in the Orthodox world. Meanwhile the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the disastrous failure of the Greek Megali Idea in Asia Minor, and the resultant exchange of Greek and Turkish populations in 1923 left patriarchs of Constantinople with a greatly diminished flock in the new Turkish republic. Perhaps as a consequence, they became more inclined than ever to emphasize their wider authority within world Orthodoxy. 39 Papademetriou, Render unto the Sultan (see n.17), 215–217 and passim.

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In the wake of World War I, redrawn political boundaries in Eastern Europe transformed the old multi-ethnic empires into a collection of new nation-states. Nearly four million Orthodox Christians who hitherto had been Russian subjects found themselves within the new Polish republic. Under pressure from the Polish government, a reluctant hierarchy petitioned the patriarchate of Constantinople for autocephaly, which was quickly granted. A similar process led to autonomy for the Orthodox churches in Finland, Estonia and Czechoslovakia. But in the wake of World War II, after the Soviet government at long last allowed the Russian Orthodox Church to reorganize, that church was quick to respond to what it regarded as Constantinople’s unwarranted claims and actions. It reasserted its own jurisdiction over Estonia, which by that point had been re-annexed to the Soviet Union; took a dominant role in Czechoslovakia (by declaring it autocephalous) and in Poland (by redeclaring it autocephalous); and convoked a pan-Orthodox council in Moscow to mark the five-hundredth anniversary of its own (self-declared) autocephaly. During the Cold War, relations between Orthodox churches of the Soviet bloc and Orthodox churches of the “free world” reflected global political tensions, but as open hostility gave way to peaceful coexistence and then to détente, relations improved. Opportunities for contact increased, especially after the Orthodox churches of the Soviet bloc joined the World Council of Churches in 1961. In the same year, Patriarch Athenagoras of Constantinople initiated a series of pan-Orthodox conferences to prepare the way for a Great and Holy Council of the Orthodox Church. The conferences were greeted with enthusiasm, but progress could be described as glacial. In 1971 an Inter-Orthodox Preparatory Commission met for the first time and published draft documents on six topics, but the death of Patriarch Athenagoras in the following year left the entire council project in limbo. Thereafter, informal inter-Orthodox meetings concluded that if a council was to proceed, massive revision of the agenda was needed. The proposed topics did not correspond to the real needs of the church; the draft reports on them were little more than academic exercises; surely such issues as autocephaly, autonomy and the status of churches in the diaspora were more in need of consideration. In the background, of course, was controversy over the Orthodox Church in America (OCA), which had been granted autocephaly by the Russian Orthodox Church in 1970. The First Pan-Orthodox Preconciliar Conference at last met in 1976 and issued a revised agenda that included the topics in question. Thereafter the InterOrthodox Preparatory Commission began working away. It set aside those sensitive topics until last, hoping that the churches’ experience of working together on simpler issues would make agreement on more difficult issues easier to achieve. That proved not to be the case. In the late 1980s and 1990s, enormous changes were taking place in world Orthodoxy, especially in Russia and Eastern Europe. With the collapse of communism, the churches there gained new freedom

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and opportunities for growth, but this did not lead to a higher level of interOrthodox cooperation on a global level. Preparatory work for a council continued, but with diminished vigor. In 1990 and 1993, meetings of the Inter-Orthodox Preparatory Commission addressed two closely interrelated topics, the “diaspora” and autocephaly, and also touched on autonomy. Its point of departure was background reports from the churches, which by then were already over ten years old. In them three main lines of thinking can be discerned:40 1) The report of the Romanian Orthodox Church argued that each autocephalous mother church has the right to govern its own national “diaspora.” It also acknowledged that churches formed as a result of missionary activity constitute a special case, “since they belong to a different nationality than the members of the missionizing church.” In such cases, autocephaly may be envisioned. 2) Reports of the churches of Greek heritage (Alexandria, Constantinople, Greece) appealed to I Constantinople canon 3 and above all to Chalcedon canon 28. Because of its presbeia tƝs timƝs, Constantinople and only Constantinople has the right to exercise jurisdiction outside its territorial boundaries, in all geographical areas that lie outside the boundaries of the other duly established and universally recognized autocephalous churches. According to this interpretation of Chalcedon canon 28, Constantinople has jurisdiction not only over Pontus, Asia and Thrace but also the right to consecrate bishops “among the barbarians”—i.e., in the “diaspora.” As for autocephaly, only a council of ecumenical standing (such as a Great and Holy Council) can definitively establish an autocephalous church, with any interim arrangements depending on approbation by Constantinople acting in its capacity as the ultimate “mother church.” 3) The report of Russian Orthodox Church (and also the shorter report of Antioch) took a more pragmatic approach. Like the Romanian report, it rejected the Greek interpretation of Chalcedon canon 28 and I Constantinople canon 3 on historical grounds. Modern situations are quite different, it continues. Each should be considered on its own terms. But whether born of mission or of immigration, churches of the diaspora “must gradually receive the opportunity to grow into new local churches and to receive autocephaly (or initially autonomy) from their own mother churches.” In America, the multiplicity of jurisdictions is the result in part of mission, in part of immigration. Of several conceivable solutions, the best possible—the report concludes—would be for Constantinople to grant autocephaly to its Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of 40 Summarized from Abp. Paul/Paavali (Olmari), “Suggestions for Solutions to the Problem of the Diaspora,” St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 23 (1979), 186–204.

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America just as Moscow did in the case of the OCA, so also for the other churches to grant autocephaly to their “jurisdictions,” and for these then to merge as a single church. As for the proclamation of autocephaly, any autocephalous Orthodox church has the right to grant autocephaly—the right of full self-rule, including election of its head—to a dependency provided that conditions necessary for independent church life are present (e.g., an adequate number of bishops). How can the positions represented in these reports be reconciled? That was the question facing the Inter-Orthodox Preparatory Commission in 1990 and again in 1993. The commission, in effect, decided not to attempt to reconcile the divergent interpretations of the historical record evident in the background reports and instead chose to develop specific proposals for the future. One result was a draft text on the “diaspora,” which—after a long hiatus—was reviewed and approved for implementation by the Fourth Pan-Orthodox Preconciliar Conference (Chambésy 2009) and eventually adopted by the Holy and Great Council of Crete (2016).41 After a similarly convoluted process, a text on “Autonomy and the Means by Which it is Proclaimed” was also approved at the council.42 The draft text on autocephaly fared less well, however. Eventually it was dropped from the agenda, with no conciliar agreement on the subject. Soon after the Holy and Great Council, one of the most respected theologians of our day, Metropolitan Kallistos (Ware), was asked whether it was a success. He quipped that “it was a success because it took place.”43 It took place at last— after so many decades of planning and preparation. But the council was hardly an unqualified success. At the last minute, four churches—the Patriarchate of Antioch, the Church of Georgia, the Bulgarian Orthodox Church and the Russian Orthodox Church—decided not to send delegates. The council took place, but it was as much a testimony to the disunity of the Orthodox church as to its unity. The sequel to the council—the Ecumenical Patriarch’s bestowal of a tomos of autocephaly on the newly minted Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU)—simply made this disunity more conspicuous. The resultant schism between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Patriarchate of Constantinople will not be healed without honest and constructive engagement with the past. This may be painful, but perhaps it will also be invigorating. The churches have been beguiled too long by nostalgia—nostalgia for the vanished empires and imperial structures that once sheltered them but that 41 This text along with its supplementary “Rules of Operation of Episcopal Assemblies in the Orthodox Diaspora” is widely available online, most conveniently at https://www.holy council.org/-/diaspora. 42 Online at https://www.holycouncil.org/-/autonomy. 43 Metropolitan Kallistos, “Reflections on the Holy and Great Council 2016,” interview in Synodality: A Forgotten and Misapprehended Vision, ed. Bp. Maxim Vasiljeviü et al. (Alhambra, CA: Sebastian Press, 2017), 125–132, on 125.

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also stifled their capacity for adaptation and limited their field of vision. Now they are invited to imagine a post-imperial church. What will be its “shape”? Helpful, to begin with, would be greater opportunity for encounter, for sharing stories, for mutual discovery, and possibly for finding common ground. One possible venue may be the Synaxis of Primates, a new institution in the life of the church introduced by Patriarch Bartholomew soon after his election to the see of Constantinople. As Fr. Cyril Hovorun has suggested, this new institution may be a more reliable and effective manifestation of conciliarity for our day than a Holy and Great Council, but as he also points out, enthusiasm for the Synaxis of Primates is simply one of several recent trends towards hierarchization of conciliarity, another being the tendency across church lines to diminish or eliminate councils that include wider participation of clergy and laity.44 At this point conciliarity at “lower” levels of church life, including a wider range of participants, might be a better way of sharing real stories rather than self-serving myths, real memories rather than official positions. In any case, the current storm over the autocephaly of the OCU, like that over the autocephaly of the OCA a half century earlier, has revealed the limitations of the imperial ecclesiology that the churches depended on for so many centuries. We are challenged to be church in a new and radically different context, recognizing our own temporality while trusting in the Lord’s promise to be with us always, even unto the close of the age (Mt. 28:20).

44 Cyril Hovorun, “Conciliarity and the Holy and Great Council,” in Synodality: A Forgotten and Misapprehended Vision, ed. Bp. Maxim Vasiljeviü et al. (Alhambra CA: Sebastian Press, 2017), 81–98, esp. 96–97.

The Patriarchal and Synodal Act of 1686 in Historiographical Perspective Vera Tchentsova

The “Omnipresence of the Past” in Present Church Affairs Political issues have always influenced the perception of Church history. However, their interplay is reaching an unusual level of exacerbation in the ongoing historical discussion over the ecclesiastical status of the Metropolitanate of Kyiv (MK). That historical debate underlies the present crisis in the relations between the Patriarchate of Moscow (MP) and the Patriarchate of Constantinople (CP). The crisis peaked with the October 11, 2018 cancellation by CP of the patriarchal and synodal act of 1686 traditionally considered an authorization to subsume the MK into the MP, approving a return to a united “Church of Rus’” (a situation which prevailed in the first centuries following the conversion of Grand Prince Vladimir). According to the act signed in June 1686 by the Ecumenical Patriarch Dionysius IV and his synod, the Metropolitans of Kyiv, while elected by the local council with the consent of Zaporizhian hetmans, were henceforth to receive their ordination in Moscow instead of Constantinople. However, the text of the decision stated that during liturgies at the Anaphora (the Great Eucharistic Prayer) the elected Metropolitans had to commemorate the Ecumenical Patriarch “among the first” (‫݋‬Ȟ ʌȡȫIJȠȚȢ, ɜɴ ɩɟɪɜɵɯɴ), while the Patriarch of Moscow was to be ranked in the second place.1 It reproduced the usual order of liturgical commemorations: the celebrant of the divine liturgy at the anaphora always starts the “diptychs of 1

“mnemoneuse en protois tou sevasmiou onómatos tou oikoumenikou patriárchou, hos ontos pegé kai arché kai hyperkeiménou pánton ton pantachou paroikion te kai eparchion, hépeita tou patriárchou Moschovias hos gérontos autou […]” / “ɞɨɫɩɨɦɢɧɚɟɬ ɜ ɩɟɪɜɵɯ ɩɪɟɱɟɫɬɧɨɟ ɢɦɹ ɜɫɟɥɟɧɫɤɨɝɨ ɩɚɬɪɢɚɪɯɚ, ɹɤɨ ɫɭɳɭ ɢɫɬɨɱɧɢɤɭ ɢ ɧɚɱɚɥɭ ɢ ɩɪɟɞɜɨɫɯɨɞɹɳɭ ɜɫɟɯ ɢɠɟ ɩɨɜɫɸɞɭ ɩɪɢɫɟɥɟɧɢɣ ɢ ɟɩɚɪɯɢɣ, ɩɨɬɨɦ ɩɚɬɪɢɚɪɯɚ Ɇɨɫɤɨɜɫɤɨɝɨ, ɹɤɨɠɟ ɫɬɚɪɟɣɲɚɝɨ ɫɜɨɟɝɨ […]” Editions of the Greek text and translation: Vera G. Tchentsova, “Sinodalnoe reshenie 1686 g. o Kievskoi mitropolii,” Drevniaia Rus. Voprosy medievistiki 2/68 (2017), 101, 103; The Ecumenical Throne and the Church of Ukraine. The Documents Speak (2018), https://www.goarch.org/documents/32058/ 4830467/The+Ecumenical+Throne+and+the+Church+of+Ukraine+%28ENGLISH%29.pdf; Vossoedinenie Kievskoi mitropolii s Russkoi pravoslavnoi Tserkoviu. 1676–1686 gg. Issledovaniia i documenty, ed. Ilarion, Mitropolit Volokolamskii (Moscow: Pravoslavnaia Entsiklopediia, 2019), 696, 700, 704, 731, 733, 736; Vera G. Tchentsova, Kievskaia mitropoliia mezhdu Konstantinopolem i Moskvoi, 1686 (Kyiv: Dukh i Litera, 2020), 394, 398– 399, 411, 419.

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the living” with the name of his immediate hierarchical superior, asking the Lord to remember him first of all. He thus explicitly shows his jurisdictional dependence and only then proceeds with the other commemorations symbolizing Eucharistic communion with all Orthodox Christians and Churches.2 The recent cancellation of the 1686 decision restored Constantinopolitan jurisdiction over the diocese of Kyiv and paved the way to the subsequent grant of autocephaly to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU), enacted by patriarchal Tomos on January 6, 2019. These events of paramount importance for contemporary Orthodoxy have led historians from various academic milieux to take sides, voluntarily or involuntarily, as their different interpretations both of the documents issued in 1686, and the political, diplomatic, and religious background of their redaction, have resulted in opposing discourses. Indeed, the canonical legitimacy of the recent CP decision to grant independent status to the MK, ending 333 years of Russian jurisdiction over it, rests on how one understands the 1686 documents and the canonical framework they were based upon. The scholarly discussion that impacted public debate therefore focused on the texts of the synodal decisions transferring the right to ordain metropolitans to the chair of Kyiv that had canonically belonged to the Patriarch of Constantinople since the foundation of the see to the Patriarch of Moscow. The main point of contention lies in whether this redefinition of jurisdictional spheres was meant to be provisional or perennial. Did the synod of Constantinople intend to transfer the MK permanently under the authority of the MP—or was the right to consecrate metropolitans to the chair intended as a temporary measure granted “through oikonomia,” that is “under dispensation”, in reaction to a specific situation? Did the synod have the canonical authority to take such a decision— and, if so, is today’s “retrocession” to Constantinople canonically grounded after more than 300 years of Russian spiritual authority (be it the MP, or the post-1721 Most Holy Governing Synod, or the “new” MP from 1917)? Discussions around the 1686 acts became particularly acute in the last years (2018–2021). Passions ran so high that even academic circles found it difficult to address the topic analytically as a historical issue and not a political one. Some 2

Robert Francis Taft, S. J., A History of the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom. Vol. IV: The Diptychs (Roma: Pontificium Institutum Studiorum Orientalium, 1991), 11–12 // 17–21; Blasios I. Pheidás, He Synodiké Praxe tou Oikoumenikou Patriarcheiou (1686) kai he Autokephalía tes Ekklesias Oukranias (2018), http://www.apostolikidiakonia.gr/gr_main/ catehism/theologia_zoi/themata.asp?cat=hist&NF=1&main=texts&file=70.htm. On the Anaphora commemorations in the MK: Laurence Daniel Huculak, The Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom in the Kievan Metropolitan Province during the period of Union with Rome (1596–1839) [Analecta OSBM, series II, sectio 1] (Rome: PP. Basiliani, 1990), 319– 326; Daniel Galadza, “Autocephaly and the Diptychs: The Practice of Commemorating Bishops in Liturgical Texts,” in Autocéphalies. L’exercice de l’indépendance dans les Églises slaves orientales (IXe–XXIe siècle), ed. Marie-Hélène Blanchet, Frédéric Gabriel, Laurent Tatarenko (Rome: EFR, 2021), 81–110.

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scholars criticized the revocation by the CP of the 1686 act on the ground that it “cannot be erased from history,” stressing that it is impossible to return nowadays to a “canonical” Orthodoxy which prevailed in the 17th century.3 Others stressed the political necessity and even inevitability of such revision: the RussianUkrainian conflict that started in 2014 made it necessary to “withdraw Moscow’s jurisdiction over Ukraine granted in 1686” since the MP’s jurisdiction is seen as “one of the key tools of influence over Ukraine.”4 The divergent lines of reasoning all draw on specific interpretations of the documents of the 17th century, highlighting “the omnipresence of the past,” but political bias has had a clearly detrimental impact on the rigor of scholarly work.5 The crucial point lies in an appropriate understanding of the procedure of liturgical commemorations of patriarchs as set out in the documents of 1686. Addressing this point offers the opportunity to assess the evolving scholarly views on the transfer of the diocese of Kyiv from the 19th century up to the current political debate and to identify the scholarly rationale at play behind these divergent historical narratives.

Preliminary Remarks on the “Commemoration Problem” Only one Greek letter from the original set of documents brought to Moscow after the negotiations with the Eastern patriarchs in 1686 was published in 1826 in the Collection of State Letters and Treaties.6 This letter was addressed by Patriarch Dionysius IV to the young tsars Ivan and Peter and their sister, regent Sophia. Initially deposited in the Office of Ambassadors (Posolskii prikaz), it is now in the Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts (RGADA).7 In 1872, the Kyivan Archeographic Commission published 17th-century translations into Russian of 3

4 5

6 7

Thomas Bremer and Sophia Senyk, “The Current Ecclesial Situation in Ukraine: Critical Remarks,” St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 63, no. 1 (2019), 42; Nikolai Mitrokhin, “Strategy and Tactics of the Russian Orthodox Church towards Ukraine in the First Year of Volodomyr Zelensky’s Presidency,” Russian Analytical Digest 252 (2020), 11. Lucian N. Leustean and Vsevolod Samokhvalov, “The Ukrainian National Church, Religious Diplomacy, and the Conflict in Donbas,” Journal of Orthodox Christian Studies 2, no. 2 (2019), 209. Iannis Carras, “Moscow, Kyiv, Constantinople: what happens after the Ukrainian Church crisis?,” OpenDemocracy (2019), https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/odr/moscow-kyivconstantinople-what-happens-after-ukrainian-church-crisis/; Sebastian Rimestad, “Using History as a Weapon: Jurisdictional Conflicts in Diverse Orthodox Contexts,” in Coping with Change. Orthodox Christian Dynamics between Tradition, Innovation, and Realpolitik, ed. Sebastian Rimestad and Vasilios N. Makrides [Erfurter Studien zur Kulturgeschichte des Orthodoxen Christentums, 18] (Berlin: Peter Lang, 2020), 201–202. Sobranie gosudarstvennykh gramot i dogovorov 4 (Moscow: Tipografiia Selivanovskogo, 1826), 509–514. Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv drevnykh aktov (RGADA), f. 52, op. 2, n. 669.

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the synodal acts and other materials relating to the events of 1685–1686.8 They included translations of the patriarchal synodal act of 1686 and of the letter addressed to the Zaporizhian hetman Ivan Samoilovych on the issue of regulations for ordaining of metropolitans, and several accompanying documents (patriarchal and synodal letters addressed to the tsars and to the Patriarch of Moscow, and other letters of Patriarchs Dionysius IV and Dositheus of Jerusalem). Even before their 1872 publication, these document translations had already attracted attention of scholars. Russian historian Nikolai Ustrialov (1805–1870) noted both the Constantinople synod’s insistence on the mandatory commemoration of the Ecumenical Patriarch “among the first”9 and Patriarch Dositheus of Jerusalem’s reproof of the “annexation of the eparchy” belonging to the CP.10 His colleagues decried Ustrialov’s views as being “too critical” of the Russian Church (Ustrialov’s references to Patriarch Dositheus’ letters seemed almost as if he condemned the Muscovite government’s attempts to take over the administration of the diocese of Kyiv).11 The introduction to the 1872 publication of the 1685–1686 documents was entrusted to the young scholar Sergei Ternovskii (1848–1916), fresh from the Kyiv Theological Academy. Ternovskii did not doubt that, “due to the circumstances of the time,” Dionysius IV had given his complete consent to the incorporation of the diocese of Kyiv to the MP. However, he also pointed out that the transfer of the see was done with one “restriction”: the Metropolitans of Kyiv had to commemorate the “Eastern Patriarchs” before the Patriarch of Moscow.12 It is difficult to say if this understanding of the commemoration requirement was due to a simple error or if it reflected the scholar’s doubts about whether the 17th century Russian translators had correctly understood the Greek documents. Ternovskii probably knew that at the anaphora commemorations a minister had to refer to his immediate canonical authority before he proceeded to other commemorations. Thus, the scholar could have realized that it was impossible to enact a proper transfer of the eparchy under the authority of the Muscovite Patriarch while maintaining the previous hierarchy of commemorations for the Metropolitan of Kyiv, if he had to begin the anaphora commemorations with the name

8

Arkhiv Iugo-Zapadnoi Rossii (AIuZR), 1/5: Akty, otnosiashchiesia k delu o podchninenii Kievskoi mitroploii Moskovskomu patriarkhatu (1620–1694) (Kiev: Gubernskaia tipografiia, 1872). 9 Nikolai G. Ustrialov, Istoriia tsarstvovaniia Petra Velikogo 1 (St. Petersburg: Tip. II-go otdeleniia Sobstv. e. i. vel. Kantselarii, 1858), 150–151. 10 Ustrialov, Istoriia tsarstvovaniia (see n. 9), 291–292. 11 Mikhail I. Koialovich, Litovskaia tserkovnaia uniia 2 (St. Petersburg: Tip. N. Tichmeneva, 1861), 438. 12 Sergei A. Ternovskii, “Issledovanie o podchinenii Kievskoi mitropolii Moskovskomu patriarkhatu,” AIuZR 1/5 (see n. 8), 143.

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of the Patriarch of Constantinople.13 He could have supposed that the documents of 1686 actually referred to a different kind of commemoration: not the commemoration of the direct, “kyriarchal” (“dominating”) jurisdictional authority, but a reading of diptychs listing all Eastern patriarchs’ names. Indeed, in the very beginning of the Synodal reforms of Peter I the Eastern patriarchs were commemorated “among the first” in place of the Patriarch of Moscow.14 This shift allowed Ternovskii to overcome the paradox of a “full transfer” of jurisdiction over Kyiv to Moscow that would have maintained unadulterated the previous order of liturgical commemorations with Patriarchs of Constantinople “among the first.” However, we do not know if he was aware of his erroneous understanding of Constantinopolitan decisions of 1686. Ternovskii’s perception of the problem of commemorations influenced the subsequent narrative. Even so prominent a specialist of the Ukrainian Church past as Konstantin Kharlampovich shared Ternovskii’s interpretation of the commemorations of “all Eastern patriarchs” by the Metropolitans of Kyiv mentioned in the acts “readily given” by Dionysius IV in 1686 to the representative of the Muscovite government.15 Despite these hesitant interpretations of the commemorations problem, neither Ustrialov, nor Ternovskii, nor later historians, doubted the reality of the transfer of jurisdiction over Kyiv from CP to MP.

13 Priest Mikhail Zheltov notes that in Byzantine tradition a celebrating priest or bishop had to commemorate “among the first” his immediate canonical authority: in the 17th century, the Patriarch of Moscow commemorated “among the first” all Eastern patriarchs, while other ministers concelebrating with him had to commemorate his name in the first place. After Patriarch Nikon’s liturgical reform, all the patriarchs were commemorated during the church services, even by simple priests. However, it was always done starting with the name of the Patriarch of Moscow as he was the “immediate authority” in the diocese. Only after naming him was a celebrant to proceed with the names of the other patriarchs (according to the usual diptychs). All the efforts of codification of the rules conserved this general canonical regulation: commemoration “among the first” of the immediate authority in the diocese, then of the other hierarchs, symbolizing the unity of the Orthodox world: Mikhail Zheltov, “Formy pominoveniia tserkovnykh ierarkhov za Bozhestvennoi Liturgiei v russkoi i ukrainskoi traditsii,” Vossoedinenie (see n. 1), 885–891. 14 Aleksei A. Dmitrievskii, Ispravlenie knig pri patriarkhe Nikone i posleduiushchikh patriarkhakh (Moscow: Iazyki slavianskoi kultury, 2004), 121–123; Viktor M. Zhivov, Iz tserkovnoi istorii vremen Petra Velikogo: Issledovaniia i materialy (Moscow: Novoe Literaturnoe Obozrenie, 2004), 87–98; Zheltov, “Formy” (see n. 13), 892. After the church reform of Peter the Great, this practice changed (R. F. Taft calls it “abnormal” and “an uncanonical exception”), so that at the anaphora the Most Holy Governing Synod was commemorated “among the first” till 1917: Taft, A History of the Liturgy (see n. 2), 16, 20. 15 Konstantin V. Kharlampovich, Malorossiiskoe vliianie na velikorusskuiu tserkovnuiu zhizn 1 (Kazan: M. A. Golubev, 1914), 230.

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“Illegitimate,” “Uncanonical,” but Happened de facto Paradoxically, this opinion was shared also by 20th-century Ukrainian diaspora historians. The extremely unfavorable view of Ukrainian scholars and politicians on the events of 1686 stemmed from their rejection of the diocese transfer, which they considered to be a violation of church law by corrupt hierarchs. 16 However, despite this “moral stance,” their publications, as well as the studies produced by several contemporary Ukrainian and Western scholars, never expressed doubts that the incorporation of the see of Kyiv to the MP was grounded in a formal patriarchal and synodal decision.17 They were convinced that Dionysius IV agreed to the transfer of the diocese to the Patriarch of Moscow because of “direct Ottoman influence” as well as Muscovite “bribing,” “material support,” and “insistence.”18 Some of the scholars supposed that the Ecumenical Patriarch was 16 Oleksandr Lototskyi, Avtokefaliia. I. Zasady avtokefalii 1 (Warsaw: s.n., 1935), 44; Mitropolit Ilarion (Ohienko), Priiednannia tserkvy ukrainskoi do moskovskoi v 1686 rotsi 5 (Winnipeg: Mitropolitalnyi Sobor u Vinnipegu, 1948), 60–61; Idem, Ukrainska tserkva za chas ruiny (1657–1687) (Winnipeg: Ukrainske naukove Pravoslavne Bogoslovske Tovarystvo, 1956), 462–463; Ivan Vlasovskyi, Narys Istorii Ukrainskoi Pravoslavnoi Tserkvy, II: XVII st. (New York: David Brook, 1956; Reprint: Kyiv 1998); Natalia D. Polonska-Vasylenko, Istorychni pidvalyny U.A.P.Ts. (Rome 1964), vyd. 2 [Analecta OSBM, series II, 19], 75–77. 17 Zenon Kohut, “The Problem of Ukrainian Orthodox Church Autonomy in the Hetmanate (1654–1780s),” Harvard Ukrainian Studies 14, no. 3–4 (1990), 367; Olga Shevchenko, “Pro pidporiadkuvannia Kyivskoi mitropolii Moskovskomu patriarkhatu naprykintsi XVII st.,” Ukrainskyi Istorychnyi Zhurnal 1 (1994), 59–60; Mykhailo Kharyshyn, Istoriia podporiadkuvannia Ukrainskoi pravoslavnoi Tserkvy Moskovskomu patriarkhatu (Kyiv: Venturi, 1995), 144–151; Religion and Nation in Modern Ukraine ed. Frank E. Sysyn, Serhii Plokhy, (Edmonton, Toronto: Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies Press, 2003), 10, 31; Mykola V. Shkribliak, “Tserkovnyi Pereiaslav 1686 roku iak polityko-ideolohychna stratehiia rozshyrennia Moskovskogo patriarkhatu,” Naukovyi Visnyk Chernivetskoho universytetu 706–707 (Filosofiia) (2014), 222–223; Konstantinopolskyi patriarkhat v istorii Ukrainy: Mynule, chuchasne, maibutne. Zbirnyk dopovidei mizhnarodnoi naukovo-praktychnoi konferentsii (Kyiv: Kyivske Bohoiavlenske staropihiine bratstvo, 2017), 7, 44, 48, 50, 107, 109; Alfons Brüning, “Orthodox Autocephaly in Ukraine: The Historical Dimension,” in Churches in the Ukrainian Crisis, ed. Andrii Krawchuk and Thomas Bremer (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), 93; Bremer and Senyk, “The Current Ecclesial Situation” (see n. 3), 33–34. Cf. Vladimir Bureha, “Prisoedinenie Kievskoi Mitropolii k Moskovskomu Patriarkhatu: Kak eto bylo,” Bogoslov.ru, August 6, 2008. https://www.bogoslov.ru/text/315141.html. 18 Arsen Zinchenko, “… aki v razterzanii uma obretalisia mnogie (Ukrainske dukhivnytstvo i pidporiadkuvannia Moskvi Kyivskoi Mytropolii),” Kyivska Starovyna 5 (371) (2006), 25; Kharyshyn, Istoriia pidporiadkuvannia (see n. 17), 144–145; Bremer and Senyk, “The Current Ecclesial Situation” (see n. 3), 33. The first already in the 19th century to evoke the idea of the influence of the Ottoman administration on Dionysius’ decision to meet the wish of the tsars was S. Solovjev: Sergei M. Solovev, Sochineniia, VII: Istoriia Rossii s drevneishykh vremen (Reprint: Moscow: Mysl, 1991), 378.

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“well recompensed for his acquiescence”19; others believed that “the former head of the Kyivan metropolitanate, the Ecumenical Patriarch, was barely consulted”: the “circumstances forced him to give his belated consent to a fait accompli.”20 This short overview of historiography stresses that, whatever the “moral” or “nationalistic stance” of each scholar, a real consensus existed over the meaning of the synodal decisions of 1686. This common opinion has been questioned only recently, with various scholars stressing the differences between the canonical sense of the text and the practical application of its dispositions. However, the latest publications demonstrate that this reassessment has not been fully accepted by the academic milieu.21

Lourié’s Reconsiderations The first scholarly publication that stressed the importance of the provision concerning the necessity to commemorate the Ecumenical Patriarch “among the first” and its consequence for understanding of the 1686 synodal act saw light in 2009. In his paradigm-shifting book Russian Orthodoxy between Kyiv and Moscow, Basil Lourié tried to elucidate the evolution of the ancient Church of Rus, split in the 15th century between the metropolitanates of Kyiv and of Moscow. Addressing the question of the merging of Kyiv with the MP in 1686, Lourié questioned the traditional interpretation of the patriarchal and synodal acts of 1686 which established the canonical foundation of this fusion. His analysis of the liturgical commemorations led him to conclude that they foreclosed the option that a real transfer of jurisdiction could have occurred: the 1686 decisions only allowed for metropolitans elected in Kyiv to be ordained by the Muscovite patriarch. Since the Patriarch of Constantinople was still to be commemorated in Kyiv “among the first,” the superior “canonical authority” in the eparchy remained ultimately 19 Bremer and Senyk, “The Current Ecclesial Situation” (see n. 3), 33. 20 Brüning, “Orthodox Autocephaly in Ukraine” (see n. 17), 93. On the historiography of this period, see Nicholas Denysenko, “Explaining Ukrainian autocephaly: politics, history, ecclesiology, and the future,” Canadian Slavonic Papers 62, no. 3–4 (2020), 433–435. 21 Tensions relative to the jurisdiction over the see of Kyiv appeared in the political domain much earlier than in the academic one. They took place already during the visit to Kyiv in 2005 of Vsevolod (Maidanskyi), Archbishop of Skopelos (ruling hierarch of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the USA, CP jurisdiction), who expressed doubts in the validity of the 1686 decisions. These tensions led to a formal protest by the MP, but in 2008 both parties arrived at an agreement to postpone difficult questions in view of the future Pan-Orthodox Council and the prospect of overcoming the Ukrainian schism. See Vadim M. Lure, Russkoe pravoslavie mezhdu Kievom i Moskvoi (Moscow: Tri kvadrata, 2009, re-edition 2010), 185, 201–204; Prot. Vasilii Iakovchuk, “Vzaiemyny Ukrainskoi Pravoslavnoi Tserkvy z Konstantinopolskim Patriarkhatom 2006–2008 rr. u konteksti tserkovnoderzhavnykh vidnosyn,” Trudy Kyivskoi Dukhovnoi Akademii 33 (2020), 73–82.

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vested in Constantinople.22 As such, Dionysius IV only established the Patriarch of Moscow as his “deputy” in matters concerning the diocese of Kyiv.23 This revised interpretation, based on a renewed interest in the precise canonical stipulations of the Constantinopolitan documents of 1686, led Lourié to label the transfer of jurisdiction from CP to MP a “historical myth.”24 In his opinion, the Muscovite authorities annexed the diocese without any “legal” permission from the CP or other patriarchs.

Bureha’s Views Lourié’s interpretations roused harsh criticism from Volodymyr Bureha and Boris Floria in a draft version of a text on the events of 1686 intended for the entry “Western Russian metropolitanate” (that is the “see of Kyiv”) in the Orthodox Encyclopaedia. The scholars commented on the specific commemoration “among the first” required by the 1686 documents. They argued that this “privilege” of the Ecumenical Patriarchs could only have ecclesiological significance inside the borders of the Ottoman Empire and not beyond them. As such these requirements could have no impact on the de facto transfer of the see to the MP. They also criticized Lourié for attributing to Patriarch Dionysius IV the views of Patriarch Dositheus of Jerusalem, since only the latter expressed his reprobation of the transfer of the diocese under Muscovite jurisdiction. However, this text, prepared for one of the most important entries in the ambitious encyclopaedic project of the MP, never ultimately appeared. The published entry for “Metropolitan see of Kyiv” (2013) limited the interpretation of the disputed events of 1686 to a few minor remarks; the question of liturgical commemorations and other particularities of the synodal decisions of 1686 was omitted.25 22 Lure, Russkoe Pravoslavie (see n. 21), 173–233. 23 Ibid., 223–225. 24 Ibid., 223; Georgii Lure [sic! V. M. Lure], “Pravoslavnaia tserkovnaia iurisdiktsiia na territorii Ukrainy soglasno kanonicheski znachimym dokumentam,” Konstantinopolskyi patriarkhat v istorii Ukrainy (see n. 17), 62–68. For reception of Lourié’s views, see Oleksandr V. Soldatov, “Dva typy avtokefalii – pohliad iz Konstantinopolia (spivvidnoshennia praktyky nadannia avtokefalii z tradytsyinoi doktrynoi Pentarkhii u chusasnomu pravoslavii,” Konstantinopolskyi patriarkhat v istorii Ukrainy (see n. 17), 56–57; Maksym Iaremenko, Pered vyklykamy unifikatsii ta dystsyplynuvannia: Kyivska pravoslavna mytropoliia u XVIII stolitti [Kyivske Khristianstvo, 4] (Lviv: Vydavnytstvo UKU, 2017), 143–144. 25 Leonid V. Timoshenko, Boris N. Floria, “Kievskaia eparkhiia v 1596–1686 gg.,” in Pravoslavnaia Entsiklopediia, vol. 13 (Moscow: Pravoslavnaia Entsiklopediia, 2013), 172– 173; Oksana B. Prokopiuk, “Kievskaia eparkhiia v 1686–1786 gg. (na territorii Rossiiskogo gosudarstva),” ibid., 174. This omission was remarked upon with astonishment by Valerii Lastovskii, “Rosiiska ‘Pravoslavnaia Entsiklopediia’ iak zasib falsifikatsii

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Even before Lourié’s 2009 book, Bureha had published an article (2007) which also marked a significant step in the study of the 1686 events, even if it did not address the specific issue of liturgical commemorations.26 This pioneer study, even skipping this crucial problem foreseen by the documents of 1686, showed that the author was cautious regarding the consequences of the concession of the see of Kyiv to the MP. Commenting on the negotiations that took place in Adrianople and Constantinople, Bureha concluded that they led to an effective change of jurisdiction over the see of Kyiv, which entailed a confessional and cultural homogenization resulting in the disappearance of unique features of Ruthenian Christianity.27 Bureha stressed that the CP never questioned the validity of the 1686 act, even if it was sometimes called “uncanonical.” From his point of view, the “legitimate” and “canonical” dimension of a decision must be distinguished from its subsequent validity. General Church consensus over a given decision is more important. According to canon 17 of the Fourth Ecumenical Council, bishops may keep parishes under their jurisdiction if they have governed them for thirty years without any contestation of their spiritual governance. So, for Bureha, the definitive proof of the validity of the 1686 decision was not the contents of the 17thcentury documents (or the requisite commemoration), but the long governance of the MP, and later of the Synodal Russian Orthodox Church, over the territory of the see of Kyiv. It established a genuine tradition, forging tight bonds between Moscow and the local Orthodox flock.28 This tradition, in his opinion, justifies the merging of the diocese with the present MP.

istorychnoi informatsii,” in Pravoslavie v Ukraini. Zbirnyk za materialamy VII Mizhnarodnoi konferentsii 23 lystopada 2017 r., 2 (Kyiv: s.n., 2017), 371. The article about the diocese of Kyiv was also criticized for other misrepresentations: Iryna Prelovska, “‘Kyivskii mlynets – komom.’ Retsenziia na knyhu Pravoslavnaia Entsiklopediia, T. XXXIII. Ɇ., 2013. 752 s.,” Pravoslavnyi visnyk 5 (2014), 54–55. My own interest in the documents of 1686 was provoked by reviewing of the article by Bureha and Floria for the Encyclopedia. 26 Vladimir Bureha, “Prisoedinenie Kievskoi mitropoliii k Moskovskomu Patriarkhatu v 1686 godu,” Pecherskii Blagovisnyk 1/7 (2007), 32. 27 Bureha, “Prisoedinenie Kievskoi mitropolii” (see n. 26), 26–34. See also Bureha, “Prisoedinenie Kievskoi Mitropolii k Moskovskomu Patriarkhatu: Kak eto bylo” (see n. 17). 28 Bremer and Senyk take a similar position in “The Current Ecclesial Situation,” (see n. 3), 35–36. See also Rimestad: “For the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (MP) and the Moscow Patriarchate the 1686 document was obsolete, as it had not been enforced for centuries and reflected a long-gone status quo, not providing any legitimacy to the aspiring role of Constantinople in Ukraine” (Rimestad, “Using History as a Weapon” (see n. 5), 202).

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“Commemoration Among the First”: Parallel Cases Discussion on the canonical meaning of the commemoration requisite stipulated in the 1686 documents resumed with Konstantinos Vetochnikov’s presentation at the 2016 International Congress of Byzantine studies in Belgrade. A specialist in relations of the CP with the diocese of Kyiv and church diplomacy, Vetochnikov reached the same conclusions as Lourié: the 1686 synodal decisions' insistence on the necessity to commemorate the Patriarch of Constantinople “among the first” was intended as a statement of his ultimate jurisdictional authority over the diocese.29 However, it remained necessary to explain why the 1686 documents mentioned commemorations of two patriarchs in specific order and to find parallel cases shedding light on this practice. In 2017, the publication of the original Greek versions of two 1686 synodal documents paved the way to a reinterpretation of the events on safer philological ground. My discovery of these texts in an 18th century manuscript provided the scholars with the original versions of the decisions. Their analysis led to the identification of an important parallel case: the 1651 authorization conceded by the synod to the Metropolitan of Philadelphia, then resident in Venice, to ordain clergy in the Ionian islands.30 A comparison between the documents regulating the new privileges of the metropolitans of Philadelphia and those concerning Kyiv revealed important similarities. The CP conceded to a hierarch the permission to ordain clerics in eparchies outside his own diocese under the identical provision of precedence in liturgical commemorations. Clerics or hierarchs ordained by the beneficiary of such a concession had to commemorate not only their superior canonical authorities but also the beneficiary of the concession. This beneficiary was commemorated even if he had given to somebody else his permission to ordain in his name. The “Venetian case” thus offered a crucial parallel to the “Kyivan case,” paving the way to a reassessment of the CP’s policy of managing 29 In English transliteration, the surname would read Vetoshnikov. As he presented and published in French, however, the French transliteration is preserved here. Konstantinos Vetochnikov, “La ‘concession’ de la métropole de Kiev au patriarche de Moscou en 1686: Analyse canonique,” in Proceedings of the 23rd International Congress of Byzantine Studies, Belgrade 22–27 August 2016. Round tables, ed. Bojana Krsmanoviü, Ljubomir Milanoviü, Bojana Pavloviü (Belgrade: The Serbian National Committee of AIEB, 2016), 780–784. For a translation into Russian, see Konstantin I. Vetoshnikov, “‘Peredacha’ Kievskoi Mitropolii Moskovskomu Patriarkhatu v 1686 godu: kanonicheskii analiz,” Religious Information Service Ukraine, September 13, 2016, https://risu.ua/peredachakievskoy-mitropolii-moskovskomu-patriarhatu-v-1686–godu-kanonicheskiy-analiz_n827 17. 30 Tchentsova, “Sinodalnoe resheniie 1686 g.” (see n. 1), 92–99; eadem, Kievskaia Metropoliia (see n. 1), 141, 149–155; eadem, “A Patriarchal ‘Blessing of Release’ for the See of Kyiv Dated 1686: New Archival Material, New Interpretations,” CanadianAmerican Slavic Studies 54 (2020), 56–57, 61–66.

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ordinations in outlying dioceses beyond the Ottoman borders through the concession of special privileges to proxies and the safeguard of precedence in liturgical commemorations. Because of the military confrontations of both Venice and the Rzeczpospolita with the Ottoman Empire, between the general political situation prevailing in the Venetian territories and the diocese of Kyiv (part of which was located within the boundaries of the Polish-Lithuanian state) existed similarities: in both ordinations by hierarchs living under the sultan’s power were forbidden. Similar problems led to the adoption of similar solutions to ensure that the Orthodox communities in both territories would benefit from a canonically ordained clergy.31 The devised solution was to entrust a hierarch living outside the Ottoman Empire with the right to ordain new shepherds for the Orthodox flock, even if it implied somewhat bending the strict canonical rules and to permit him such “crossing of diocese limits.” A year after their first publication, the original texts of the two synodal documents of 1686 became the focus of various ecclesiological and political discussions. In October 2018, the CP issued a statement offering canonical and historical justifications for the-then impending tomos on Ukrainian autocephaly based on Lourié’s, Vetochnikov’s, and my conclusions (The Ecumenical Throne and the Church of Ukraine. The Documents Speak). The scholarly discussion then took on a whole new political dimension, stimulating further interest in archival evidence for the canonical status and history of the diocese of Kyiv in the 17th century which resulted in a return ad fontes.32

“Vossoedinenie” and the Concept of Mikhail Zheltov The renewed interest in the 1686 events led to several publications commenting extensively on the commemoration issue. The most important was the edition of collected documents on the incorporation of the see of Kyiv into the MP published under the supervision of the Metropolitan of Volokolamsk Ilarion (Alfeiev) in 31 Tchentsova, “A Patriarchal ‘Blessing of Release’” (see n. 30), 63; eadem, “Une métropole entre double appartenance et indépendance: Kiev, Constantinople et Moscou dans la seconde moitié du XVIIe siècle,” in Autocéphalies (see n. 2), 305–370. 32 Moscow philologist Evgenii Nikolskii was among the first scholars who developed an interest in the archival material of 1686, as in 2016 he tried to examine the original Greek and Russian documents in RGADA (see n. 7). The results of his investigation, published in 2019 together with O. Sagan, do not seem to profit from these attempts: the article is based on much earlier Ukrainian publications (Kharyshyn, Ohiienko) and confuses information about the negotiations of 1686: Ievhen Nikolskii, Oleksandr Sahan, “Aneksiia Kyivskoi mitropolii Moskovskym patriarkhatom u 1686 rotsi: subiektyvni peredumovy i naslidky,” in Iurysdyktsyinyi status Kyivskoi pravoslavnoi mitropolii z 1686 rotsi: Bohoslivia, kanonichne pravo ta kulturno-istorychnyi konteksti, ed. Oleksandr Sahan (Kyiv: Instytut filosofii NANU, 2019), 83–91.

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2019. Titled Reunification of the Metropolitanate of Kyiv with the Russian Orthodox Church, 1676–1686, the edition was supplemented with several analytical chapters dealing with the negotiations between Moscow, Hetman Samoilovych, and Constantinople.33 In one of them, Father Mikhail Zheltov addressed canonical problems raised by the Greek documents and their translations by criticizing the misinterpretations of the required commemoration of the Ecumenical Patriarch “among the first.” He pointed out that such commemoration does not entail that the diocese of Kyiv stayed under the jurisdictional purview of CP: it was either “a tribute to historical tradition” or an attempt by Constantinople to “declare the disputed doctrine of its universal primacy.” Zheltov stresses the absence of such “double” commemoration of two patriarchs in normal church practice: the procedure, according to him, does not find confirmation in Byzantine tradition and could be labelled an “extravagance.”34 In his addenda to the volume specifically dedicated to the practice of commemorations in Muscovite and Kyivan churches, Zheltov pointed out that in 17th-century Moscow, according to the Priest’s Service Book published after the liturgical reforms of Patriarch Nikon, all the Eastern Patriarchs were commemorated together with their Russian counterpart.35 Yet, even if he stressed that such shared commemorations were common 17th-century practice,36 Zheltov admitted that in all of these service books the Patriarch of Moscow was always commemorated first, a precedence mirroring the fact that the diocese was under his jurisdiction. The other patriarchs’ names were uttered in 33 Boris N. Floria, Kirill A. Kochegarov, Nadezhda P. Chesnokova, Marina R. Iafarova, “Kievskaia mitropoliia, Moskovskii patriarkhat i Konstantinopolskii patriarkhat v 1676– 1686 godakh,” in Vossoedinenie (see n. 1), 33–137; Mikhail Zheltov, “Kommentarii k dokumentam Konstantinopolskogo patriarkhata ot maia-iiunia 1686 g. o peredache Kievskoi mitropolii v iurisdiktsiiu patriarkhata Moskovskogo,” ibid., 844–883. 34 Zheltov, “Kommentarii” (see n. 33), 880–881, 893. The same ideas of “specific ecclesiology” and “universal primacy” of the CP are now widespread in publications by MP church historians. See, for example, an article by Ukrainian scholars Sergei F. Mikheev, Sergei N. Ostapenko, “Proizkhozhdenie sovremennoi pozitsii Konstantinopolskogo Patriarkhata po interpretatsii dokumentov 1686 o peredpodchinenii Kievskoi mitropolii,” Tserkov i Vremia 88 (2019), 181–183. 35 Zheltov, “Kommentarii,” (see n. 33), 890–891. 36 In the same way, Vladislav Tsypin thinks that in 1686 Moscow nobody was astonished by the request addressed to the metropolitan of Kyiv to commemorate the Patriarch of Constantinople during the liturgy as the church service books of that time contained the request to commemorate the names of the Eastern patriarchs. This practice was only subsequently replaced by commemorations of the Orthodox hierarchs in general: Archpriest Vladyslav Tsypin, “Kanonicheskaia otsenka vtorzheniia Konstantinopolskoi patriarkhii na territoriiu Ukrainskoi Tserkvy,” Prichiny i vyzovy tekushchego krizisa mezhpravoslavnykh otnoshenii: Materialy nauchno-prakticheskoi konferentsii (PSTGU, 25–26 fevralia 2019 goda) (Moscow: Izd-vo PSTGU, 2020), 15–44. On the service books see: Zheltov, “Kommentarii” (see n. 33), 892; Galadza, “Autocephaly and the Diptychs” (see n. 2)

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accordance with the customary church diptychs, beginning with the name of the Patriarch of Constantinople, to symbolize the unity of the Orthodox world. However, such commemorations occur during the liturgy when the proskomedia takes place, not concurrently with the anaphora when the celebrant’s commemoration “among the first” of the hierarch who wields ultimate authority over the diocese intervenes.37 Zheltov skirts the crucial question of the parallel cases of commemorations “among the first” revealing the clear-cut hierarchy established in such commemorations between “canonical” hierarchs and their “proxies.” Furthermore, he states that the decision to transfer a whole diocese from the jurisdiction of one patriarch to another had no historical precedent, impeding all comparative approaches.38 However, no one thus far has discovered liturgical commemorations “among the first” of church hierarchs who did not have effective jurisdiction in the dioceses where they were commemorated in such a way. Ultimately, the rationale behind the “double” patriarchal commemorations did not prove so difficult to identify.

Commemorations of an “Elder” Already in 2016, Vetochnikov veered the debate towards the specific terminology used in the documents, with terms such as geront (ȖȑȡȦȞ), “senior” or “elder,” and “superior” (ʌȡȠİıIJȫȢ), to designate the Patriarch of Moscow in his relation to Metropolitan of Kyiv. The latter had to commemorate his “elder” in the second place after the Patriarch of Constantinople. Vetochnikov explained that the term “elder” referred only to “spiritual guidance” over the diocese of Kyiv conferred to the Patriarchs of Moscow. These hierarchs were designated “elders” not because of their jurisdiction over the diocese but because they had the duty to proceed to ordination there.39 A parallel case of the use of the term geront can be discerned in the 1663 tomos of the four Eastern Patriarchs sent to Moscow. This text states clearly that “either a metropolitan or a patriarch” is an “elder” for those 37 Zheltov, “Kommentarii” (see n. 33), 892–894. 38 Ibid., 878–879. 39 Vetochnikov, “La ‘concession’” (see n. 29), 782; Konstantinos Vietochnikov [Vetochnikov], “‘Transfer’ of the Metropolitanate of Kyiv to the Patriarchate of Moscow in 1686. Decision about the ‘subordination’ of Metropolitanate of Kyiv to the Patriarch of Moscow,” in Jurisdictional Status of the Kyiv Orthodox Metropolitanate in 1686: Theology, Canon Law and the Cultural and Historical Context, ed. O. Sahan (Ʉyiv: 2019), 59–60; Konstantin Vetochnikov, “Otvet na argumenty predstavitelei RPTs o ‘polnoi peredache’ Moskve iurisdiktsii nad Kievskoi mitropoliei v 1686 g.,” Cerkvarium 28.11.2018, https://cerkvarium.org/ru/publikatsii/analitika/po-povodu-argumentov-predstavitelejrossijskoj-pravoslavnoj-tserkvi-o-polnoj-peredache-yurisdiktsii-nad-kievskoj-mitropoliej-v1686–g.

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who are ordained by him.40 Thus, in Kyiv, the Patriarch of Moscow held a place in liturgical commemorations perfectly consonant with the statement of the 1686 documents: he was commemorated because he enthroned or ordained metropolitans there. Furthermore, Vetochnikov compared the terminology of the 1686 acts with the wording of 18th-century documents that settled the restitution of the diocese of Aleppo, governed by the Patriarch of Constantinople, to the Patriarchs of Antioch.41 This case also attracted the attention of two Ukrainian scholars, Sergei F. Mikheev and Sergei N. Ostapenko, who stressed that the order of commemorations in Aleppo after its return under the Antiochian canonical jurisdiction mirrored the situation established in Kyiv.42 The Constantinopolitan acts of 1782 and 1794 quoted a previous condition that the metropolitan of Aleppo continue to commemorate “by oikonomia” the name of the Patriarch of Constantinople as the synodal decisions of 1686. The temporary transfer of the diocese of Aleppo from the canonical jurisdiction of the Patriarchs of Antioch to the Patriarch of Constantinople could indeed be considered a parallel to the situation in Kyiv, however, in a complete opposite way of jurisdictional “adjustments.” The documents relative to Aleppo show that the rationale behind the “Aleppine” variant of the oikonomia rests on the fact that before the restitution, the Metropolitan of Aleppo was ordained by the Patriarch of Constantinople. The Patriarchs of Constantinople were thus actually the “elders” of the Metropolitans of Aleppo and, as such, had to be commemorated by oikonomia.43 In Kyiv, however, it was the Patriarch of Moscow who assumed by oikonomia the duty to ordain or transfer Metropolitans, acting as a proxy for the Constantinopolitan Patriarch. Consequently, the Muscovite Patriarch benefitted from a commemoration “according to the rules” after the Ecumenical Patriarch, who still wielded the supreme authority in the Kyivan diocese: he was the “origin, authority and superior everywhere in all parishes and eparchies” (‫ݻ‬ȞIJȠȢ ʌȘȖ‫ ޣ‬țĮ‫ܻ ޥ‬ȡȤ‫ ޣ‬țĮ‫ބ ޥ‬ʌİȡțİȚȝ‫ޢ‬ȞȠȣ ʌ‫ޠ‬ȞIJȦȞ IJࠛȞ ʌĮȞIJĮȤȠࠎ ʌĮȡȠȚțȚࠛȞ IJİ țĮ‫݋ ޥ‬ʌĮȡȤȚࠛȞ).44 It is clear that the Patriarch of Constantinople was never 40 41 42 43 44

Vera G. Tchentsova, “Vossoedinenie,” Vestnik Alians-Arkheo 30 (2019), 128–129. Vetochnikov, “La ‘concession’” (see n. 29), 782. Mikheev, Ostapenko, “Proizkhozhdenie” (see n. 34), 203. Tchentsova, “Vossoedinenie” (see n. 40), 129–130. Tchentsova, “A Patriarchal ‘Blessing of Release’” (see n. 31), 65; eadem, “Vossoedinenie” (see n. 40), 120. The ordination of the Orthodox hierarchy in the see of Kyiv by Patriarch Theophanus III of Jerusalem in 1620–1621 must have had the same consequences for liturgical commemorations: the newly ordained Metropolitan of Kyiv, Iov Boretskyi, had to commemorate his direct superior, the Patriarch of Constantinople (according to the letter of Theophanus of Jerusalem, “to show obedience” to the Patriarch of Constantinople: AIuZR (see n. 8) 1/5, 2–5, second pagination), but also to the hierarch who had ordained him, that is, the Patriarch of Jerusalem. Visibly, the same authorization from the canonical church hierarch was necessary for stavropegial monasteries: in 1689 Varlaam Yasinskyi,

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commemorated “among the first” everywhere in the Orthodox world (as supposed by Zheltov, Mikheev and Ostapenko), but only in the eparchies pertaining to his direct jurisdiction.45 The requirement to commemorate two patriarchs in particular order was actually the consequence of the delegation by the Ecumenical Patriarch of part of his responsibilities towards the Metropolitans of Kyiv to the Patriarch of Moscow without effective modification of their respective spheres of jurisdictional competence. Accordingly, the documents of 1686 did not introduce jurisdictional novelty: they just stated new rules for the enforcement of the traditional authority of Constantinople over Kyiv. Indeed, the Patriarch of Constantinople kept precedence “among the first” in the local metropolitans’ commemorations.

“For the Space of Thirty Years” The analysis of the Venetian and Aleppine cases revealed yet another element of paramount importance. Although oikonomia always allowed recourse to a proxy by church hierarchs unable, for political reasons, to exert their canonical powers in specific territories, this solution could never be perennial. Bureha thinks Canon 17’s “rule of the thirty years” and everyone’s long-term reception enough to consider the synodal decision of 1686 permanent.46 However, his interpretation of this Fourth Ecumenical Council canon does not seem to have been prevalent in the 17th century. Furthermore, Apostolic canons 14 and 35 prohibit all violations of diocesan limits and deny hierarchs the right to proceed to ordinations outside of their diocese “without the consent of those persons who have authority” there.

archimandrite of the Kyivan Lavra, asked the Patriarch of Moscow to give him his blessing and to send antimensia and myron to Kyivan churches, as previously such blessing was given “in his act on stauropegia by Theophanus of Jerusalem, who had the right to do it, given by the holiest Patriarch Timotheos of Constantinople” (Ibid., 286). 45 Tchentsova, “Vossoedinenie” (see n. 40), 120; cf. Zheltov, “Kommentarii” (see n. 33), 880; Mikheev and Ostapenko, “Proizkhozhdenie” (see n. 34), 183, 194. 46 Recently, this opinion was reproduced by archim. Theognost Pushkov, who believes that the see of Kyiv changed jurisdiction not because of the acts of 1686, but because of the time passed since Patriarchs of Moscow governed the eparchy: Feognost (Pushkov), “Vopros o granitsakh iurisdiktsii Moskovskogo patriarkhata soglasno aktam Konstantinopolskogo sobora vostochnykh patriarkhov 1593 g., gramoty konstantinopolskogo patriarkha Dionisiia IV 1686 g. i na osnovanii 17–go kanona IV Vselenskogo sobora,” Studia Humanitatis 4 (2018), http://st-hum.ru/sites/st-hum.ru/files/pdf/archimandrite_ feognost.pdf. On the reception by the other churches of the integration of the see of Kyiv into the MP (and its successor, the Church of Russia): Nikephoros, Metropolites Kukkou kai Tellurias, To sugchrono Oukraniko Zetema kai e katá tous theious kai ierous kanónes epilusé tou (Leukosia: Kéntro Meleton tes Ierás Monés Kúkkou, 2020), 40–45, 55–56.

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Under Byzantine rule, the diocesan limits were considered inviolable, though the emperor held ultimate authority over the definition of boundaries and could adapt them to the new political situation. This notion of inviolability is expressly stated in Patriarch Dositheus’s 1686 letters comparing the situation in the diocese of Kyiv to events in the Patriarchate of Antioch. After the Arab conquest of Antioch in 637, the political frontier between the Caliphate and the Empire divided the Antiochian patriarchate in two parts, cutting the western one from the seat of the patriarch. The Byzantine emperor Leo III tried to solve the problem by subordinating the metropole of Seleucia, still under Byzantine control, to the CP. Some 237 years later, when the empire struck back and conquered Antioch, Seleucia returned under the canonical jurisdiction of the Patriarch of Antioch. Thus, “the [Patriarch] of Constantinople had not taken even a step of a foot from the diocese of Antioch,” concluded Dositheus.47 Commenting on the synodal authorization given to the Metropolitan of Philadelphia in 1651 to ordain clergy in the Ionian islands, it is possible to conclude that this concession had no specific chronological limit since nobody could predict the end of the war between Venice and the Ottoman Empire which had created the situation warranting the synodal decision. However, in 1712, after the deposition of Metropolitan Meletios (Typaldos), who accepted the union with Rome, the chair of Philadelphia remained vacant for a long time. And when the line of metropolitans finally resumed, the new incumbent did not retain the extraordinary privilege of making ordinations in the Ionian islands although his predecessors had benefitted from it during half of a century.48 These examples show how the canons stipulating the “inviolability of limits” were understood in the 17th century and how the Church authorities skirted this obstacle, using oikonomia to authorize proxies to ordain clergy and exert spiritual governance “under dispensation” in the territories temporally inaccessible to their rightful canonical superior.

47 Tchentsova, “Vossoedinenie” (see n. 40), 109; eadem, Kievskaia mitropoliia (see n. 1), 129–132. The example adduced by Dositheus of Jerusalem dates from the days of the Byzantine emperors, but the situation could be also different: in the 8th century, the dioceses of Illyricum were transferred from the jurisdiction of Rome to the jurisdiction of Constantinople and never returned to the Roman fold. Daniil V. Zaitsev, “Illirik,” Pravoslavnaia Entskilopediia, vol. 22 (Moscow: Pravoslavnaia Entsiklopediia, 2009), 321– 322. Cf. Bremer and Senyk, “The Current Ecclesial Situation” (see n. 3), 35. However, the political dynamic in this case was completely different. The emperor’s decision did not intervene following the loss of Rome, which happened later, and since Byzantium never reconquered Italy no opportunity occurred for an eventual restoration. So, Byzantine Illyricum stayed under the jurisdiction of the Patriarchs of Constantinople. 48 Tchentsova, “Vossoedinenie” (see n. 40), 131–132; eadem, Kievskaia mitropoliia (see n. 1), 163–164.

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Council Decisions and Synodal Permissions The situation changed after 1453 with the disappearance of the only authority legally endowed with the power to modify ecclesiastical jurisdictional boundaries along with their civil counterparts. Henceforth it seems that this power came to be embodied in the Council of all Eastern patriarchs, as shown by the formation of the MP. The new limits of both the diocese of Kyiv (deprived of its Muscovite territories) and the new MP were approved by the consensus of the four patriarchs at the councils of 1590 and 1593. According to Zheltov, a Church synod was specially convened to formulate the decision of 1686 and ensure its legitimacy.49 However, this synod gathered only clergy of the CP and therefore did not fit the definition of a Church council gathering all four Eastern patriarchs and endowed with the authority to condone a modification of diocesan boundaries (in this case an extension of the Patriarchate of Moscow). Bremer and Senyk stress that the decision of the Constantinopolitan synod to incorporate the Church of Kyiv into the MP was endorsed by the other Eastern patriarchs, eager to satisfy the desires of the Muscovite government whose generosity they benefitted from.50 However, there is no definitive proof of such an endorsement: there certainly was a “passive” agreement, the recognition of the de facto control of the MP over the diocese of Kyiv but it was never formalized by any concrete council decisions.51 Nobody even tried to organize such a council to give legal form to the “reunification” of the dioceses of Kyiv and Moscow and, as far as we can say from their letters, neither Dionysius of Constantinople nor Dositheus of Jerusalem considered such a meeting.52 In his 2018 publication, Vetochnikov drew the attention of the scholarly community to an important feature of the synodal decision: the document was labelled a “release” or “consent” letter, “Ȗȡ‫ޠ‬ȝȝĮ ‫݋‬țįިıİȦȢ.” Such documents were usually issued to authorize members of the clergy to officiate outside of their 49 50 51 52

Zheltov, “Kommentarii” (see n. 33), 866, 869. Bremer and Senyk, “The Current Ecclesial Situation” (see n. 3), 33. Tchentsova, “Vossoedinenie” (see n. 40), 135–141. Kulchynskyy and Kul tried to find some echo of the 1686 events in Ottoman sources. Their study of the texts regarding the Muscovite legation to the Ottoman Empire led them to conclude that the CP could not make modifications of the diocese boundaries without approval by secular Ottoman authorities. As no such sources have been found, it seems unlikely that the Patriarch could have taken any important decisions concerning jurisdictional problems of the eparchies. Ömer Kul, Oles B. Kulchynskyi, “Pidporiadkuvannia Kyivskoi mitropolii Moskvi: zahadky moskovskogo posolstva do Turechchyny 1686 r. u svitli osmanskykh dzherel,” Ukrainskyi Istorychnyi Zhurnal 5 (2016), 181–194; Ɉles Kulchynskyy and Ömer Kul, “Kyiv Metropolia and Moscow Diplomacy: An Ottoman Viewpoint”, Scrinium 15 (2019), 258–259. This assumption is indirectly confirmed by the appearance in the sultan’s berats given to the Constantinopolitan patriarchs of the “provinces” named Rus’/Urus and Moskov as belonging to them (Tchentsova, “Vossoedinenie” (see n. 40), 166–167).

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own eparchy.53 The term ‫ݏ‬țįȠıȚȢ meant that somebody ‫݋‬ț-įȓįİȚ or ex-tradite part of his own duties and spiritual authority in his diocese in order for the recipient to officiate there despite the Apostolic canon stating: “A bishop must not venture to ordain out of his own bounds for cities or countries that are not subject to him” (Ap. 34, 37). Such consent never entailed a renunciation by the local bishop of his canonical jurisdiction; it only conferred license to perform ecclesiastical duties to someone who did not belong to the local clergy. The editors of Vossoedinenie missed this point, translating “Ȗȡ‫ޠ‬ȝȝĮ ‫݋‬țįިıİȦȢ” as “edition of an act” instead of “release.”54 The precise meaning of the term was thus lost, which is even more problematic given that it appears in the synodal decisions and was perfectly clear for the 17th-century Russian interpreters who understood correctly the underlying meaning of a “release” based on dispensation-oikonomia.55 Vetochnikov listed examples of such consents, including the abovementioned patriarchal and synodal act authorizing the Metropolitan of Philadelphia to proceed to ordination in the Ionian islands and to deliver an ekdosis enabling somebody else to do so in case some obstacle prevented him from ordaining bishops himself.56 The patriarchal and synodal act of Patriarch Parthenios IV settling the election of Innocent Gizel (Archimandrite of the Monastery of the Caves) to the chair of Kyiv and his future ordination in Moscow, known only in its oldUkrainian translation, is a classic example of such letter of “release,” or ekdosis. Parthenios, as canonical primate of Kyiv, in 1676 gave license, in the name of his

53 Vetochnikov, “Otvet” (see n. 39); Vietochnikov, “Transfer” (see n. 39), 68–69. This important observation was accepted by: Lesia Zvonska, “Gramoty Dionisiia, patriarkha Konstantinopolskoho, ta Dosifeia, patriarkha Ierusalimskoho, pro peredachu Kyivskoi mytropolii Moskovskomu patriarkhatu: hretskii tekst ta zistavnyi analiz starorosiiskoho i ukrainskoho perekladu,” in Iurysdiktsiinyi status (see n. 32), 7–8; ɟadem, “Nepravomirnist peredachi Kyivskoi mytropolii Moskovskomu patriarkhatu 1686 roku: zistavnyi analiz pershodzherel ta perekladiv patriarshykh hramot,” Trudy Kyivskoi Dukhovnoi Akademii 19/191 (2019), 32–33; Tchentsova, “Vossoedinenie” (see n. 40) 133–135; eadem, Kievskaia mitropoliia (see n. 1), 164–166. 54 Vossoedinenie (see n. 1), 736, 740, 742, 861. Cf. Tchentsova, “Vossoedinenie,” (see n. 40), 133–135. These translations were done, probably, following the assumption of Zheltov that ekdoseis does not have any special terminological meaning: see Zheltov, “Kommentarii” (see n. 33), 878. 55 Vossoedinenie (see n. 1), 667, 711, 733. According to Chernukhin, it is difficult to judge if the “Greeks” supposed that the synodal decisions of 1686 meant the real transfer of the diocese forever: Ievgen Chernukhin, “Teksty, pereklady i tlumachennia lystiv i gramot patriarckha Dionisiia IV stosovno pidporiadkuvannia Kyivskoi mytropoliii Moskovskomu patriarkhovi u 1686 rotsi,” in Iurysdyktsiinyi status (see n. 32), 51. The author thinks that these documents are still not sufficiently studied to make definite conclusions. 56 Vietochnikov [Vetochnikov], “Transfer” (see n. 39), 68–69; Tchentsova, “Vossoedinenie” (see n. 40), 126, 133–134; eadem, Kievskaia mitropoliia (see n. 1), 165–166.

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“humble authority,” to the Patriarch of Moscow to consecrate the newly elected Metropolitan. This provided a model for the 1686 decisions.57 Both Ternovskii in 1872 and certain recent publications took liberties with the texts when addressing the issue of commemorations “among the first,” dismissing canonical implications of paramount importance for the proper interpretation of the events. The precedence of the Ecumenical Patriarch’s name in liturgical commemorations highlighted the preservation of his spiritual and jurisdictional pre-eminence in the diocese, notwithstanding that “in consideration of the harshness of the times” he had to exercise this authority through the Patriarch of Moscow. The latter obtained the right to consecrate the metropolitans of Kyiv under the condition of respecting this pre-eminence. According to the documents of 1686, though, the titles of the metropolitan were considerably shortened. The hierarch lost the second part of his title, “of Halych,” as well as that of “all Rus’/Russia”; he was neither hypertimos (“most honourable”) nor patriarchal exarch.58 This alteration stemmed from an earlier reorganization of the diocese in 1681. Patriarch Jacob of Constantinople had installed a new Metropolitan (Pancras) in Podilia, part of the territory conquered by the Ottoman Empire in 1672.59 The residence of the new hierarch was in Kamianets-Podilskyi, but his signature and his seal designated him as “Metropolitan of Halych”, “most honourable,” and exarch “of all Little Russia.”60 The 57 Tchentsova, “Vossoedinenie” (see n. 40), 93–99, 134–135; ɟadem, Kievskaia mitropoliia, 343–347. The authors of “Vossoedinenie” date the act signed by Parthenius IV and the synod February 7, 1685: Vossoedinenie (see n. 1), 62–64, 416–418. For discussion about the date of the letter, see Tchentsova, “Vossoedinenie” (see n. 40), 91–99; ɟadem, Kievskaia mitropoliia, 70–93; Sergei F. Mikheev, Sergei N. Ostapenko, “Nekonstruktivnost istoricheskoi argumentatsii v state V. G. Tchentsovoi ‘Vossoedinenie’,” Vestnik tserkovnoi istorii 1/2 (61/62) (2021), 329–336. 58 Vera G. Tchentsova, “Mitra kievskogo vladyki Gedeona (Sviatopolk-Chetvertynskogo) i ego titul,” Vestnik Alians-Arkheo 28 (2019), 32–42; eadem, Kievskaia mitropoliia (see n. 1), 171–174, 232–233, 547–563. On the historical boundaries of the diocese and the problems of the title: Job of Telmessos, Archbishop, “The Autocephaly of the Orthodox Church in Ukraine and the Canonical Prerogatives of the Ecumenical Patriarchate,” in The Ecumenical Patriarchate and Ukraine Autocephaly: Historical, Canonical, and Pastoral Perspectives, ed. Evagelos Sotiropoulos (New York: Order of Saint Andrew the Apostle, 2019), 49–50. 59 Akty, otnosiashchiesia k istorii Iuzhno-Zapadnoi Rossii (Lvov 1868), 52–53; Tchentsova, “Sinodalnoe resheniie” (see n. 1), 93–94; Ievhen Chernukhin, “Gramota Konstantinopolskogo patriarkha Iakova pro prozhacheniia Pankratiia mitropolitom Kamianets-Podilskoi ieparkhii, prechesnym ta ekzarkhom Maloi Rossii,” Rukopysna ta knyzhkova spadshchyna Ukraini 25 (2020), 245–257. 60 Tchentsova, “A Patriarchal ‘Blessing of Release’” (see n. 31), 59–60; eadem, Kievskaia mitropoliia (see n. 1), 93–102. Mikheev and Ostapenko’s supposition that the title of metropolitan Pancras on the seal and antimension appeared just on “his personal initiative,” could not be proven and does not seem feasible: Mikheev, Ostapenko, “Nekonstruktivnost” (see n. 57), 326–328. See also Boris N. Floria, “O kritike V. G. Chentsovoi sbornika

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chair was thus considered to be the restored ancient see of Halych, independent from Kyiv after its scission from the previously united diocese. In 1686 the CP, permitting the Patriarch of Moscow to ordain metropolitans in Kyiv via the release of a synodal “permission,” still kept his full control over the other part of the diocese.

Conclusions Current research (both “pro-” and “anti-” Muscovite) on the canonical jurisdiction over the see of Kyiv and its position between the two “rival” patriarchates often misses the basic fact that this diocese was an inseparable part of the whole Orthodox Church. The practical problems raised by the management of eparchies under the political control of enemies of the Ottoman Empire had to be addressed by the Ecumenical Patriarchate, subject to the sultan, using methods common for all. It is in this framework that the documentation relative to the ecclesiastical situation in Kyiv in the 1680s must ultimately be analyzed. This contextualized approach of the 1686 decision reveals the coherent policy enacted by the 17th century Church and its canonical rationale. In the 17th century, the Church of Muscovite Russia shared a common canonical culture with the Eastern patriarchates. Its very legitimacy was rooted in the consent expressed by the Eastern patriarchs to the foundation of the MP in the 16th century. In a similar way, in the 18th century, they approved the Synodal governance of the Russian Church and abolishment of the patriarchate.61 The MP thus disappeared soon after the arrangement of the problem of ordinations to the Kyiv episcopal throne in 1686. The MK and the MP together lived through the transformations prescribed by the Spiritual Regulation of Peter the Great (1721) and were integrated in the “imperial” Orthodox Church of Russia.62 Among the expressions of this integration was the complete withdrawal of mentioning of the dokumentov ‘Vossoedinenii Kievskoi mitropolii s Russkoi Pravoslavnoi Tserkoviu’,” Vestnik tserkovnoi istorii 1/2 (61/62) (2021), 349. 61 Nikolaos Chrissidis, “The Russian Holy Synod and the Greeks. Reconsidering GreekRussian Relations in the Early Modern Period (16th-18th Centuries),” Canadian-American Slavic Studies 54 (2020), 73–81. On the attitude to the Eastern patriarchs in 17th century Muscovy, see Vera Tchentsova, “‘Tout Moscou, ville-reine, trembla de te rencontrer.’ Le patriarche Macaire d’Antioche et la tutelle des patriarches orientaux sur l’Église russe,” in Arabic Christianity between the Ottoman Levant and Eastern Europe, ed. Ioana Feodorov, Bernard Heyberger, Samuel Noble [Arabic Christianity: Texts and Studies, 3] (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2021), 47–75. 62 Andrey Ivanov, A Spiritual Revolution. The Impact of Reformation and Enlightenment in Orthodox Russia (Madison, WI: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2020), 27–31, 240– 244.

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patriarchs (whether of Moscow or of Constantinople) from their “among the first” place in the anaphora commemorations.63 Conversely, the 1917 election of a new Patriarch of Moscow and the restoration of Patriarchate was a decision which did not receive the formal agreement of all patriarchs, opening a new period of post-revolutionary transformations and difficult evolution under domination of the Soviet (and later post-soviet) state. Obviously, time has passed since the elaboration of canon law and the actual situation is much different from that of the previous epochs.64 All churches and congregations belonging to them have the right to envision their own future and either to strictly adhere to the ancient canons or to interpret them according to a revised worldview conditioned by today’s historical and political circumstances.65 However, a scholarly analysis of the 1686 documents and events cannot follow the same path. The documents have to be understood against the background of the norms prevailing at the time. In the 17th century the authority to modify the boundaries of dioceses belonged to the assembly of the Eastern patriarchs. Even if he had approved the transfer of the Metropolitanate of Kyiv to the jurisdiction of the MP, the Patriarch of Constantinople was in no position to do so. Dionysius IV was at most able to delegate the exercise of his authority to the Patriarch of Moscow for an unspecified period of time. The 1686 Patriarchal and synodal acts state this point clearly by demanding commemorations “among the first” for the real head of “all parishes and eparchies” of the MK, the Ecumenical Patriarch, while the Patriarch of Moscow ranked second as befitted for an “elder and superior.” The fact that this conclusion is inescapable does not mean that today’s “traditionalists” and “innovators” are not entitled to steer the Church (or their 63 Zhivov, Iz tserkovnoi istorii (see n. 14), 85–119. 64 Nicolas Kazarian, “The Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople: Power and Geopolitics,” in Coping with Change (see n. 5), 173–190. 65 See, for example: àukasz Fajfer and Sebastian Rimestad, “The Patriarchates of Constantinople and Moscow in a Global Age: A Comparison,” International Journal for the Study of the Christian Church 10, no. 2–3 (2010), 222–225; Nikephoros, To sugchrono Oukraniko Zetema (see n. 46), 34–40, 60–62; Rimestad, “Using History as a Weapon” (see n. 5), 191–208. Boris Uspensky described this complicated evolution of relations between Moscow and Constantinople as a conflict of two principles: strictly “canonical,” founded on the church tradition, and “political,” according to which the place of the hierarch is determined by the real influence of his “residence.” The scholar saw in it a reflection of similar conflict for influence between Constantinople and Rome: Boris A. Uspenskii, Tsar i Patriarkh. Kharizma vlasti v Rossii (Vizantiiskaia model i ee russkoe pereosmyslenie) (Moscow: Iazyki russkoi kultury, 1998), 491. On the confessionnal situation in Ukraine before 2014, see Natalka Boyko and Kathy Rousselet, “Les Églises ukrainiennes entre Rome, Moscou et Constantinople,” La Documentation française. Le Courrier des pays de l’Est 1045, no. 5 (2004), 39–50; Andrei N. Okara, “Ukrainskaia pravoslavnaia tserkov (Moskovskogo patriarkhata): Mezhdu ekzarkhatom i avtokefaliei,” in Pravoslavnaia tserkov pri novom patriarkhate, ed. A. Malashenko, S. Filatov (Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2012), 311–339; Rimestad, “Using History as a Weapon” (see n. 5), 200–202.

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respective Churches) towards new horizons of their liking. Building the future, however, should not require rewriting the past.

Addenda66 The processes of application of the Constantinopolitan synodal decisions of 1686 in the MK and of the evolution of commemoration practices after its incorporation into the MP, as well as the transformation and integration of both entities (the MK and the MP) into the Russian Orthodox Church governed by the Most Holy Synod, still needs more special research. One of the ways to do it is to study the printed liturgical books (sluzhebniki) for priests, where the “among the first” commemoration rules are indicated. As the minister had to commemorate “among the first” his immediate hierarchical superior and then those “living whom he wants” (“ɠɢɜɵɯɴ ɢɯɠɟ ɯɨɳɟɬ ɩɨɦɢɧɚɟɬɴ”), it is evident that for the majority of clergy of the MK practically nothing changed in 1686: most celebrants were still commemorating their local bishops or the Metropolitan of Kyiv. The changes could affect only the metropolitan himself, while he, after commemorating the Patriarch of Constantinople as usual, had to proceed to commemorations of those “whom he wants” with the name of the Patriarch of Moscow. The anaphora commemoration of Patriarchs of Constantinople “among the first” was still present in the priests’ service books published after 1686 in the MK within the territory of the Polish-Lithuanian state. Such commemoration is attested, for example, in the 1691 Leitourgiarion (Sluzhebnik), edited by the Dormition of the Virgin Orthodox brotherhood in Lviv (“ȼɴ ɩɟɪɜɵɯ ɩɨɦ‫׸‬ɧɢ, Ƚ(ɨɫɩɨ)ɞɢ, Ⱥɪɯïɟɩ(ɢɫɤɨ)ɩɚ ɧ(ɚ)ɲ(ɟ)ɝȦ, ɫ(ɜ‫)׸‬ɬ‫״‬ɣɲɚɝȦ ȼɫɟɥɟɧɫɤɚɝȦ ɉɚɬɪïɚɪɯɚ ɢɦ(‫׸‬ɪɟ)ɤɴ,” fol. 104v). In the “Polish” part of the diocese, the Patriarchs of Constantinople were unequivocally considered superior hierarchs of the Kyiv eparchy.67 In the 1690s, the bishop of Lviv, Iosif Shumlianskyi, who had not recognized the changes in management of the Kyiv diocese, still called himself locum tenens (administrator) of the MK.68 As such, he thus most probably commemorated “among the first” the Patriarch of Constantinople and not the metropolitans of Kyiv, ordained in Moscow.

66 I am sincerely grateful for help and consultations on commemorations practices to Dr Natalia Bondar and Dr Daniel Galadza. 67 Kallínikos Delikánes, “He autoképhalos Ekklesía Polonías,” Ekklesía (Konstantinoupole 1924), 6. 68 AIuZR (see n. 8), 1/4: Akty ob unii i sostoianii pravoslavnoi tserkvi s poloviny XVII veka (1648–1798) (Kiev: Tip. Imp. un-ta. Sv. Vladimira, 1871), no. 45, p. 91–92; 1/10: Akty, otnosiashchiesia k istorii Galitsko-russkoi pravoslavnoi tserkvi (1423–1714 gg.) (Kiev: Tip. Imp. un-ta Sv. Vladimira, 1904), no. 278, p. 772–775.

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On the territory controlled by the Muscovite authorities, the text of Sluzhebnik, newly published by the typography of the Kyivan Lavra of the Caves in 1692,69 proposed a very careful “among the first” formula (fol. 27r) commemorating “our archbishop, his all-holiness patriarch so-and-so” (“ȼɴ ɩɟɪɜɵɯɴ ɩɨɦ‫׸‬ɧɢ Ƚ(ɨɫɩɨ)ɞɢ Ⱥɪɯïɟɩ(ɢɫɤɨ)ɩɚ ɧɚɲɟ(ɝȦ) ɫ(ɜ‫)׸‬ɬ‫״‬ɣɲɚ(ɝȦ) ɉɚɬɪïɚɪɯɚ ɢɦ(‫׸‬ɪɟ)ɤɴ”). The patriarch, thus, was left here without any concrete identification of his throne.70 The same prudence could be observed in the Lavra’s 1708 Leitourgiarion (Sluzhebnik) (“ȼɴ ɩɟɪɜɵɯɴ ɩɨɦ‫׸‬ɧɢ Ƚ(ɨɫɩɨ)ɞɢ ɫ(ɜ‫)׸‬ɬ‫״‬ɣɲɚɝɨ ɉɚɬɪïɚɪɯɚ ɧɚɲɟɝɨ ɢɦ(‫׸‬ɪɟ)ɤɴ,” fol. 168v). The commemorations during the church services of the Muscovite Tsars as legitimate lay authorities are attested in Kyiv editions already earlier than 1686 (e.g., Kyiv Euchologion of 1681). So, judging by the printed books texts after 1686 there was no radical change of commemorations of lay authorities, and just a small “omission” in published books in commemorations “among the first,” permitting to arrange the situation and to overcome the constraints of the time in the most delicate way possible. It is also interesting to observe that the 1692 Sluzhebnik referred to the Metropolitan of Kyiv as the “metropolitan of all Russia” (“ɉɪɟȦɫ(ɜ‫)׸‬ɳɟɧɧɚɝɨ Ⱥɪɯïɟɩ(ɢɫɤɨ)ɩɚ ɧ(ɚ)ɲɟɝȦ ɜɫɟ‫ ׸‬ɊȦɫɫïɢ Ɇɢɬɪɨɩɨɥɢɬɚ ɢɦ(‫׸‬ɪɟ)ɤɴ”, fol. 27r). This differed from his Moscow-confirmed designation as the “metropolitan of Kyiv, Halych and Little Russia.”71 It was also in opposition to the Constantinopolitan version indicated in the 1686 acts, designating him just as the “Metropolitan of Kyiv.”72 The mention of an “unnamed” patriarch in the Anaphora commemorations allowed celebrants to avoid an immediate clear definition of jurisdictional belonging, but the title of the “Metropolitan of all Russia” demonstrated the clear determination of the Kyivan clergy to struggle for their traditional status.73 That struggle soon had to be abandoned. But even if the commemoration practices were wisely “camouflaged,” the Lavra typography had to quickly adapt its editions to the new regime. The title 69 Fedor I. Titov, Prilozheniia k pervomu tomu issledovaniia Tipografiia Kievo-Pecherskoi lavry. Istoricheskii ocherk (Kiev: tip. Kievo-Pecher. Uspen. Lavry, 1918), 221–222. 70 On the difficult relations between the Lavra archimandrites and the Patriarchs of Moscow in relation to the Lavra’s publishing activities in the end of 1680s and in 1690s (which was probably the reason for such a cautious variant of commemoration), see Kharlampovich, Malorosiiskoe vliianie (see n. 15), 446–456; Fedor I. Titov, Tipografiia Kievo-Pecherskoi Lavry. Istoricheskii Ocherk 1 (1606–1616–1916 gg.) (Kiev: Tip. Kievo-Pecher. Uspen. Lavry, 1916), 374–393; Giovanna Brogi Bercoff, “The Hetman and the Metropolitan. Cooperation between State and Church in the Time of Varlaam Jasyns’kyj,” in Mazepa e il suo tempo. Storia, cultura, società, ed. Giovanna Siedina (Alessandria: Edizioni dell’Orso, 2004), 419–430. 71 On the title of metropolitans after 1685, see Tchentsova, Kievskaia mitropoliia (see n. 1), 546–565. 72 Ibid., 232–234. 73 Brogi Bercoff, “The Hetman and the Metropolitan” (see n. 70), 433–440.

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pages of Kyivan Caves Lavra publications reflect these changes. The monastery, which used to be under the direct jurisdiction of the Patriarchs of Constantinople as their stauropegion, in 1688 obtained from the Patriarch of Moscow a confirmation of its status—but now under his own Patriarchal jurisdiction.74 From that time on, the title pages of the Kyivan Lavra editions called the monastery a stauropegion of the Patriarch of Moscow (in a 1693 edition Akathisty, for example). Although the volumes of the Lives of the saints (Kniga zhitii) published from 1689 on specified that they were printed in the stauropegion of the Patriarch of Moscow, “from ancient times of the all-holy Ecumenical Patriarchs of Constantinople”/“ɹɤɨɠɟ ɢ ɢɡɞɪɟɜɥɟ ɋ(ɜ‫)׸‬ɬ‫״‬ɣɲɢɯɴ ȼɫɟɥɟɧɫɤɢɯ ɉɚɬɪïɚɪɯȦɜɴ Ʉɨɧɫɬɚɧɬɢɧɨɩɨɥɫɤɢɯɴ” (Kniga zhitii sviatykh, 1689, 1695, 1700, 1705, 1711, 1714, 1716).75 According to T. A. Bykova, though, 1689 Kniga zhitii editions had two versions of the title pages: one, for Ukrainian distribution, mentioning the Patriarchs of Constantinople, and the other, without such a mention, meant for circulation in Moscow.76 Even in the beginning of the 18th century, the Lavra typography could occasionally return to the traditional indication on the title pages of its affiliation with the CP, as was done in a 1718 Menologion published (as was indicated on the title page) in the stauropegion of “his all-holiness the Ecumenical Constantinopolitan Patriarch.”77 This alteration probably came in the “interpatriarchal period” after the death of Patriarch Adrian of Moscow (†1700), when the whole Russian church commemorated “among the first” the four eastern patriarchs.78 Such return to the previous “affiliation” was condemned by the authorities almost immediately.79 From 1721 the situation changed drastically as the Spiritual Regulation of Peter the Great in effect abolished the MP as an institution and introduced the church governance of the Holy Synod, which had to be commemorated “among the first.”80 These decisions made impossible to leave in 74 Titov, Tipografiia (see n. 70), 376–377. 75 Opisanie izdanii, napechatanykh kirilitsei: 1689 – ianvar 1725 g., comp. Tatiana A. Bykova, M. M. Gurevich (Moscow/Leningrad: Izd-vo Akad. Nauk SSSR, 1958), n. 1, p. 49– 52; n. 4, p. 54–58; n. 11, p. 64–66; n. 47, p. 124, 126–127; n. 89,p. 182–183; n. 95, p. 186– 187; n. 100, p. 190–192. 76 Ibid., 52. 77 Titov, Prilozheniia (see n. 69), 517; Igor Sytyi, “Mineia 1718 roku iz zaznachenniam stavropigialnoho statusu Kyievo-Pecherskoi lavry shchodo Konstantinopolskoho patriarkhatu v zibranni Chernihivskoho istorychnoho muzeiu,” Siverianskyi Litopys 3/159 (2021), 20–28. 78 Zhivov, Iz tserkovnoi istorii (see n. 14), 86–93, 109–114. 79 Titov, Tipografiia (see n. 70), 445–450. 80 Viktor M. Zhivov, Razyskaniia v oblasti istorii i predystorii russkoi kultury (Moscow: Iazyki slavianskoi kultury, 2002), 354–361; idem, Iz tserkovnoi istorii (see n. 14), 115– 119. On the unification of the editions of liturgical books in the MK, see Iaremenko, Pered vyklykami unifikatsii ta dystsyplinuvannia (see n. 24), 19–80.

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printed sluzhebniki an “among the first” formula mentioning an “unidentified” patriarch as had been done in Kyiv editions of 1692 or 1708. The new practice of “among the first” commemorations of the “Most Holy Governing Synod” then was fixed for the church of the entire Russian Empire (e.g., Kyiv Sluzhebnik of 1746 or Chernihiv Sluzhebnik of 1747).

II. Conceptualizations

The Social Concept of the Russian Orthodox Church and the Social Ethos of the Ecumenical Patriarchate: A Comparison of Central Aspects Heta Hurskainen

1. Social Concept and Social Ethos The Orthodox world took a new step in the year 2000 when the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) published The Basis of the Social Concept (henceforth Social Concept),1 the first official Orthodox church document to explain the Church’s interpretations of current (at the time of its adoption) societal questions and the theological background for these interpretations. Twenty years later, the document For the Life of the World – Toward a Social Ethos of the Orthodox Church 1

The Basis of the Social Concept (2000) https://mospat.ru/en/documents/176–osnovysotsialnoy-kontseptsii-russkoy-pravoslavnoy-tserkvi/ [henceforth (in footnotes) SC]. The SC has been widely studied among scholars. Existing research has focused on 1) the contrast between the Orthodox value system and European secular values (Sergei A. Belov, “Conflicting Russian Orthodox and European Secular Values and Their Reflection in Russian Law,” Review of Central and East European Law 41 (2016), 219–262, esp. 228– 233); 2) the document being the first attempt by the official Orthodox Church to take a stand on contemporary problems (Alexander Agadjanian, Turns of Faith, Search for Meaning: Orthodox Christianity and Post-Soviet Experience (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2014), 42–46); 3) the doctrinal concepts used in the document and their effect on addressing current social problems (Rudolf Uertz, “Einführung in die politische Theorie des Russisch-Orthodoxen Christentums,” Die Grundlagen der Sozialdoktrin der Russischen-Orthodoxen Kirche ed. Josef Thesing and Rudolf Uertz (Sankt Augustin: KonradAdenauer-Stiftung, 2001), 134–173; Pauliina Arola and Risto Saarinen, “In Search of Sobornost and ‘New Symphony’. The Social Doctrine of Russian Orthodox Church,” Ecumenical Review 54, no. 1–2 (2002), 130–141; Olga Hoppe-Kondrikova, Josephien van Kessel, and Evert van der Zweerde, “Christian Social Doctrine East and West: the Russian Orthodox Social Concept and the Roman Catholic Compendium Compared,” Religion, State & Society 41, no. 2 (2013), 199–224; 4) the limited reception of ideas developed by 20th century thinkers (Kristina Stoeckl, “Modernity and its Critique in 20th Century Russian Orthodox Thought,” Studies in East European Thought 58 (2006), 243–269); and 5) the SC’s feasibility in current Belorussian church-state relations (Alfons Brüning, “‘Beyond Politics?’ – The Belorussian Orthodox Church and the Challenge of Civil Society,” Report (2020), (Institute of Eastern Christian Studies 2020), https://www.ru.nl/publish/pages/ 799401/report_alfons_bruning_-_belarus.pdf. The substantial research on the document and the variety of analytical approaches show its uniqueness within Orthodoxy and the desire to understand the relationship between the Orthodoxy and the world.

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(henceforth Social Ethos)2 was released by the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America under the Ecumenical Patriarchate. This document addressed questions similar to those of the Social Concept. In the middle are the theological premises of the Orthodox Church’s social teachings and an attempt to answer burning social questions in current church-state relations. The aim of this article is to compare the central interpretations of the theological premises of the Social Concept and the Social Ethos documents and examine how the interpretations influence the Church’s answers on timely societal questions. The theological section discusses the ecclesiastical understanding of the documents and the interpretation of the central concepts of theosis and transfiguration in the relations of human beings and the cosmos. The practical section addresses such issues as Church and state, human rights, and war. The reader must keep in mind that the documents are independent ௅ they were written in different societal contexts and at different times ௅ and the domestic audiences also differ.3 Nonetheless, the documents have attracted worldwide interest and are read as examples of Orthodox teachings. The Social Concept is notable because, as Vsevolod Chaplin then described it, it was “the first time […] [that] a document codifies the Orthodox point of view on numerous aspects of church-state and church-society relations, as well as on pertinent contemporary issues.”4 Chaplin explained that the need for the document came from the lack of an easily accessible resource elucidating the principles according to which the

2

3

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For the Life of the World – Toward a Social Ethos of the Orthodox Church (2020) https://www.goarch.org/social-ethos [henceforth (in footnotes) SE]. There are already some published evaluations of the SE. Morrow highlights the aspect of pastoral care and commitment to democracy in divided society (Rev. Nektarios Morrow, “Pastoral Guidance for Civic Engagement. Moving towards a Social Ethos of the Orthodox Church,” Public Orthodoxy (2020), https://publicorthodoxy.org/2020/08/27/pastoral-guidance-civic-enga gement/#more-7359). Interfaith dialogue is addressed in: Phil Dorroll, “Islam from an Orthodox Perspective. A Review of Paragraph 56 of the Social Ethos Document,” Public Orthodoxy (2020), https://publicorthodoxy.org/2020/07/03/islam-from-an-orthodox-per spective/#more-7143. On a positive attitude towards the ordination of women, the separation of church and state and a theology with liturgical life as the starting point, see Johannes Oeldemann, “Hallo Welt!” Herder Korrespondenz 8 (2020), 34–36. An entire issue of Ecumenical Trends, vol. 49, no. 5 (2020), https://geii.org/ecumenical_trends/ sampleissue.html is dedicated to analyzing the SE from an ecumenical perspective. On the different societal contexts in Russia and America, see Aristotle Papanikolaou, “Whose Public? Which Ecclesiology?” in Political Theologies in Orthodox Christianity: Common Challenges – Divergent Positions, ed. Kristina Stoeckl et al. (London: Bloomsbury 2017), 229–242. The article includes several themes of the SE and can even be regarded as one of the background papers of the SE. Vsevolod Chaplin, “Remaining Oneself in a Changing World: The Bases of the Social Concept of the Russian Orthodox Church,” Ecumenical Review 54, no. 1–2 (2002), 112– 113.

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ROC answers different social questions.5 Another impetus for the development of the Social Concept was the historical context.6 The Social Concept, according to Wil van den Bercken, “consciously avoids discussion of the situation in concrete states, because almost half of the parishes of the Moscow Patriarchate are nowadays situated outside the borders of Russian Federation.” 7 As the first document of its kind, the Social Concept has dominated discussions on the Orthodox standpoints on social issues in modernity and has prompted the need to consider whether the views presented in the document are generally accepted within Orthodoxy. In a follow-up document, The Russian Orthodox Church’s Basic Teaching on Dignity, Freedom and Human Rights (2008) (henceforth Human Rights),8 the ROC questions the Western liberal value system, and expresses its own starting points for human rights discussions.9 This topic is briefly addressed in this article. After the ROC’s documents were adopted, the next official statement on the societal position of the Church was presented by the Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church of Crete10 in 2016. This council did not create a Social Concept or social doctrine document, but it did discuss some of the themes contained within the ROC’s documents, such as human dignity, freedom, responsibility, peace and war, love, and discrimination.11 5

At the time, Chaplin was deputy chairman of the Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate and a member of the WCC central committee. Chaplin, “Remaining Oneself” (see n. 4), 112–114. 6 Katja Richters, The Post-Soviet Russian Orthodox Church: Politics, Culture and Greater Russia (London: Routledge 2012), 18–27. 7 Wil van den Bercken, “A Social Doctrine for the Russian Orthodox Church,” Exchange 31, no. 4 (2002), 373–385, quotation 374. The translation is van den Bercken’s. The mospat.ru version says: “Therefore, its deals primarily with fundamental theological and ecclesio-social issues, as well as those aspects of the life of state and society which were and are equally relevant for the whole Church in the end of the 20th century and in the nearest future.” Van den Bercken interpreted this to mean Ukraine, where a rather complicated ecclesiological-jurisdictional situation exists. 8 Hoppe-Kondrikova et al. (see n. 1) have analyzed the ROC’s Social Concept and the human rights parallel document. 9 Henceforth (in footnotes) as HR. A significant amount of research has also been conducted on the ROC’s HR document. Kristina Stoeckl, The Russian Orthodox Church and Human Rights (Routledge: Abingdon, New York, 2014); Hanna Staehle, “Freedom of Expression and the Russian Orthodox Church,” in Freedom of Expression in Russia’s New Mediasphere, eds. Marielle Wijermars and Katja Lehtisaari (London: Taylor & Francis, 2019), 248–265; Kristina Stoeckl, Ingeborg Gabriel, Aristotle Papanikolaou, Political Theologies in Orthodox Christianity: Common Challenges and Divergent Positions (London: T & T Clark, 2017). 10 The Russian, Antiochian, Bulgarian, Georgian and Armenian Churches did not attend the Council. 11 “The Mission of the Orthodox in Today’s World,” https://www.holycouncil.org/-/missionorthodox-church-todays-world. Iuliu-Marius Morariu, “The social thought of the Orthodox

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In 2020, a special commission of Orthodox scholars appointed by Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew prepared the Social Ethos document,12 which further investigates the themes broached by the Council of Crete.13 The document does not aim to give clear-cut responses but, rather, general guidelines related to societal questions.14 Moreover, it was intended to promote dialogue on the ongoing and open-ended questions of human life.15

2. The Ecclesiastical Understanding of the Orthodox Church Both the Social Concept and the Social Ethos are “church documents,” meaning they represent an official view of the Church on the social issues important to the entities that drafted the documents. As such, the documents do not convey only the views of the Moscow or Ecumenical Patriarchate on the social issues addressed: they present a self-understanding of the Church itself. The embedded ecclesiastical self-understanding plays an important role in interpreting the documents and their views on the world, society, power, the state and different ethical questions, because it uncovers how the Church views itself, how it wants to be viewed by society, and how it wants to be portrayed in relevant discussions. The social messages contained in the documents are difficult to accurately comprehend without considering the respective self-understandings of the churches.

2.1. The Local Church These documents differ significantly in the way the churches behind them refer to themselves as autocephalous churches. The Social Concept often refers to the Russian Orthodox Church in the context of official synodal decisions or documents.16 The term “Russian Orthodox Church” is also used when clarifying relations with the state and politics, especially the clergy’s participation in elections, and when the Church’s practices regarding marriage are explained.17 The terms “patriarch/ate” are used frequently to indicate order (in the largest sense)

12 13 14 15 16 17

Church reflected in the documents of the Holy pan-Orthodox Council of Crete (2016),” Hervormde Theological Studies 75, no. 4 (2019), 1–6. Carrie Frederick Frost, “The Orthodox Church and Its Social Ethos: The Aims and Accomplishments of For the Life of the World,” Ecumenical Trends 49, no. 5 (2020). Oldemann, “Hallo Welt!” (see n. 2), 34–36. Elpidophoros, “Foreword” (2020). https://www.goarch.org/documents/32058/5149465/ Social+Ethos+Archiepiscopal+Forward.pdf/d41ab848–0ab3–4e2c-b1d4–295717f9f6ee. Elpidophoros, Foreword (see n. 14). SC III.7; X.1–3. SC V.2.

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within the church: responsibilities, punishments and blessings (allowances) within an autocephalous church.18 This denotes the local and institutional understanding of the autocephalous church;19 the focus is on the legal stance of the church, and its practices. In the Social Ethos, the term/s “patriarch/ate” are used to show how the Ecumenical Patriarch/ate is committed to ecumenical and interreligious dialogues,20 is ready to rethink exceptions to the canons regarding the remarriage of divorced clergy,21 is ready to speak for the larger religious community rather than only for its own autocephalous church, and is ready to bring to the forefront grievances like modern slavery and the destruction of the natural environment.22 The Social Ethos focuses more on the autocephalous church’s commitments to common social tasks with its partners but does not give detailed practical instructions on these connections. 2.2. The Orthodox Church The Social Concept occasionally uses the word pair “Orthodox Church” as a synonym for the ROC and, thus, uses it in a similar way to describe to whom the blessing of the Church should be given and what, in particular, the Church dictates should be avoided or condemned.23 The phrase “Orthodox Church” is used especially to make clear that the Church has a position and place in the state and that its tasks touch on or even overlap with the tasks of the state, especially with regard to asserting authentic spiritual and moral values in society.24 “Orthodox Church” is also used sometimes to refer to all the autocephalous Orthodox Churches, and also when referring to the historical legacy of these entities.25 The Social Ethos draws a picture of the Orthodox Church which is active in addressing social issues: it supports, teaches, understands, comforts, and exhorts, but it cannot approve and has not accepted, discerned, or rejected.26 These activities are not the activities of an autocephalous institutional church, as the activity of the Orthodox Church is described in the Social Concept. The Orthodox Church in the Social Ethos seems to encompass the worldwide Orthodox Church 18 SC introduction; II.2. 19 Alexander Agadjanian, “Breakthrough to Modernity, Apologia for Traditionalism: The Russian Orthodox View of Society and Culture in Comparative Perspective,” Religion, State & Society 31, no. 4 (2002), 327–346. 20 SE §53. 21 SE §22. 22 SE § 64; 65; 68. 23 SC XII. 9; XV. 2. 24 SC IX. 2. 25 SC IX. 3, X. 2. 26 I.e. SE §10; 31; 78.

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without references to any autocephalous church or any other borders within Orthodoxy. The Orthodox Church’s role is to take part in the discussion on various socio-ethical topics. This approach allows for a critical examination of the actions of the Orthodox Church. The Social Ethos admits that the Orthodox Church has not always been scrupulously faithful to its own ideal of equality between men and women and has allowed the “external forms and language of the faith” to become tools for promoting the interests of a nation, but it must find ways to obey the scriptural and patristic teachings and traditions regarding the common good in current times.27 Self-criticism, by contrast, is lacking in the Social Concept. The concept of the Orthodox Church is also used to describe Orthodox ecclesiology as well as its responsibility, mission, and role in ecumenical relations.28 To speak of the Orthodox Church more generally than it is spoken of in the Social Concept allows the description of the Orthodox Church’s actions to be more open and leaves space for theological reasoning because the Orthodox Church does not refer to any institutional body as such. The language describes principles to be followed in practical situations, but the instructions are not meant to be used in a “legalist” way, as they are in the Social Concept. 2.3. The Church of Christ In the Social Concept, the phrase “the Church” is used to describe Orthodox ecclesiology and the relation of the divine and the human as the body of the GodMan Christ, which is not yet perfect in its divine humanity in the world. The Social Concept here reflects its inherited old Russian anti-modernist and anti-liberal discourse of man-godship vs. God-manship.29 The ecclesiology of the Social Concept can be described as christological. After establishing this christological frame for the Church, the document presents various topics and the Church’s attitude towards them. At this point the Church is described much as it is in the Social Ethos. The Social Concept thus addresses various principled, doctrinal, and ethical questions, which are not necessarily bound to the local autocephalous context in a certain nation or society but are more general and, hence, need to be approached from the point of view of the Church’s essence. The Church therefore has the responsibility to manifest and remind people of that essence, and to guide them to the divine reality in history and in the form in which it is presently tangible. An important difference between the Social Concept and the Social Ethos lies in the theological description of the Church as the Church of Christ. In the Social Ethos, providing a theological description of the Church is not important. More important is identifying what the Church offers. The ecclesiological emphasis is 27 SE §29; 10; 34. 28 SE §50; 51; 53–56. 29 Agadjanian, “Breakthrough” (see n. 19), 333.

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on the communion between human beings and God, which creates a loving communion between people and the cosmos.30 This can be regarded as the Ecumenical Patriarchate’s emphasis on ecclesiology, which reflects its long history of emphasizing an ecological theology: [The Orthodox Ecotheological] approach is oriented cosmically rather than anthropocentrically, regarding the process of salvation or redemption as systemic or ecological in the broader sense. [… It is] based upon a theology of Incarnation that looks toward the transfiguration of all creation as the ultimate goal of history […]31

First asserted in connection with Orthodox academic articles on ecotheology, the cosmic approach is also strongly present in the Social Ethos societal document. The Social Ethos describes the Church as the servant of the Kingdom of God. The Church’s task is to direct people in their spiritual lives and in their social actions in light of the future Kingdom.32 This does not mean the Orthodox ecclesiology in the Social Ethos is “weak”; instead, the Orthodox Church is seen as the Church, and its apostolic character is seen as important. However, explicating the Church’s task to serve people is considered more important than explaining the character of the Church, as emphasized in the Social Concept.

3. Guiding Theological Principles: Theosis and Transfiguration Transfiguration and theosis (deification) are central terms in Orthodox theology.33 In the Social Concept and Social Ethos documents, they can be observed in two societal categories: church-society and Christian-cosmos. 3.1. Church ࣓ Society Deification is first mentioned in the Social Concept in connection with the Church. The relations between the Church and creation are established in the first chapter: “In the Church the creation is deified and God’s original design for the 30 SE §1௅5. See Papanikolaou, “Whose public?” (see n. 3), 239: “It must be clarified that when speaking of eucharistic ecclesiology, the Church is strictly identified with the liturgical event of the eucharist and only by extension with institutional structures, such as metropolises, patriarchates, and councils. The Church is a happening, a realization, a manifestation, and a constituting of the assembly as the body of Christ, and this as a result of the post-Pentecostal activity of the Holy Spirit.” 31 John Chryssavgis and Bruce V. Foltz, “Introduction. The Sweetness of Heaven Overflows onto the Earth: Orthodox Christianity and Environmental Thought,” in Toward an Ecology of Transfiguration: Orthodox Christian Perspectives on Environment, Nature, and Creation, ed. John Chryssavgis et al. (New York: Fordham University Press, 2013). 32 SE §2; 27; 80. 33 Aristotle Papanikolaou, “Theosis,” in The Oxford Handbook of Mystical Theology, ed. E. Howell et al. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020), 582.

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world and man is fulfilled by the power of the Holy Spirit.”34 This theological provision makes clear the Church’s position in the world: it is the unity of “the new humanity in Christ.”35 The authors of the Social Concept draw a strong difference between (secular) society and its inherent ethics and ideals on the one hand, and God’s reality on the other hand, which latter is to be found in the Church. The connection of the law to deification in the Church is important.36 The Social Concept identifies the Church as the place in which deification occurs, so the opposition of the world to the Church becomes clear. The Social Concept explains that the “internal divine law of the Church” or the “absolute divine law” is a manifestation of deification, the perfect communion with the Triune God that existed in paradise. The Church is claimed to present divine law, whereas people are called to seek communion. Secular law does not include the idea of communion, i.e. it does not include such an act, despite its task of manifesting the divine law in social and political realms. Secular law’s function remains restrictive, whereas the “divine law” within the Church maintains its original aspect of participation.37 The Church is the place where divine law is authentically interpreted, and thus, it is free because it is connected to God. The secular sphere, or society, is in danger of falling prey to misinterpretations and false use of the law if it is not connected to the Church.38 Divine law provides the key to deification when it concerns society and its organization. In the Social Concept, secular power oversteps its limits if it functions separately from God and the order established by Him, because this may lead to the deification of rulers.39 Relations between the Church and society comprise an important component of the Social Concept. According to its internal law, the Church cannot renounce its calling to transform all of humanity; the right to do this should be guaranteed by the Russian state, by recognizing the ROC as the universal Church of Christ and its pre-eminent public and legal status among other confessions, “which befits her as being the most sacred thing for the overwhelming majority of the population.”40 By expressing this, the Social Concept reinforces the Church’s policy of cooperating with the state “in affairs which benefit the Church herself, as well as the individual and society.”41 The relative rank and relationship is quite 34 35 36 37 38

SC I. 1. SC I. 1. SC IV. 4. SC IV. 1–2. The Social Concept provides examples of transformations that lead to destruction; SC III. 2; IV. 7. 39 SC III. 2. 40 SC III. 4. 41 SC III. 8.

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clear: the Church has the true divine character, which society should reflect and support. Society can either be with the Church or be on the way to depravity. The Church has a decisive role to play in the transformation of the world and of human life.42 The word “transformation” presupposes the fallenness of the world, or the alienation of human beings from God, regardless of the direction in which the transformation takes place. The Social Concept follows the eschatological and anthropological interpretation of transfiguration in which transformation manifests itself through synergy or through creative collaboration between Church members and their Leader, Jesus Christ, enabled by the Church’s nature as divine-human.43 Transformation can also be negative when it obscures transfiguration, neglecting the Church and such a synergy. The Church is understood in an institutional way as the ROC, which is the place where deification and transformation take place. In the Social Ethos, the theological prerequisite for church-state relations is not the Church itself but the Eucharist: that is what constitutes the true Christian polity.44 Establishing the Eucharist as the source of the polity strongly emphasizes the Church’s communion aspect and connects the transfiguration with the anticipation of the Kingdom of God.45 Political regimes are not incapable of following divine love, but people, united by the Eucharistic community, must be both critical and inviting for the secular sphere of life to manifest love. This understanding of the relationship between the Church and society is based on an eschatological vision that enables both entities to grow from the bottom up. The Social Ethos uses the words “deification” and, especially, “transfiguration,” more often than does the Social Concept, and does not associate these concepts with the Church in the same way. According to the Social Ethos, cooperative work is done with other Christians—“together in love and [they] work together for the transformation of the world”46—and call every society “to the sacred work of transfiguring the world in the light of God’s Kingdom of love and eternal peace.” 47 This presents the Church not as the only place in which different 42 43 44 45

SC I. 2; III. 4; XIV. 2. SC I. 2. SE §8. The Social Ethos document shares its title with Alexander Schmemann’s “For the Life of the World” (1973). The Social Ethos apparently draws from Schmemann’s legacy. Dale T. Irwin observed a common approach in the two: “Communion with the divine, the source of life of communion, is through the material world, neither apart from it nor replacing it.” (Dale T. Irwin, “For the Life of the Ecumenical Movement,” Ecumenical Trends 59, no. 5 (2020), 14–18). This common point strongly aligns with the ecotheological emphasis of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. On Schmemann’s meaning, see also Alexis Vinogradov, “Schmemann for Our Time: Christ, the Crisis of Our Age,” Public Orthodoxy (2021), https://publicorthodoxy.org/2021/01/27/schmemann-for-our-time/#more-8294. 46 SE §52. 47 SE §82.

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transformative phenomena occur but also as an entity that invites people to transfigurative work. This role is connected to the document’s understanding of the relations between divine and secular law. The Social Ethos describes secular laws as being capable of reflecting indispensable divine love: “The Church upholds the laws of forgiveness and reconciliation as the chief imperatives of Christian culture, while ever pointing to the potential and promise of transformation in Christ.”48 Like the Social Concept, the Social Ethos rejects false deification. Instead of seeing the secular power as the greatest threat to false deification, the Social Ethos identifies the deification of profit, the pervasive modern ethos of consumerism, and the base impulses of racism, sexism, and egocentrism as the problems.49 In this way, the Social Ethos approaches the concept of negative transformation found in the Social Concept. The difference lies in their use of the word. The ROC document condemns those who are not in agreement with the local church, the ROC, while the EP’s document condemns abuses like modern slavery that can exist in any organization. 3.2. Christian ࣓ Cosmos Another way to define the relation between the sacred and the profane in the two documents is through the pairing of Christians and the cosmos. This approach emphasizes the actions of individuals. The Social Concept also uses deification in this sense. The Church sees life as “a precious gift of God” and “asserts the inalienable freedom and God-like dignity of man […] to be as perfect as the Heavenly Father (Mt. 5:48) and to be deified, that is, to become partaker in the Divine nature (2 Pet. 1:4).”50 The transformation of human beings from within should be demonstrated in peace-making gestures, like non-resistance to evil as well as forgiving others and loving those whom we consider adversaries.51 On a personal level, therefore, the Social Concept does not emphasize the connection of divine law and deification, but it clarifies that the transformative process takes place in the Church. Moreover, the deification is affected by the Holy Spirit and the call to be perfect, “to become a partaker in the Divine nature.” This approach is more sympathetic than the one presented in the church-society context. The Social Concept does not speak of the cosmos but of the world and nature. The relationship with the world is described as the relationship between humans

48 SE §48. See also §81. “The Church is called […] to a vision of the human person as transfigured by fidelity to the will of the Father […] and also to the inviolability of […] every human person […] to reject that fidelity.” 49 SE §65. 50 SC XII. 1. 51 SC VIII. 5.

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and the world. Neither the world nor nature transforms itself: they are only transformed under the impact of humans. Transformation is dependent on the spiritual condition of human beings; therefore, transformation should originate from within the soul of human beings.52 Whereas society needs to turn to the Church to be deified, humans should look inside themselves for the world as a whole to transform. In the Social Ethos, theosis—deification and transformation by the Holy Spirit—is not bound with the visible structures of the church but, instead, with the body of Christ and communion with God as the Trinity. The object of God’s love and communion with Christ appears as the great command of the law to love God and one’s neighbors.53 Transformation by the Holy Spirit is expressed in human beings’ common work in a life of shared love and service, at the centre of which stands the Eucharist, where Christ draws people to Himself and, thereby, draws them to one another.54 The connection between the present and the future makes the Church a prophetic witness of hope and joy in a world wounded by its rejection of God.55 Theosis, transformation, and transfiguration together include the concept of the future in the present reality. The reality of the future is where love and common service take place. The Social Ethos calls the change away from love, communion, and God as disfiguration. It is both humanity’s and Christians’ vocation, mission, and responsibility to work towards transfiguring the world and the whole cosmos.56 Transfigurative work is a struggle against everything fallen and distorted in persons as well as in structures; it is also a struggle against separation from nature.57 The result of the transfiguring work of humanity in the cosmos is eternal peace, restoring the bond with all creation so that the intrinsic goodness of the cosmos may be revealed and God’s name glorified.58 Christians are called to transfigure the fallen nature in the service and light of the Kingdom of God to cover the whole cosmos.59 Every person’s opportunities for ascetic self-denial and work for transfiguring the cosmos are unique: it is the path of theosis.60 The work for 52 SC XIII. 5. 53 SE §3. 54 SE §5. See Papanikolaou, “Whose public?” (see n. 3), 239–240: “After the Eucharist, the Christian must enter the world in such a way as to ascetically struggle to learn how to love in the face of another who does not share her Orthodox presuppositions. This asceticism means that the faith is shared by persuasion and not by force, which means that the Orthodox Christian must inhabit a space with others who do not share her beliefs or presuppositions—a shared public political space.” 55 SE §80. 56 SE §4–5; 15; 31; 68–69; 73–75; 82. 57 SE I. §4–5; 73. 58 SE §4; 73–74. 59 SE §68–69. 60 SE §15.

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transfiguration will never be complete in this life and will be fulfilled only in the Kingdom of God.61 The Social Ethos underlines the need for everyone to work towards transfiguration—that is the work of love and communion. The concept includes the eschatological aspect that requires the existence of the Kingdom of God to be fully understood, but the call to transfigurative work is also understandable for those who do not share the Orthodox faith: love, service, and communion with people and with nature are the things through which the work of humanity can be judged and encouraged. Characteristic for the document’s theological line is to describe what human beings can do, and on what premises they can and should act, for the world.62 The change takes place through individuals, not through the Church. The Church, instead, is the supporter of the people’s transfigurative work for the cosmos: it is the communion through which the divine human becomes present for the world. Indeed, the Church is spread across the world through people. Society and its structures are part of the cosmos which originally reflected God’s goodness. Although the division is not so clear-cut that the Social Concept speaks only about church-society relations and the Social Ethos only about Christian-cosmos relations, the two categories illustrate the documents’ differing perspectives on society. In the Social Concept, society is an extension of the Church that needs to be guided in the right direction. Theosis takes on an important role in this interpretation. In the Social Ethos, on the other hand, society is part of the intrinsically good cosmos and, thus, is viewed in a more positive light than it is in the Social Concept. Transfiguration serves as the lens through which the whole world and even personal theosis are seen.

4. The Church and the State The differences registered already in scrutinizing the theological background cause more distinctive disparities in themes focusing on practical matters. The idea of the Church presented in the Social Concept as the local, national church— the ROC—combined with the Church’s sanctifying role provide grounds for the document’s interpretation of church and state. Since the Social Ethos establishes its main argumentation on persons’ and humanity’s efforts, it produces different resolutions on practical matters.

61 SE §4. 62 SE §82.

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4.1. The State: Sign of Degeneration or Hope of Transfiguration?  The argumentation on church-state relations presented in the Social Concept is based on a four-stage biblical-historical interpretation. The first stage took place in Paradise, where family was the original cell of human society.63 During the second stage, God’s original purpose was replaced by the emergence of a temporal state in the times of the Judges.64 In God’s design, the state gave people an opportunity to organize their lives together according to their free will and to avoid greater sin by means of temporal power in accordance with God’s commandments; indeed, He guided both spiritual and public life.65 This required authority instead of coercion and a strong faith in society.66 The third stage was monarchic: power was still God-given, but it was used through coercion rather than through authority. The shift from stage two to stage three indicated a weakening of faith and was expressed as replacing the King with a visible king. Democracies belong to the fourth stage: they do not seek the divine sanction of power and are present in secular societies presupposing the right of all people to express their will through election.67 The Church, historically created during the third (monarchic) stage, is where all things heavenly and earthly should be united in Christ and where “creation is deified and God’s original design for the world and man is fulfilled by the Holy Spirit.”68 As the state system had slipped away from God’s original design at this point, the Church brought His design back to the world. The Church is founded by God himself, while God-instituted state power is witnessed only indirectly in history.69 Therefore, the Church is favorable to any development that brings the characters of the state back from the previous stages.70 According to the same logic, the Church uses authority—not coercion—and is placed above the state. Because authority is the decisive aspect of human life together, the ROC speaks about church-state relations rather than Christian௅cosmos relations. The biblical௅ historical background in the Social Concept illustrates the stages the state should follow in its transformation. However, no room exists in heaven for coercion or sin, nor for opposition between human and divine; therefore, no room exists in heaven for the concept of state.71

63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71

SC III. 1–2. SC III. 1–2. SC III. 1–2. SC III. 7. SC III. 7. SC I. 1. SC III. 3. SC III. 7. SC III. 3; III. 7.

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The Social Ethos distinguishes between the Kingdom of God and this world, describing the Kingdom of God as a place of trust.72 The Eucharist as the source of the Orthodox polity shines as the icon of the Kingdom of God.73 The Kingdom of God alone is the Christian’s first and last loyalty; therefore, after celebrating the Eucharist, Christians need to re-enter the world anew and witness the Kingdom of God.74 By distinguishing between the Kingdom of God and worldly kingdoms, the Social Ethos is able to reject all kinds of nationalism and view the history of church-state relations, including diverse forms of government, without assigning any of them special recognition from the Church’s perspective.75 The Social Ethos observes the danger of falling prey to false piety by interpreting any specific historical era as representing the ideal expression of church-state relations.76 The Social Ethos, thus, rejects the historical four-stage disfiguration process of the state, as well as the reverse transfiguration process, proposed in the Social Concept, and rejects the love for the fatherland and nation that the Social Concept cherishes. The Social Ethos argues that “phyletism,” which is the “subordination of the Orthodox faith to ethnic identities and national interests,” is forbidden when the Church turns to forms of nationalism over the Christian conscience.77 As a consequence, the Social Ethos rejoices the tenuous linkages between the institutional church and the state because the church should be free from alliances with worldly ambitions.78 4.2. Serving the Conscience of the State Because modern societies are not religiously rooted, as the ROC in the Social Concept wishes them to be, and the ideal church-state relation is lacking, the Church focuses also on the inner conditions of its members as its way to influence the state, which has turned religion from a “social” to a “private” affair of a person and removed the possibility for the Church to turn directly to the state. In the Social Concept, freedom of conscience in the state is considered to contrast with salvation and is the sign of the state losing religious values and becoming indifferent to the tasks of the Church.79 The same principle, however, enables the Church to enjoy legal status in a secular state.80 In cases where the state forces believers to commit sinful actions, the Church encourages its members to use their 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80

SE §8. SE §8. See Oeldemann, “Hallo Welt!” (see n. 2), 36. SE §9; 12. SE §8. SE §10. SE §11. SE §13. SC III. 6. SC III. 6.

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will of conscience to object to the state.81 Freedom of conscience as a state principle may be an unwanted right for everyone, but it is necessary for the Church’s existence in the secular state. The Church, however, relies on believers to use freedom of conscience for good purposes. This can be explained by the moral level of society: if the faith and moral level of a society are high, the state also is on a higher level and expresses the interests of the Church. When this is not the case and the state does not follow the Church’s principles, then only individuals can make a difference in society and bring the Church and its values back to where they belong. The ROC seems to understand very well the core of freedom of conscience but wants it to be used only by believers and the Church to secure its place in the state.82 The free conscience, which the Social Concept views as the sign of the degeneration of the democratic state, is considered the grounds for building a healthy society in the Social Ethos. By judging the state from an eschatological perspective, the Social Ethos is able to state that in many countries today, civil order, freedom, human rights, and democracy are realities in which citizens may trust. These societies allow persons to seek and pursue the good ends they desire for themselves, their families, and their communities. According to the Social Ethos, this is a very rare occasion in human history.83 Society’s task is not to be in concordance with the Church but to guarantee the freedom of individuals to seek good ends. This freedom includes the possibility of disfiguration. However, without freedom, the natural law written in humans’ hearts cannot use the prophetic voice. No state is perfect, and therefore, Christians must work to obey the commandment of love in the political space.84 The Social Concept does recognize the difference between Church and state: the former aims for the salvation of people, while the latter seeks to protect their well-being on Earth.85 As such, the two are intertwined. Certain moral norms essential for well-being in the state are vital to salvation as well; therefore, 81 SC III. 5. 82 Alexander Agadjanian, “Liberal, Individual, and Christian Culture: Russian Orthodox Teaching on Human Rights in Social Theory Perspective,” Religion, State & Society 38, (2010), 97–113. Agadjanian describes the ambivalent relationship towards secular principles. 83 SE §10. The Social Ethos seems to follow Papanikolaou’s political theology in many cases. Papanikolaou himself seems to refer to Vigen Guroian, an Armenian theologian, more often than he refers to Schmemann. Both place the Eucharist in the middle of Christian ethics and political thinking. See Aristotle Papanikolaou, The Mystical as Political. Democracy and Non-Radical Orthodoxy (Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame University Press, 2012), 55–86. English-speaking Orthodoxy also includes somewhat differing voices. On these theological developments, see Jonathan Cole, “The Addition of Orthodox Voices to (Western) Political Theology,” Studies in Christian Ethics 33, no. 4 (2020), 549–564. 84 SE §12. 85 SC III. 3.

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common actions or church-state cooperation can serve the salvific mission of the Church.86 The work of God is always salvific in the Social Concept. Therefore, the state, even if its self-determination is recognized, is never an independent actor that can reflect the non-salvific work of God. The state’s relation with the Church is defined by the sanctifying power of the Church. Whereas the Church itself is already a “new creation,” so it cannot be under the state’s rule in a theological sense; on the contrary, the state should respect the Church’s canonical laws and independence.87 The same reasoning underlies the idea that the Church is absolutely free from the state and has the right to oppose the state.88 While the Social Concept seeks to bring the divine law into the secular law and, thus, create a society that is more controlled by the Church, the Social Ethos expresses the independence of the Church from the state clearly: “No one should seek to advance the Christian faith through the use of political power or legal coercion.”89 According to the Social Ethos, the Church’s way to influence is through the consciousness of people. Although the Church enjoys special knowledge of the love of God revealed in Christ, the moral commandments of God’s law are written upon every human heart and accessible by human intellect and conscience.90 The Church does not replace the natural laws; instead, the laws are “enriched and deepened in the new covenant of liberty imparted by Christ,” which makes the demands absolute for Christians.91 Laws are the deepest rational principles.92 Secular law does not need the Church to make the content of the law in accordance with the divine law. People writing the laws can create such laws based on the law written in their hearts. Natural laws also give reason to be disobedient to the civil authorities, if the laws are deficient: “in many cases, conscience and reason suffice in the Law’s stead.”93 The Social Ethos fades out the Church’s rule in society and gives it gladly to the state. The Church does not stay out of society but, rather, provides theological bases in the natural law for cooperation with the state.

86 SC III. 3. 87 SC III. 3. This can be called the new symphony in the 2000’s Russia. See Arola and Saarinen, In Search of Sobornost (see n. 1), 137. On the incompatibility between symphony and democracy in the ROC’s thinking, see Zoe Knox, Russian Society and the Orthodox Church: Religion in Russia after Communism (Abingdon: Routledge 2005), 105–113. 88 SC III. 4. See Chaplin, “Remaining Oneself” (see n. 4), 14. 89 SE §12. 90 SE §7. 91 SE §7. 92 SE §7. 93 SE §7.

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5. Human Rights The Social Concept does not pay much attention to human rights, as the structure of its theological argumentation leads it to be critical of human rights. Human rights are the result of secularization and set human beings outside their relations with God.94 Human rights advance human beings’ self-sufficiency.95 Therefore, according to the Social Concept argument, human rights are clearly set in the framework of secularism, which means that they become necessary only at the point at which the Church’s influence on the state has almost vanished. This is evidence of fallenness: when rights and freedoms come to replace the Church. Freedom of conscience, thus, is seen as independent from the Church. Human rights language seems to be tricky for the Social Concept. Human rights are not the context in which minorities, sexual orientation, or women’s right to make decisions about their own bodies are discussed. These questions are addressed in right-or-wrong categories in the context of church-state relations or in the context of family. The Social Concept, therefore, has no alternative but to take a critical stand on human rights. The Human Rights document (2008) compensated for this gap, however. For the Social Ethos, human rights are the starting point for fruitful dialogue with society.96 Human rights guarantee each person’s human dignity and freedom of conscience, which are the basic tenets for all other freedoms, of which the most important is religious freedom.97 Therefore, human rights enable the prophetic voice of the Church in society and give it the possibility to be a church. Human rights enable the Church to speak with its own voice, and other voices are not considered a threat. In the following subsections, central concepts for human rights, freedom and dignity are analyzed. 5.1. Freedom Freedom is a significant human rights concept. Both the Social Concept and the Social Ethos distinguish between Christian freedom and freedom in the secular space. The Social Concept argues that Christian freedom is freedom in God, the true freedom that reflects the Kingdom of God.98 Christian freedom vanishes 94 95 96 97

SC IV. 7. SC IV. 7. SE §61. SE §64. Berger’s article is an example of the American Orthodoxy’s recognition of the pluralistic challenges already being faced in the beginning of the new millennium. Thinking has thus had time to develop before the Social Ethos was published. Peter. L. Berger, “Orthodoxy and the Pluralistic Challenge,” in The Orthodox Parish in America. Faithfulness to the Past and Responsibility for the Future, ed. Anton C. Vrame (Brookline, MA: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 2004), 33–41. 98 SC IV. 6.

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under the influence of sin.99 Freedom in secular space is the freedom of choice that should be used to choose the good with God’s help; if it is used in any other way, it darkens Christian freedom.100 The secular state cannot be free in a Christian sense because it does not guide the decision to follow God’s commandments; therefore, personal freedom in the secular state is seen as a protection of selfwill.101 Human rights documents explicate this by noting that the freedom of choice is not an ultimate value and that the weakness of human rights language is that it bypasses moral (Christian) freedom.102 Despite its negative view of the freedom of conscience, the Social Concept requires a certain autonomous place for individuals in society so that they can use their conscience and free will, which determines their fate.103 While recognizing the other categories of freedom, the Social Concept maintains Christian freedom as its guide and relativizes other freedoms, not only in a spiritual sphere but also in society. Whereas the Social Concept draws the conclusion that Christian freedom should guide secular society more and more, the Social Ethos concludes that by proclaiming the Kingdom of God and its principles can serve as a constant critique of society, which is never perfect despite good intentions.104 Spiritual freedom present in humanity imparts the light of rational freedom to lift the cosmos to God. True freedom is a realization of one’s nature towards a positive objective, which can take place while freely seeking a union with God.105 Christian freedom can influence and be useful because of freedom in the secular space. Freedom is also a societal right in which people in many countries can trust.106 A just society preserves human freedoms, and human rights language has the power to speak of this demand with clarity.107 In this category belongs freedom of choice, which can lead to real freedom for every person but also to the freedom to reject that path as a necessary aspect of this freedom.108 The Social Ethos reminds us that human rights language often describes the minimum, not the entirety, of God’s goodness.109 Freedom of choice is considered a norm, which guarantees both freedom in society and the freedom to choose the path leading to Christian freedom.

99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109

HR II.2 (see n. 9). SC IV. 1. See SC IV. 7. HR II. 1 (see n. 9). SC IV. 6. See SE §80. SE §62. SE §10. SE §12. SE §81. SE §61; 63.

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5.2. Dignity Dignity is another basic concept in human rights language, but the Social Concept does not explicitly define it because of its overall rejective attitude towards human rights. Dignity is a central concept in the Human Rights text of the ROC, where human rights are said to be based on dignity and where the ROC interprets dignity as a God-given ontology, which cannot be ruined by an undignified life even though such a life can darken the dignity of a human, making it difficult to discern.110 God’s image and likeness in a human being is relativized and is dependent on the moral actions of that human being, but it cannot disappear completely.111 The key is how the Christian understanding of dignity is described so that it can be used to evaluate the influence of human rights theories on personal qualities. The ROC’s concern is that human rights theories dismiss as their basis the Orthodox anthropology of a person as the image and likeness of God and the connected process of deification. This concern overrides the protection of the weakest and the most vulnerable so greatly that these aspects do not merit space in the human rights document. The Social Ethos recognizes the dignity of each human person created in the image and likeness of God.112 Human rights are seen as preserving human dignity. The document admits that the language of human rights does not encompass all concepts of human dignity based on the image and likeness of God, but the language does honour the reality, and therefore the Orthodox Church can use its language to protect human life.113 Dignity is a concept with which the weakest rights can be protected. Therefore, the human rights section in the Social Ethos collects dozens of examples of modern slavery, oppression, and victims of different abuses.114 In these cases, the Church wants to be active and critical towards systems that cause misery to be faithful to itself. This illustrates how human rights language can protect the weakest, which is also the task of the Church. Focusing on people’s rights, the document highlights the Church’s main task, whereas the Social Concept, in highlighting the Church’s role for people, overlooks a significant aspect of the Church’s work. 5.3. Religious Majority and Minority The question of the religious majority versus minority position of the Church in different states is addressed only superficially in the Social Concept. The document proposes that the state, in its relations with religious bodies, “will take into 110 111 112 113 114

SC I. 4. SC I. 1–2. SE §29. SE §61. SE §63; 66–67.

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account the number of their followers and the place the [sic] occupy in forming the historical, cultural and spiritual image of the people and their civic stand.”115 This point is meant to be applied in Russia, where the ROC is the biggest church and has impacted culture and history over a long period. At the same time, it suggests that in states in which the Orthodox Church is in a minority position, the issue should be omitted to a certain extent from church-state relations. This idea is not as striking as it may appear at first glance. Such a state has fallen far from the ideal state of the Social Concept. Cooperation in those cases is limited, and influence takes place through the members of the Church. The ROC shares its God-given character with other Orthodox churches and believes that they reflect the same God-given goal as the ROC.116 Based on this, the ROC should accept the position expressed in the Social Ethos on church-state relations. Whether this is true, however, can be questioned: both the theological interpretations and the societal context can differ greatly and create divergent solutions that can be difficult to reconcile. In the Social Concept, plurality and minority issues become dispensable in church-state relations rights. The Social Concept treats the concept of freedom as if its acceptance would influence the Church’s inner understanding of its spiritual (Christian) freedom. Therefore, it denies the idea of giving equal status to different religious organizations.117 Minority questions are discussed in societies where cultural and religious pluralism are allowed. According to the Social Ethos, peaceful co-existence within cultural pluralism is richness for which God should be thanked.118 The Social Ethos claims that the majority position of the religious community can be guaranteed only by taking seriously the religious rights of all minorities.119 The Social Ethos has placed freedom of religion as the highest mark of a state’s willingness to protect both individuals and minority and majority communities.120 It is proof of the power of love, not hate, and demonstrates that people can sustain the moral foundations of social unity. The comparison between the two documents reveals how the Church-centred view of society’s well-being in the Social Concept does—and does not—understand society’s protective effects as good if they do not stem from the Church’s ideals. The Social Ethos sees society being independent from the Church but not from God’s reign and, therefore, is ready to support ideas that reflect, even partially, the Church’s views.

115 116 117 118 119 120

SC III. 6. SC III. 4. SC III. 6; HR IV. 3 (see n. 9). SE §12. SE §64. SE §64.

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5.4. War National and state borders are important for the Social Concept, and it defends them by claiming the Orthodox need to protect the fatherland. The ultimate point is that “when a nation, civil or ethnic, represents fully or predominantly a monoconfessional Orthodox community, it can in a certain sense be regarded as the one community of faith—an Orthodox nation.”121 This can be interpreted as a kind of transfiguration of a nation. The Social Ethos denies this kind of thinking: “The modern nation-state is not a sacred institution, even if it can at times serve the causes of justice, equity, and peace. Nor are borders anything more than accidents of history and conventions of law.”122 The most revealing concept is “fatherland.” The Social Concept demands people love it; the Social Ethos does not even mention the word. The Social Ethos denies all forms of nationalism, whereas the Social Concept categorizes nationalism as love of the fatherland, patriotism, aggressive nationalism, xenophobia, and national exclusiveness.123 This distinction gives the ROC room to argue, at the same time, for peace, defence of fatherland and just war.124 The Social Ethos, focused on the task of increased peace, is reluctant to admit the need to use force against violent attacks and is very clear in saying that the Orthodoxy does not have a “Just War Theory,” nor can war ever be “holy.”125 Both documents refer to John 15:13, “Greater love hath no man but this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”126 The Social Concept validates the actions of protecting friends and their land through war with this reference.127 The Social Ethos claims that these are the words from the Cross, which can never be a place of defence of oneself or others. The words, however, serve as a reminder that in defence of the innocent, the only Christian motive can be love.128 The Social Concept interprets the Bible as a way that links salvation and one kind of nationalism, letting one assume that defence of the fatherland may have positive consequences for persons before God. It understands that the love of one’s enemy and mercy are virtues that belong on a personal level, whereas love and sacrifice for one’s friend is a greater virtue in shared defence of the fatherland and in the Orthodox belief connected to it.129 The Social Ethos does not make such a distinction between a person’s and a community’s responsibility to love an 121 122 123 124 125 126 127

SC II. 3. SE §67. SC II. 3–4. See Hoppe-Kondrikova et al., “Christian Social Doctrine” (see n. 1), 206–207. SC II.3; VIII. 3. SE §46–47. SC VIII. 2; SE §47. SC VIII. 2. The HR document II. 4. is even more clear and states that the Orthodox tradition traces patriotism back to these words of Christ the Savior Himself. 128 SE §47. 129 SC VIII. 2; VIII. 5. See Christian௅cosmos (subchapter no. 3.2) in this article.

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enemy. It is a task that arises on an individual level. The inevitable use of force does not, however, sanctify anyone.130 Whereas the Social Concept encourages people not to spare their lives when protecting the fatherland if it is threatened, the Social Ethos admits the need to protect the vulnerable, sometimes also by force, because the world is wounded by sin.131 The Social Concept refer to the words of some saints who encourage people to protect their fatherland and combine this act with several ways towards salvation and a position in Heaven.132 The Social Ethos states, instead, that the Orthodox Church has not been pacifistic and has not denied the people serving in the military, using military saints, often martyrs, as examples.133 The document differs from the Social Concept in that it merely mentions the existence of those saints but also refers to those from the Orthodox history who chose to suffer without violence for peace.134 What appears as a difference in theological interpretation emerges as a juxtaposition on practical matters.

6. Conclusions The two Orthodox documents, the ROC’s Social Concept and the Ecumenical Patriarchate’s Social Ethos, offer theological explanations for the church’s social teachings, albeit seemingly disparate interpretations of them. The Social Concept aims to define the local church’s stance on societal issues. It portrays the ideal of the Church and describes those phenomena that deviate from that view. This approach emphasizes that the local church body, such as the ROC, presents the authentic Church of Christ to society. This local but divinely authorized Church has a relationship with the state. The Social Concept is very strict in its view that society should follow the specific instructions of the Church. Not following those instructions places society on a path to disfiguration. The ROC’s linear understanding of a society’s historical development as distancing itself from the Church’s ideal impedes the introduction of innovations and interpretations that have not already been expressed in history. Theologically, the ROC pursues the perfect, initial state of the world after creation. From this perspective, society’s growth towards God’s Kingdom equates to moving backwards along the historical path. Footprints for that exist and can 130 For more on the differences between the Moscow Patriarchate and the Ecumenical Patriarchate on war stemming from the beginning of the 2000s, see Yuri Stoyanov, “Norms of War in Eastern Orthodox Christianity,” in World Religions and Norms of War, ed. Vesselin Popovski et al. (New York: United Nations University Press 2009), 166–219. 131 SC II. 2. & SE §46; Also, the Social Concept on war as evil. SC VIII 1–2. 132 SC II. 2. 133 SE §46. 134 SE §44.

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be followed. Society is the Church’s degenerated extension, where the ideal of God-manship should be realized. The work of God-manship is based on theosis, the inner quality of the people who form the society. The Ecumenical Patriarchate’s Social Ethos concept adopts a contrasting standpoint, aiming to show how the Church can influence the world. The Church of Christ’s essence is not described as being in the possession of any church institution; at the same time, it holds on to the specific Orthodox Church and theology, emphasizing the close connection between the historical church structure and specific theological interpretations made within the historical church. In the Social Ethos, the Church claims its right to be critical of the state or any other institution by virtue of the coming Kingdom of God, in which both society and the entire cosmos should reflect a state of perfect love. The “Green” Patriarch(ate)’s universal approach, which considers the entire cosmos to be under God’s reign, allows society to be seen as part of the wholeness that belongs to God and will be transfigured in the future. The Church is a servant of the world on its path to the future, to the eschaton. All the efforts that seem to be consistent with this goal can be supported. For example, human rights are supported because they give necessary space for people’s consciences and support the forces of good without coercion. Cooperation with the state and between confessions and religions also become possible, even desired. Loose connections between the Church and state enable the Church to be “the Church.” If theological elements are clarified in different manners, understandably, their social interpretations will also vary. The differences between the ROC’s and Ecumenical Patriarchate’s documents examined in this work are relevant when creating a picture of the many ways Orthodoxy can approach the questions of the present day.

Toward an Orthodox Social Ethos? Socio-Ethical Negotiations in Ukrainian Orthodoxy Regina Elsner

1. Introduction More than other post-Soviet countries, Ukraine is characterized by the vivid development of a strong civil society since the 1990s, confessional pluralism, a high level of trust in the Church as an important actor in society, and a search for identity between pro-European and pro-Russian tendencies. All of these aspects have fostered an exceptional discourse about the role and position of Orthodoxy within a vibrant society. With the 2019 recognition of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) by the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, the lines were drawn in the battle to define “proper Ukrainian Orthodoxy” in canonical, historical, liturgical, and social terms. This analysis outlines how the different Orthodox churches in Ukraine contest their roles in processes of social negotiation and how socio-ethical thought has evolved under these circumstances. The search for an Orthodox social ethos has accompanied the Orthodox Church since the second half of the 20th century. This quest forms an important backdrop for understanding the intertwined contextual and essential aspects of social ethics—the theological discipline that deals with the ethical evaluation of social structures and social and political systems—in a case like Ukraine. The social concepts of the two strong Orthodox patriarchates of Moscow and Constantinople are supposed to have an impact on local churches, yet nowhere in the Orthodox world have they collided as directly as in Ukraine—the only country with an Orthodox majority but two canonical Orthodox churches. How do the narratives of the two mother churches affect discourse in Ukraine, and how do these churches relate to local contexts with their manifold actors? Are there essential differences that would prevent a joint commitment to addressing social challenges? After sketching the development of Orthodox social ethics to understand the intersections and divergences between the two main strands of Orthodox socioethical thought, this paper examines the socio-ethical engagement of Ukraine’s Orthodox churches and the impact of local actors since the country’s independence. Finally, by analyzing some exemplary topics of social ethics, the paper explores the relationship between internal and external factors in the process of socio-ethical conceptualization to help draw some conclusions about the fault lines and perspectives of Orthodox social ethics in Ukraine and beyond.

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2.1. A Theological Discipline in the Making For the Orthodox Church, social ethics is a relatively new theological field, yet it has developed an enormous dynamic in recent decades. For a long time, many Orthodox churches perceived social ethics as irrelevant. Orthodox theology traditionally focused on dogmatic, patristic, and liturgical topics, whereas questions of secular coexistence were treated at most as matters of anthropology or eschatology. Orthodox churches were either not confronted by civil society as an autonomous sphere between the state and the individual (in the case of historically Orthodox countries) or too marginal as minorities (in the case of diasporic Orthodox churches). As a result, theological assessments of social challenges were limited to appeals either to political actors or to individual conscience. This situation changed in the 20th century, when Orthodox churches increasingly had to deal with emerging civil society, atheist regimes, and different democratic models. Social changes hit the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) particularly radically, from the 1917 revolutions, radical persecution of the church, and confrontation with an atheist state, through religious rebirth in a democracy, and onward to existence in an authoritarian state at the beginning of the 21st century. In view of this historical development, it is hardly surprising that Russian Orthodox theologians, in particular, became pioneers of socio-ethical concepts, challenging and inspiring other Orthodox churches at various stages. Through its open engagement with emergent civil society and political issues, Russian theology took a prominent position among the Orthodox churches at the start of the 20th century and became formative for Orthodox theology as a whole through exile.1 Russian theology influenced incipient ecumenical rapprochements in the World Council of Churches and dialogue with the Roman Catholic Church. Later, the ROC played a significant role in the Cold War when state instrumentalization forced the church to take an international stand on the central socioethical issues of the time—peace and social justice. Cold War-era texts are thus highly interesting testimonies of a socio-ethical discourse with the ROC.2 1

2

See Paul Ladouceur, Modern Orthodox Theology: Behold, I Make All Things New (London: Bloomsbury, 2019); Aristotle Papanikolaou, The Mystical as Political: Democracy and Non-Radical Orthodoxy (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2012), 33; Paul Valliere, Modern Russian Theology: Bukharev, Soloviev, Bulgakov: Orthodox Theology in a New Key (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 2000). See H. Overmeyer, Frieden im Spannungsfeld zwischen Theologie und Politik: Die Friedensthematik in den bilateralen theologischen Gesprächen von Arnoldshain und Sagorsk (Frankfurt am Main: Lembeck, 2005); Heta Hurskainen, Ecumenical Social Ethics as the World Changed. Socio-Ethical Discussion in the Ecumenical Dialogue between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland 1970–2008 (Turku: Schriften der Luther-Agricola-Gesellschaft, 2013).

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The ROC’s role in the international struggle for peace and in the framework of the ecumenical movement had an impact on pan-Orthodox discourse on social ethics. From the 1950s on, the relationship of Orthodoxy to social developments was on the agenda of preparations for the Pan-Orthodox Council, as were various structural and canonical issues.3 The Russian participants in the council, under the chair of metropolitan Nikodim (Rotov) of Leningrad, took responsibility for preparing a document on the Orthodox Church’s positions on social developments; according to the Soviet agenda, disarmament and the end of discrimination were central themes.4 In the 1980s, this document underwent further editing with a focus on human rights and social justice. When the paper was debated between 2014 and 2016, contributions by the ROC led to the document’s appreciation for human freedom being qualified by a new emphasis on responsibility and moral principles.5 “The Mission of the Orthodox Church in Today’s World,” which outlined the church’s contribution to realizing peace, justice, freedom, fraternity, love among peoples, and the removal of discrimination, was published as an official document of the Great and Holy Council of Crete in June 2016, making it one of the first pan-Orthodox basic texts on social ethics.6 In the meantime, the ROC had overhauled the consultative process of the panOrthodox community and published two fundamental documents on social issues: “The Basis of the ROC’s Social Concept”7 in 2000 and “The Basic Teaching of the ROC on Human Dignity, Freedom, and Rights”8 in 2008. Both texts attracted a great deal of international attention, because, for the first time in the history of Orthodoxy, a church was taking a fundamental stand on socio-ethical issues. Most ecumenical discussions had focused on conceptions of human dignity and human rights, questioning an apparent bipolarity between “Western” and “Eastern” ideas, with lasting effects on social and political concepts.9 However, the internal Orthodox debate has repeatedly shown the diversity of positions within Orthodoxy, 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

See G. N. Skobei, “Mezhpravoslavnoe sotrudnichestvo v podgotovke Sviatogo i Velikogo Sobora Vostochnoi Pravoslavnoi Tserkvi,” Tserkov i vremia 2 (2002), 54–199. See Aleksandr Agadjanian, “Pravoslavnyi vzgliad na sovremennyi mir. Kontekst, istoriia i smysl sobornogo dokumenta o missii Tserkvi,” Gosudarstvo, Religiia, Tserkov 34, no.1 (2016), 255–279. Ibid., 268f. See Holy and Great Council, The Mission of the Orthodox Church in Today’s World (Pentecost 2016), https://www.holycouncil.org/-/mission-orthodox-church-todays-world. Osnovy Sotsialnoi Kontseptsii Russkoi Pravoslavnoi Tserkvi (August 13–16, 2000), http://www.patriarchia.ru/db/text/419128.html. Osnovy ucheniia Russkoi Pravoslavnoi Tserkvi o dostoinstve, svobode i pravakh cheloveka (Arkhiereiskii Sobor Russkoi Pravoslavnoi Tserkvi 2008), http://www.patriarchia.ru/db/ text/428616.html. See Orthodox Christianity and Human Rights in Europe: A Dialogue Between Theological Paradigms and Socio-Legal Pragmatics ed. Elisabeth-Alexandra Diamantopoulou and Louis-Léon Christians (Brussels: Peter Lang, 2018); Christentum und Menschenrechte in

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which prohibits a simple comparison of West and East. There is no doubt that the ROC’s documents were a decisive impetus for Orthodox churches worldwide to analyze and discuss their anthropological and socio-ethical foundations. As Alexander Agadjanian has shown, the Russian positions had an enormous influence on the texts of the Pan-Orthodox Council between 2014 and 2016.10 Responsibility and moral action as a corrective to human freedom, on the one hand, and community as a corrective to individual rights, on the other, are two essential pillars of the Russian Orthodox position on human dignity and numerous socio-ethical issues. These are the themes that the ROC introduced in the drafting process of the Crete document. This process also led to obvious ambivalences in the text, especially in relation to human dignity, which were subsequently criticized.11 Given the major involvement of Russian representatives in the preparation of this socio-ethical document, it is ironic that the ROC was not present at the Crete council and did not sign the text that was officially adopted. In 2017, a theological working group commissioned by Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew (Archondonis) began working on a comprehensive socio-ethical concept.12 The text adopted by the Crete council was deemed insufficient; its history shows how different actors influenced the document’s tone and detail, and how the drafters struggled to reach a consensus until the end of the process. A new working group, it was argued, could break away from positions dating back more than fifty years, go into more detail on particular current issues, and produce a more consistent text. It seems reasonable to conclude that this decision also brought about a final separation from the Russian discourse, which had had a decisive influence on the council’s text but no longer held any sway over the church’s discussions because the ROC had stayed away from Crete.13 This separation of theological and socio-ethical discourses was solidified by the ROC’s breaking off communion with the Ecumenical Patriarchate after the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) gained autocephaly in 2018. In spring 2020, the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America of the Ecumenical Patriarchate published a text called “For the Life of the World: Toward a

10 11 12 13

Europa: Perspektiven und Debatten in Ost und West, ed. Vasilios N. Makrides, Jennifer Wasmuth and Stefan Kube (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang Edition, 2016). See Agadjanian, “Pravoslavnyi vzgliad” (see n. 4), 267ff. See Robert M. Arida et al., “Defending Human Dignity,” Public Orthodoxy, June 15, 2016, https://publicorthodoxy.org/2016/06/15/defending-human-dignity/. See David Bentley Hart and John Chryssavgis, “Preface,” in For the Life of the World: Toward a Social Ethos of the Orthodox Church, https://www.goarch.org/social-ethospreface. The sharp judgment of John Chryssavgis about the ROC documents underlines this attempt: John Chryssavgis, “Toward a Social Ethos of the Orthodox Church: A New Document of the Ecumenical Patriarchate,” Commonweal (April 2020), 19. For a comparison of the Social Concepts of the patriarchates of Moscow and Constantinople respectively see also the article by Heta Hurskainen in this volume.

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Social Ethos of the Orthodox Church.”14 The document revealed considerable ties to North America, where most of the working group’s members came from, and articulated a global ambition that the theological foundations on which local churches based their positions be derived from local socio-ethical challenges. The text was published simultaneously in thirteen languages and was thus immediately accessible to a broad audience worldwide. The global challenge of the COVID19 pandemic had a paradoxical effect on the document’s reception: on the one hand, it generated intense discussion of socio-ethical topics in various countries, while on the other, it drew the attention of a wide expected audience to the more urgent problems of local pandemic management. 2.2. Context or Essence? Polarization in Orthodox Socio-ethical Discourse There are currently three basic Orthodox socio-ethical texts which attempt to formulate generally valid socio-ethical principles and answers to global challenges while reflecting the contextual connections among the respective churches. A brief look at the evolution of 20th-century Orthodox socio-ethical discourse shows how strongly rooted social ethics is in tensions not only between globalism and localism but also between fundamental theological principles and concrete social and political structures. A year after the publication of “For the Life of the World,” the Russian Orthodox Scientific-Analytical Center of the Global Russian People’s Council— the ROC’s conservative think tank—published an analysis of the document.15 The authors accused the text of “covertly and partly openly striving to ‘contextualize’ Orthodoxy in the modernist sense—that is, to adapt it to current social, economic, and political trends.”16 As a counterbalance to this accusation, the analysis also acknowledged that “For the Life of the World” would also prompt other local churches to “work on formulating an Orthodox social doctrine in keeping with an ecumenical and canonical character and allowing not for an adaptation to global secularism but for the protection and preservation of the principles of Orthodoxy.”17 This critique expressed in a few sentences the polarization in the current Orthodox socio-ethical discourse. The distinction between “contextual social ethics” and “principles of an ecclesiastical social doctrine” points to the fundamental challenge of social ethics, which seeks to refer both to the concrete 14 For the Life of the World (see n. 12). 15 O Sotsialnom Uchenii Konstantinopolskogo Patriarhata. Doklad Nauchno-analiticheskogo tsentra Vsemirnogo Russkogo Narodnogo Sobora, ed. A. V. Shchipkov (Moscow: Russkaya ekspertnaya shkola 2021), https://vrns.ru/news/doklad-nauchnoanaliticheskogo-tsentra-o-sotsialnom-uchenii-konstantinopolskogo-patriarkhata/. 16 Ibid., 4. 17 Ibid., 51.

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context—how to deal with social changes and scientific findings—and to theological principles and traditions. The reduction to an either-or scenario is therefore an obstacle to the development of social ethics itself. In particular, the transfer of Russian theology to Western countries in the 20th century and the intense exchanges among churches in preparation for the PanOrthodox Council show that polarization is hardly an essential element of different theologies. Orthodox theology offers a wide range of possible approaches, the concrete selection of which is influenced by the social and political locations of the respective churches. Today, after decades of state persecution, the ROC— as a politically privileged majority church in an alliance with an authoritarian state—claims a monopoly of spiritual and moral interpretation and therefore lacks a dialogue with civil society. The Ecumenical Patriarchate and its dioceses, by contrast, are diaspora churches in secular or (in the case of Turkey) Islamic societies and must deal with social developments theologically if they want to be heard in public and provide an orientation for their faithful. Furthermore, the anchoring of theology in secular or ecclesiastical universities has an impact on the nature of socio-ethical discourse. Intensified conflict between the patriarchates of Moscow and Constantinople has also increased polarization on socio-ethical issues. And yet, these contextual influences do not define a uniform socio-ethical attitude for either the Western or the Russian Orthodox context. Thus, the polarization outlined here reflects at most the current mainstream within church politics or academia. It is therefore very difficult to say whether there are two essentially distinct paradigms of theological thought behind different socio-ethical concepts. However, the current polarization in theological approaches and attitudes to the world that can be observed between the firm positions of the patriarchates of Moscow and Constantinople leads to the question of how socio-ethical thinking develops in other Orthodox churches and contexts. How influential are the two major discourses in Orthodox-majority societies and in different political systems? What is the relationship between local discourse and general principles, and what actors are involved in the conception of local socio-ethical positions? As a case study, the situation in Ukraine can provide particularly valuable insights into the interaction of basic theological discussions and contextual influences in the formation of socio-ethical positions. Not least, the canonical escalation of the confrontation between the patriarchates of Moscow and Constantinople over the territory of Ukraine has led to a new perception of the country as a meeting point of different conceptual spheres. The following sections analyze the socio-ethical commitment of the Orthodox churches in Ukraine, the main issues and actors in this discourse, and the interplay of local contexts and transnational foundations.

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3. Orthodox Socio-ethical Commitment in Post-Soviet Ukraine Even before the fall of the Soviet Union, Ukrainian voices were discernible as the Orthodox Church’s socio-ethical positions were emerging—among the participants in the Russian Orthodox Church’s (ROC’s) 1917–18 Local Council, for example, or in Cold War-era ecumenical dialogues. It was not until after Ukrainian independence in 1991, however, that the targeted discussion of socio-ethical issues can be described as an independent dialogue with civil society against a backdrop of relatively broad academic freedom of theological discourse. This section outlines the decisive events in Ukraine’s socio-ethical debates and investigates the central factors and actors in these developments. 3.1. Moments of Socio-ethical Activation In Ukraine, the 1990s were dominated by the rebirth of religious pluralism and institutionalized structures as well as a search for a new state-church relationship. Church statements and theology focused mainly on legal questions. The first major event of socio-ethical conceptualization came with the publication of “The Basis of the ROC’s Social Concept” (SC). Remarkably, this document was adapted for the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) in a very short time as “The Basis of the UOC’s Social Concept,”18 although the 2000 ROC Bishops’ Council had expressly adopted the document for the entire canonical territory of the ROC, including Ukraine. At first glance, the editorial changes to the official Ukrainian translation of the social concept appear to be matters of language or style, and some of the central actors of the time—Georgiy Kovalenko, Cyril Hovorun, Volodymyr Bureha—consider the amendments marginal.19 Nevertheless, the changes are striking from today’s perspective: all references to the Russian political context were replaced by references to corresponding UOC or Ukrainian structures (SC III.10; VIII.4; IX.2), and the decisions of the Holy Synod of the ROC were made unrecognizable as such (SC X.2; X.3; XII.3). Above all, extensive references to Russian church history, especially in the 20th century (SC II.2; III.4; V.2; X.2) or to explicitly Russian significant saints of the ROC (SC II.2; VI.4), were deleted. Most of these deletions concern the church’s relationship with the state or politics and mark a distancing from the historical legitimization of the Russian statechurch model. 18 Osnovy sotsialnoi kontseptsii Ukraiinskoi Pravoslavnoi Tserkvy (Kyiv: Inform.-vyd. tsentr UPTs, 2002), https://bit.ly/3gxiiI3. This document is also published as an official translation on the homepage of the Moscow Patriarchate: http://www.patriarchia.ru/ua/db/ text/1207692.html. 19 Off-the-record interviews with the author in February 2021.

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However, there were also deletions of a conceptual nature, such as the approval of the unification of countries with historical or cultural similarities and criticism of the disintegration of large multinational states (SC XVI.1). The UOC obviously judged this indirect criticism of the independence of Ukraine and other former Soviet republics to be unacceptable—or, at least, unreasonable—for Ukrainian worshipers. The same applied to the historical reference to the death penalty in the synodal period (SC IX.3) and to the idea of a secular ruler appointed by God as a holder of a power monopoly within the concept of a just war (SC VIII.3). As for the period before the introduction of Ukraine’s current legal system, the stages from 1649 to the fall of the Soviet Union were deleted—namely, “Peter’s articles and decrees, legislative acts of Catherine the Great and Alexander I, reforms of Alexander II and the basic State Laws of 1906” (SC IV.8). Interestingly, the changes were limited to the demarcation of historical and political appropriations; yet, one cannot conclude any independent conceptual engagement from the revisions. Thus, the document is best understood as a public emphasis of autonomy from Moscow, which was the driving factor behind the UOC’s social positioning. A shift in focus to Ukrainian social circumstances occurred with the 2004 Orange Revolution. Complications surrounding that year’s Ukrainian presidential election led to an increased politicization of the Orthodox churches and, thus, to a new level of attention on issues of religious freedom, social diversity, and democratization. A 2006 special issue of the journal Religious Panorama dedicated to the religious situation after the Orange Revolution gave a good overview of the issues and discussions of this period.20 Again, these mainly revolved around the demarcation of the national interests of Orthodox churches and growing criticism of the Russian church. The longing for an institutionalized structure of cooperation between the state and religious communities was also expressed in drafts of “A Concept of Religion-State Relations in Ukraine” presented by the (All-)Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations (UCCRO) from 2004 onward.21 From around 2003 onward, however, the archives of the web platform Pravoslavie v Ukraine and the blog Kievskaya Rus, both of which were attributed to the UOC, documented an increase in youth work, public relations, and dialogue with modern society. Interestingly, the social concept was not used as a basis for argumentation in these contexts, although it presumably had some influence on 20 See “Relihiia i Tserkva u suspilnykh realiiakh Ukraiiny,” ed. A. M. Kolodnyi et al., Relihiina Panorama, special issue, 2006, http://ure-online.info/rp-sv-2006/. 21 See Andrii Krawchuk, “Constructing Interreligious Consensus in the Post-Soviet Space: The Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations,” in Eastern Orthodox Encounters of Identity and Otherness: Values, Self-Reflection, Dialogue, ed. Andrii Krawchuk and Thomas Bremer (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 273–300, here 278.

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the attitudes of at least those people who had been involved in the document’s translation and adaptation.22 The UCCRO was also more active on questions of social life after the Orange Revolution. Whereas the organization’s previous statements had tended to be formal and directed at the government, the association now dealt more aggressively with such issues as the media, advertizing, languages, religious tolerance, and homosexuality, and addressed its statements not only to the government but also to the people.23 One of the main triggers for this multireligious engagement was the pro-European orientation in Ukrainian politics, which troubled the churches, especially when it came to liberal European gender and family policies. In 2008, the ROC published “The Basic Teaching of the ROC on Human Dignity, Freedom, and Rights.”24 Ukrainian theologian Cyril Hovorun was one of the document’s authors and immediately translated it into Ukrainian.25 In this case, however, no adaptations were made; on the issue of fundamental anthropological clarifications, therefore, the ROC’s interpretative sovereignty did not seem to be in question. Like the SC, the new text was presented in Ukraine to the public and published on the church’s website. However, no further public discussion has been documented. The most powerful moment in the evolution of the public and socio-ethical theological positioning of Ukraine’s Orthodox churches was undoubtedly the 2013–14 pro-European protest movement, known as the Euromaidan or the “Revolution of Dignity.” The protests challenged all religious communities to make a public statement on the events. Even before the violent escalation, the churches had addressed questions of the permissibility of social protest, attitudes to corruption and the rule of law, and, above all, definitions of and acceptance of European values. Before the Euromaidan, most statements by the Orthodox churches had been directed at the state and thus followed the traditional Orthodox paradigm that the church negotiates its social concerns on an equal footing with secular power, not with society. The protest movement, however, brought church representatives into direct dialogue with society. Priests and believers participated in the protests, offering prayers, confession, and pastoral care, striving for nonviolence and dialogue between opposing protest fronts, and appealing to the political elites for a peaceful resolution of the conflict. The protests themselves used religious symbolism and rhetoric to highlight the religious self-awareness of civil society.26 22 G. Kovalenko, author interview, February 2021. 23 See Krawchuk, “Constructing Interreligious Consensus” (see n. 21), 294ff. 24 Osnovy ucheniia Russkoi Pravoslavnoi Tserkvi o dostoinstve, svobode i pravakh cheloveka (see n. 8). 25 See “Osnovy vchennya Rus’koi Pravoslavnoi Tserkvy pro hidnist, svobodu i prava lyudyny” (Kyiv: viddil UPTs, 2009), http://www.patriarchia.ru/ua/db/text/1208006.html. 26 See Maidan i Tserkva. Khronika podiy ta ekspertna otsinka, ed. Liudmyla Fylypovych and Oksana Horkusha (Kyiv: Sammit-Knyha, 2014); Bog i Maidan: ɚnaliz i svidchennia, ed. Mykhailo Dymyd (Lviv: UKU, 2018).

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During the Euromaidan protests, Hovorun, who at that time was a researcher at Yale University, formulated the foundations of a Ukrainian public theology.27 His push for a systematization of Orthodox theological potential for engaging with modern civil society combined North American approaches to political and public theology, a critical analysis of the Orthodox paradigm of the relationship between state and church and the corresponding patristic approaches, and observations on the changing role of Orthodoxy in Ukraine’s strengthening civil society. In his article “Foundations of Political Theology in [the] Ukrainian Context,” Hovorun made clear what Orthodox theology can offer for formulating a new social ethics when it enters into dialogue with society.28 He favored approaches based on an Orthodox interpretation of reconciliation, social justice, and freedom and stressed the need for an examination of people’s hopes and fears beyond the liturgy. Beyond such individual theological approaches, the Euromaidan events also influenced and sharpened the official positions of the Orthodox churches. The socio-ethical discourse was shaped by the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC), Protestant churches, and several religious scholars, and supported by the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyivan Patriarchate (UOC-KP), who aimed to underline their detachment from Russian currents. Meanwhile, the UOC withdrew to an emphatically spiritual position and was barely represented in public discussions. This situation was exacerbated by Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea and the Russian-driven war in eastern Ukraine. What the Orthodox churches have in common, however, is that none of them—nor their respective theological academies—has produced substantial socio-ethical statements or theological works on Ukraine’s social upheaval since 2014. Exceptions, such as the works of Hovorun on political theology and ecclesiology or of Sergii Bortnyk, who published on the church’s role in reconciliation in Ukraine,29 show the desired features of Orthodox social ethics for the country but do not present comprehensive theological concepts. The 2016 Pan-Orthodox Council in Crete was framed by the growing tensions between the patriarchates of Moscow and Constantinople. Among the planned ROC delegation were Metropolitans Onufrii (Berezovskyi), Anthonii (Pakanich), Agafangel (Savvin), and Mitrofan (Iurchuk)—four prominent UOC primates, some of whom had already been involved in discussions of the documents. The socio-ethical impetus that had been expected from at least the council text on the church’s mission in the world had no effect on the UOC because of the absence 27 See Arkhimandrit Kyrylo (Hovorun), Ukraiinska publichna teologiia (Kyiv: Dukh i Litera, 2017); Cyril Hovorun, “Foundations of Political Theology in Ukrainian Context,” Religion, State, Society, and Identity in Transition Ukraine, ed. Rob van der Laarse et al. (Oisterwijk: Wolf Legal Publishers, 2015), 281–298. 28 See Hovorun, “Foundations” (see n. 27). 29 Strategii Prymyrennia. Rol Tserkov v Ukraiini, ed. Serhii Bortnyk (Kyiv: Vydavnytstvo Rydzhi 2021).

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of the Russian delegation and its nonrecognition of the documents. In contrast to the UOC, the UOC-KP immediately welcomed the Crete documents and included them in its academy’s curriculum.30 Nevertheless, two UOC priests, Hovorun and Kovalenko, quickly arranged for the council documents to be translated into Ukrainian.31 The texts could thus be discussed immediately and were debated within the framework of the Orthodox educational project “Open Orthodox University Sofia Wisdom,” founded in 2016. The Ecumenical Patriarchate officially adopted the Ukrainian translation of the documents in January 2017. The 2018–19 recognition by the Patriarchate of Constantinople of the autocephaly of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) had two effects on social ethics. First, the OCU was joined by those theological voices from the UOC that were most active in seeking a dialogue with Ukrainian civil society and hoped for a free discussion of socio-ethical issues. They were at the core of initiatives such as the manifesto “Ten Theses for the Orthodox Church of Ukraine” (discussed by Lozova and Kalenychenko in this volume), the 2018–19 working group “Truth, Justice, and Reconciliation Between Russia, Ukraine, and the EU,” and the declaration “Longing for the Truth That Makes Us Free.”32 All of these illustrate the shift toward discussions of socio-ethical topics without appealing to state institutions. In 2019, the OCU established a Church and Society Institute within the framework of its theological academy, where, among other things, the church’s position on the COVID-19 pandemic was prepared.33 Second, the official commitment to the Ecumenical Patriarchate improved the reception of the patriarchate’s socio-ethical principles in Ukraine, which previously had barely been disseminated. This was particularly evident in the close cooperation between the editors of “For the Life of the World” and Ukrainian theologians and translators, so that immediately after the document was published in March 2020, discussions and dissemination in Ukraine could begin.34 There is no record of any official reaction to this text from the UOC, while the ROC 30 See Episkopy UPTs KP priznali obshchetserkovnyi avtoritet priniatykh Vsepravoslavnym Soborom na Krite dokumentov (July 28, 2016), https://risu.ua/ru/episkopy-upc-kp-priznali -obshchecerkovnyy-avtoritet-prinyatyh-vsepravoslavnym-soborom-na-krite-dokumentov _n80621. 31 Dokumenty Svyatoho i Velykoho Soboru Pravoslavnoi Tserkvy, ed. Kiril Hovorun and Georgii Kovalenko (Kyiv: Duh i Litera, 2016). 32 See Sign Petition: Ten Theses for The Orthodox Church of Ukraine (February 12, 2019), https://risu.ua/en/sign-petition-ten-theses-for-the-orthodox-church-of-ukraine_n96394; Longing for the Truth that Makes Us Free (April 16, 2020), https://risu.ua/en/longing-forthe-truth-that-makes-us-free_n103953. 33 See Pershe zasidannya novostvorenoho Instytutu Tserkvy i suspilstva ta pershi rezultaty (September 11, 2019), https://kpba.edu.ua/instytut-tserkvy-i-suspilstva/2889–pershe-zasidannia-novostvorenoho-instytutu-tserkvy-i-suspilstva-ta-pershi-rezultaty.html. 34 See Webinar Za zhyttia svitu, (Vidkrytyi Pravoslavnyi Universytet), https://www.youtube. com/playlist?list=PLmspJar88EIMQ3POS1ktN7y-Q8i5ARus8.

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published a highly biased first assessment by the expert center of the All-Russian People’s Council in January 2021. The OCU is one of most active recipients of this basic socio-ethical text in Ukraine to date. 3.2. Influences and Actors The stages of socio-ethical discourse in Ukrainian Orthodoxy show the influences of the basic documents of the patriarchates of Moscow and Constantinople as well as social events within Ukraine such as the 2004 and 2013–14 mass protests. In addition to these important events, there are several specific, local actors that influence the socio-ethical positions of the Orthodox churches. First is the effective, aggressive, and public stance the UGCC has taken on socio-ethical issues since the end of the Soviet Union. It has had a significant influence on Orthodox discourse. Because it faced massive repression during Soviet times, the UGCC is not compromised in either the public perception or its own thought by entanglements with political elites. The UGCC revived its theology immediately after the end of the Soviet Union with recourse to the church’s own socio-ethical traditions,35 extensive support from diaspora communities in North America and Western Europe, and Vatican and Catholic theology in Western Europe. In terms of socio-ethical issues, the UGCC drew above all on the comprehensive concepts of the Vatican, especially under the leadership of Pope John Paul II, whose socio-ethical commitment was shaped by the same confrontation with communist ideology. The UGCC’s correspondingly competent stance on all social issues therefore shapes the UCCRO’s socio-ethical positioning and general religious discourse on socio-ethical topics. This active social stance without major political ambitions challenges the Orthodox churches, as the religion of the majority, to find similarly adequate language. A similar effect emanates from academic theology at the renowned Ukrainian Catholic University, which makes important contributions to the field of social ethics through international conferences, academic publications, and cooperation with social actors. A second set of important actors consists of academic institutions for religious studies and the sociology of religion. Especially at the time of Ukraine’s two revolutions in 2004 and 2013–14, quickly-convened conferences and analyzes by religious scholars at the Institute of Philosophy of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences were important forums for bringing church representatives, political leaders, and civil society actors into conversation and encouraging them to formulate a position on current events. Moreover, representative surveys conducted annually by the Razumkov Center on the religious situation in Ukraine are a 35 See Krawchuk’s work on the legacy of metropolitan Andrii Sheptytskii: Andrii Krawchuk, Christian Social Ethics in Ukraine: The Legacy of Andrei Sheptytsky (Ottawa: Sheptytsky Institute, 1997).

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central factor in the churches’ engagement with their role in society.36 Other institutions, such as the Center for European Humanities at the National University Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, the Faculty of Philosophy at Drahomanov University, and the Institute for Religious Freedom, promote dialogue between Orthodox theology and the social sciences and humanities. Such academically qualified research, independent of theological academies, feeds scholarly exchange back into theological discourse through dialogue and prevents its isolation. The third factor that has a decisive influence on the socio-ethical discourse of the Ukrainian Orthodox churches is religious competition in Ukraine’s search for identity. While in other post-Soviet countries, either a single religious community or the state determines the dominant narratives of national identity, in Ukraine there is a multiplicity of ideas, historical narratives, and cultural perspectives, which, in some respects, are associated with certain religious traditions.37 In every social debate, therefore, close attention is paid to which church shows solidarity with which social position and whether alleged foreign interests are represented or whether Ukraine’s sovereignty is in the foreground. The Russian-backed war in eastern Ukraine has radicalized this situation. The danger of being associated with the interests of the aggressor state has minimized the UOC’s public appearances on such burning socio-ethical issues as reconciliation and religious freedom, leading to speculation about the church’s positions on these issues. In discussions on gender-based violence, too, Ukraine’s diversity of religious actors is a driving factor in public positioning. Between the Russian claim to interpret the preservation of so-called traditional values, on the one hand, and European liberal legislation, on the other, various religious actors are looking for their own Ukrainian path, making moral values a part of national identity. Finally, in civil society discourse, the religious positions that find a voice are primarily those that can engage in dialogue with other opinions and encourage other communities to develop their use of language faster than corresponding theological concepts. These observations on the specifically Ukrainian factors that influence the socio-ethical positions of the Orthodox churches underline that such positions depend on a strong and pluralist civil society. These factors differ fundamentally not only from the conditions in Russia but also from those of diaspora churches. In particular, the geopolitical context of Russia’s war in eastern Ukraine and the conflict between Russian and European influences have had an impact on the way 36 See Razumkov Center, report for 2020, https://razumkov.org.ua/uploads/article/ 2020_religiya.pdf. 37 See, for example, Y. Bureyko, “Konfesiina Identychnist Pravoslavnykh Ukraiintsiv v Umovakh Suchasnykh Vyklykiv,” SKHID 141, no.1 (January–February 2016); Natalia Kochan, “Shaping Ukrainian Identity: The Churches in the Socio-Political Crisis,” in Churches in the Ukrainian Crisis, ed. Andrii Krawchuk and Thomas Bremer (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), 105–121.

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the Orthodox churches participate in public discourse. In the following section, a few exemplary socio-ethical topics will help show whether the theological debate can be separated from these socio-political factors.

4.Socio-ethical Issues and Church Responses 4.1. Religious Freedom Ukraine’s religious situation since the end of the Soviet Union is exceptional. The great religious diversity created by the return of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC), the splitting of the Orthodox churches, and the strengthening of Protestant communities and traditional Jewish and Islamic communities met with a relatively heterogeneous political elite. All this prevented the formation of a state church.38 Ukraine’s legislation on religious freedom does not privilege any religious community and guarantees freedom of conscience. Different national leaders have exploited religious affiliations in different ways for their political agendas, but regular changes in government have prevented any single approach from becoming entrenched. The 1996 foundation of the (All-)Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations (UCCRO) was intended to create a structure that would bundle the representation of religious communities’ interests vis-à-vis the state while symbolizing the peaceful common striving of those communities for the benefit of Ukrainian society. With these goals, the UCCRO often stood in stark contrast to the everyday and sometimes violent conflicts among religious communities. But this also made the council a place where churches had to find their positions on questions of social coexistence by transcending their own interests. Although the Orthodox churches firmly believe in their special role for Ukraine’s national identity, they have also repeatedly demanded that state and regional institutions respect freedom of conscience. The UCCRO’s history is therefore a success story of institutionalized interreligious tolerance.39 In the case of the Orthodox churches, however, this commitment to the freedom of conscience and religious tolerance is based on vague foundations. For the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), the understanding formulated in “The Basis of the Social Concept” (SC) is fundamental and regards the freedom of conscience

38 Tymofii Brik and Stanislav Korolkov, “Religious Markets in Ukraine: Post-communist Revivals and New Directions,” in Ukraine in Transformation: From Soviet Republic to European Society, ed. Alberto Veira-Ramos et al. (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020), 145–165; Religiöse Pluralität als Faktor des Politischen in der Ukraine, ed. Katrin Boeckh and Oleh Turij (Munich: Frank & Timme, 2015). 39 Krawchuk, “Constructing Interreligious Consensus” (see n. 21).

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DVDVLJQRIVSLULWXDOGHFOLQHDQGDORVVRIUHOLJLRXVRULHQWDWLRQDQGYDOXHV7KH state is expected to orient itself toward “the number of believers, the place in the formation of the historical, cultural, and spiritual character of the people, and the social attitude” (SC III.6) of the religious communities with which relations are established. As the UOC’s Metropolitan Anthony emphasized in April 2021, cooperation with other denominations and religious communities is always based on a dogmatic conviction that those who have turned away from the true faith will return through the witness of canonical Orthodoxy. The UOC’s participation in the UCCRO, for example, is described only as an “element of cooperation with the state.”40 The Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) has no basic statement on religious freedom and strives to publicly convey an attitude of religious tolerance. In this way, the church is in line with the spirit of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, which in “For the Life of the World” expresses itself much more positively than the SC on the freedoms of religion and conscience, placing the OCU within a positive framework with regard to human rights. However, as a document with global reach, this declaration remains so general that its concrete application depends on local churches and the prevailing religious policy of the state. The demand often made by the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyivan Patriarchate (UOC-KP)—and now taken over by the OCU—that the UOC be legally renamed the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC),41 or that the UOC be forced out of military chaplaincy,42 testifies to an instrumental understanding of religious tolerance similar to that of the UOC. Accordingly, the Orthodox churches’ stance on religious freedom focuses on protecting their own rights. The two competing churches closely monitor violations of religious freedom among their own congregations—the OCU in the occupied territories of eastern Ukraine and Crimea43 and the UOC in local

40 Ekaterina Filatova, Nuzhno razlichat’ ekumenizm i sotrudnichestvo, – mitropolit Antoniy (March 8, 2021), https://spzh.news/ru/news/78780–nuzhno-razlichaty-ekumenizm-i-sotru dnichestvomitropolit-antonij. 41 See Epifanii uveren, chto reshenie Rady o pereimenovanii UPTs MP ne vyzovet protivostoianii (December 21, 2018), https://www.rbc.ua/rus/news/epifaniy-uveren-reshe nie-rady-pereimenovanii-1545384560.html. 42 See Kyivs’kyi Patriarhat proty dopushchennia sviashchenykiv UPTs (MP) u viis’kovi chastyny (March 1, 2017), https://risu.ua/kijivskiy-patriarhat-proti-dopushchennyasvyashchenikiv-upc-mp-u-viyskovi-chastini_n83631. 43 See Metropolitan Epiphanius (Dumenko), Zaiava Sviashchennoho Synodu Ukraiins’koyi Pravoslavnoi Tserkvy (Pravoslavnoi Tserkvy Ukraiiny) shchodo namiriv rosiys’koi okupatsiinoi vlady u Krymu znyshchyty khramy Pravoslavnoi Tserkvy Ukraiiny (November 19 , 2019), https://www.pomisna.info/uk/vsi-novyny/zayava-svyashhennogo-synoduukrayinskoyi-pravoslavnoyi-tserkvy-pravoslavnoyi-tserkvy-ukrayiny-shhodo-namiriv-ros ijskoyi-okupatsijnoyi-vlady-u-krymu-znyshhyty-hramy-pravoslavnoyi-tserkvy-ukrayiny/.

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conflicts over church buildings and congregational transfers as well as discriminatory draft laws.44 Both churches report these violations to the international level, and the UOC explicitly speaks of a new “systematic persecution of churches.”45 However, neither church’s leadership has issued statements that systematically and theologically contradict misconduct in its own ranks. Moreover, the Orthodox churches have never rigorously spoken out on anti-Semitism or Islamophobia. When it comes to statements on religious freedom in occupied Crimea or the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine, each Orthodox church only discusses cases in its own parishes. Both Orthodox churches are undoubtedly aware of the importance of the freedoms of religion and conscience, secured by a functioning legal system. However, conflicts over Ukrainian identity in particular make it clear that this appreciation of religious freedom is not supported by deep theological thinking. Rather, it follows a functional logic that is oriented toward the churches’ own survival. Long experience of persecution, the ongoing war in eastern Ukraine, and political manipulation in the handling of religious legislation have decisively influenced this attitude. This functional approach reflects the stance formulated in the SC: skepticism of the freedom of conscience as a basic value and acceptance of a secular legal system under the current, less-than-ideal conditions. The more open attitude of “For the Life of the World,” which is supposed to serve as an orienttation for the OCU, remains merely declarative. Against this background, it is interesting to note that even the UCCRO, as a symbol of Ukraine’s religious pluralism, is neither a forum for interreligious dialogue nor as inclusive an organization as it claims to be.46 With an implicit matrix of traditional religions, the council excludes smaller and new religious communities. The principle of consensus risks diminishing the public visibility of individual religious communities and any dissenting opinions. Amid the conflict between the Orthodox churches, this now affects not only smaller religious communities but also the UOC. This development can be seen, for example, in the UCCRO’s 2021 publication on historical memory at Babyn Yar—a ravine in Kyiv that was the site of massacres by Nazi Germany during World War II—or in the founding of “Stop Violence!,” a platform against domestic violence. In both cases, the UOC and others are missing from the participating churches. The question remains whether this is a deliberate strengthening or weakening of certain religious communities in the public discourse. The UCCRO therefore currently

44 The UOC has a special department that monitors violations of religious freedom and a representative at the OSCE for that topic: https://vzcz.church.ua/category/pravozaxisnikam/. 45 Upravliaiushchii delami UPTs: Proignorirovat veruiushchikh vlast ne smozhet (April 8, 2021), https://pravlife.org/ru/content/upravlyayushchiy-delami-upc-proignorirovat-veruyushchihvlast-ne-smozhet. 46 See Krawchuk, “Constructing Interreligious Consensus” (see n. 21), 288f.

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appears to be a political instrument rather than a true safe space for interreligious exchange. 4.2. Peace and Violence Peace and conflict are particularly relevant for Ukrainian society in the context of ongoing armed attacks in the Donbass, the 2014 annexation of Crimea, and massive internal social tensions. Even before the current conflict with Russia, two revolutions and a violent escalation in 2014 prompted questions about conflict resolution strategies. The churches took an active part in these social processes; images of Orthodox monks and priests between the two opposing groups of protesters in Kyiv’s Independence Square (also known as the Maidan) in February 2014 can be read as an almost iconic confirmation of this commitment.47 Nevertheless, the churches’ attitudes to peace, reconciliation, and war remain ambivalent.48 From the beginning of the violent riots on the Maidan, the UOC declared its solidarity with Ukrainian society and repeated a call for the country to overcome its social tensions through mutual respect and dialogue.49 The church’s leadership distanced itself from any political positions and refrained from making any assessments of the situation to preserve its spiritual authority for all sides in the conflict.50 At the center of the UOC’s statements are prayers for peace as well as pastoral and humanitarian support for victims of violence in the war zones in eastern Ukraine and for internally displaced people. The UOC continues to be pastorally active in the war zones and provides humanitarian assistance for soldiers and residents. 47 See Heleen Zorgdrager, “Shaping Public Orthodoxy: Women’s Peace Activism and the Orthodox Churches in the Ukrainian Crisis,” in Orthodox Christianity and Gender: Dynamics of Tradition, Culture and Lived Practice, ed. Helena Kupari and Elina Vuola (London: Routledge, 2019), 149–170; Fylypovych, Maidan i Tserkva (see n. 26); Bortnyk, Strategii Prymyrennia (see n. 29). 48 See Regina Elsner, Friedensstifter oder Konfliktträger? Der Krieg in der Ukraine als sozialethische Herausforderung für die orthodoxen Kirchen, ZOiS Report 2/2019. 49 See Upravliaiushchii delami UPTs obratil’sia (February 19, 2014), http://www. patriarchia.ru/db/text/3571575.html; Zvernennia Svyashchennoho Synodu do iepyskopatu, dukhovenstva, chentsiv ta myryan u zv’iazku z ostannimy podiiamy v Ukraiini (June 19, 2014), http://sinod.church.ua/2014/06/19/zvernennya-svyashhennogo-sinodu-do-jepiskopatuduxovenstva-chenciv-ta-miryan-u-zvyazku-z-ostannimi-podiyami-v-ukrajini/; Zaiava Vseukraiins’koi Rady Tserkov i relihiinykh orhanizatsii z pryvodu eskalatsii nasyl’stva u Kyivi (February 19, 2014), http://news.church.ua/2014/02/19/zayava-vseukrajinskoji-radicerkov-i-religijnix-organizacij-z-privodu-eskalaciji-nasilstva-u-kijevi/. 50 See Declaration of the Synod of the UOC on June 19, 2014 (no. 49): http://sinod.church.ua/ 2014/06/19/zvernennya-svyashhennogo-sinodu-do-jepiskopatu-duxovenstva-chenciv-tamiryan-u-zvyazku-z-ostannimi-podiyami-v-ukrajini/.

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In March 2014, the UOC—both alone and with the UCCRO, which it was chairing at the time—called on Russia to respect Ukraine’s national borders and sovereignty.51 On March 3, Metropolitan Avgustin (Markevich), chairman of the Department for Cooperation with the Military, blessed the soldiers of the Ukrainian army for defending the fatherland against Russian aggression.52 Particularly under Metropolitan Onufrii, the church leadership retreated to an emphatically spiritual position and rarely commented directly on hostilities. The UOC did not participate in the drafting of the “Strategy for the Participation of Churches and Religious Organizations in the Peacebuilding Process,” in which various religious communities have been involved since 2016 on the initiative of Caritas Ukraine.53 The positions of the OCU and, previously, of the UOC-KP, differ significantly from that of the UOC in their clear condemnation of Russian military and media aggression against Ukraine.54 This position remained unchanged during the protests, after the annexation of Crimea, and throughout the military conflict in eastern Ukraine. In this way, the church leadership combined a demand to Russia to respect Ukraine’s sovereignty with a call to Ukrainian society to enter into a broad dialogue to strengthen cohesion on social issues.55 The church leadership repeatedly spoke out against violence but, at the same time, explicitly supported Ukraine’s military defense.56 The UOC-KP had the largest number of (mostly volunteer) military chaplains—about 400 at the beginning of 201857—

51 See Mistseblustytel Kyivskoi mytropolychoi kafedry nadislav lyst Prezydentu Rosiiskoyi Federatsii V.V. Putinu (March 2, 2014), http://news.church.ua/2014/03/02/ misceblyustitelkijivskoji-mitropolichoji-kafedri-nadislav-list-prezidentu-rosijskoji-federaciji-v-v-putinu/; Zaiavlenie Vseukraiinskogo Soveta Tserkvei i religioznjh organizatsii v sviazi s resheniem Soveta Federatsii Federalnoho Sobraniia Rosiiskoi Federatsii (March 1, 2014), http://news.church.ua/2014/03/03/zayavlenie-vsciro-otnositelno-resheniya-rossii-o-voen nom-vtorzhenii-v-ukrainu/. 52 See Mytropolyt Avhustyn: “Blahoslovliaiu nashe viysko na zahyst batkivshchyny,” (March 3, 2014), http://kapelan.org.ua/mytropolyt-avhustyn-blahoslovlyayu-nashe-vijsko-nazahyst-batkivschyny/. 53 See online discussion of the Strategy for Participation of Churches and Religious Organizations in the Peacebuilding Process (April 16, 2021), Project Porozuminnia, Open Orthodox University, https://oou.org.ua/peacebuilding/. 54 See Patriarsha zaiava z pryvodu eskalatsii nasylstva v Ukraiini (May 3, 2014), https://risu. org.ua/ua/index/resourses/church_doc/uockp_doc/56282/. 55 See Statement by Patriarch Filaret on May 3, 2014, ibid. 56 See Patriarch Filaret: Nam mir v rabstve ne nuzhen (March 14, 2019), https:// interfax.com.ua/news/general/572444.html. 57 See Vadim Ryzhkov, Ukrainskie voennye kapellany: Takie zhe zashchitniki Otechestva (March 7, 2018), https://day.kyiv.ua/ru/article/obshchestvo/ukrainskie-voennye-kapella ny-takie-zhe-zashchitniki-otechestva.

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and strengthened its presence in the army during the war, mainly by deliberately stigmatizing UOC military chaplains.58 Politicians and representatives of the participating churches presented the OCU’s establishment as an element of social reconciliation and unification. Yet, at the same time, the creation of the OCU also “led to growing polarization of the religious question in society.”59 In continuation of the UOC-KP’s position and in accordance with the political strategy of the church’s foundation, the OCU takes an outspoken stance against Russian intervention and in support of a clear Ukrainian identity. The unity of Ukrainian society is perceived as a given, endangered only by the external aggressor: Russia, including the ROC and the associated UOC.60 The end of the war and of Russian aggression is seen as a necessary precondition for any consideration of reconciliation or justice.61 The OCU is challenged by the church leaderships’ internal power struggle and by the structural unification of very different church groupings. As such, a concept with the slogan “Open Church for All” aims to achieve reconciliation within the church,62 yet no strategies for the practical implementation of this goal have been published. In the Synod’s March 5, 2019, statement “On the Situation of Orthodoxy in Ukraine,”63 the church emphasized its openness to dialogue. At the same time, the statement flatly rejected accusations of violent church takeovers as propaganda and as a politicization of the church question. OCU supporters’ consistent designation of the UOC as a “Russian church” and their widespread blanket discrediting of the UOC’s activities in the media testify to an undifferentiated approach to the complex church situation. Both the UOC and the OCU give an impression of being above the conflicts that have shaped the social and church context for years. Yet this self-perception fails to undertake any critical examination of the legacy that aggravated those conflicts. The OCU’s argumentation lacks a differentiated perception of internal social tensions and growing social alienation, especially between the west and 58 See Yulia Vovkodav, Mitropolit Ioann (Yaremenko): “Voennyi sviashchennik mozhet vziat v ruki oruzhiie lish s dushpastyrskoi tseliu” (March 2, 2018), https://zn.ua/personalities/ mitropolit-ioann-yaremenko-voennyy-svyaschennik-mozhet-vzyat-v-ruki-oruzhie-lish-sdushpastyrskoy-celyu-277013_.html. 59 Denis Brylov, Tetiana Kalenychenko, and Andrii Kryshtal, The Religious Factor in Conflict: Research on the Peacebuilding Potential of Religious Communities in Ukraine (Utrecht: PAX Netherlands, 2021), 12. 60 See Pro stan pravoslavia v Ukraiini: Zaiava Svyashchennoho Synodu Ukraiins’koi Pravoslavnoi Tserkvy, Pravoslavna Tserkva Ukraiiny (March 5, 2019), https://www. pomisna.info/uk/vsi-novyny/pro-stan-pravoslav-ya-v-ukrayini/. 61 This position was expressed by official representatives of the OCU and of other religious communities during the German-Ukrainian Religious Dialogue of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation on April 3–6, 2019, in Cadenabbia, Italy. 62 The slogan of the OCU 2019 homepage, www.pomisna.info. 63 Pro stan pravoslavia (see n. 60).

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east of Ukraine.64 The UOC, meanwhile, lacks a visible critical distance from the ROC’s positions and the suppression of religious freedom in Ukraine’s occupied territories and Crimea, where it is the only religious community that can operate unhindered. Neither of the Orthodox churches has engaged in a targeted, systematic, theological way with peace, conflict, and reconciliation in recent years. Not least after two initially nonviolent revolutions, the issue of nonviolent protest could have become an important theological topic. The major socio-ethical drafts of the ROC and the Ecumenical Patriarchate hardly appear in the official statements of the Ukrainian churches. The sections of the SC on war and peace are formulated within the framework of the state-church relationship and individual righteousness. According to this principle, the church’s role is limited to appeals to the state, support for its defense, including military defense, and prayer for peace. Theological reflection on structural and social forms of violence, conflict, and reconciliation is absent from this conception. In this respect, “For the Life of the World” is more outspoken in differentiating among forms of violence and social responsibility for reconciliation, truth, and justice. The commitment to nonviolence is more clearly formulated in this document and, remarkably, reaffirmed with the Kyivan saints Boris and Gleb. However, a self-critical view of the church’s entanglements in structures of violence and conflict is also missing, so the idea remains of a church that stands above the fray. Nevertheless, “For the Life of the World” offers greater potential to position the church in a pluralist, secular society as a partner of civil society in the search for peace and reconciliation. This is reflected by grassroots initiatives such as Dialogue in Action65 and Porozuminnia,66 as well as humanitarian projects in both churches. The political polarization in Ukrainian Orthodoxy has prevented the church hierarchy and academic theology from engaging systematically with the topic so far. Both churches’ institutions therefore tend to operate within the principles formulated by the SC: they appeal to the state and individual righteousness from a position of moral superiority instead of entering into social discourse on forms of, and solutions to, structural conflict. Even calls for the churches’ depoliticization so that they can participate effectively in reconciliation67 risk discrediting the social space between the state and the individual as political,

64 With regard to the church question, this situation is confirmed by the KiiS (Kyivan International Institute of Sociology) survey results on the acceptance of the new Church, https:// www.kiis.com.ua/materials/pr/20192205_tomos/Tomos_may%202019.pdf; see also Brylov et al., The Religious Factor (see n. 59), 13ff. 65 See Zorgdrager, “Shaping Public Orthodoxy” (see n. 47). 66 See online discussion (see n. 53), https://oou.org.ua/peacebuilding/. 67 See Brylov et al., The Religious Factor (see n. 59), 19.

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precisely for the benefit of socio-ethical answers. The UOC’s withdrawal from public discussions is characteristic in this respect. 4.3. Further Socio-ethical Challenges In addition to the central socio-ethical topics of religious freedom and peace ethics, there are other topics that describe the lines of conflict within and between the Orthodox churches. These include, above all, current discussions on genderbased violence and on measures to curb COVID-19. At first glance, these issues seem to point to another level of difference—namely, attitudes to the modern world. In dealing with the pandemic, the OCU shows a greater openness to scientific findings and medical-ethical challenges. The UOC, by contrast, is more reserved when it comes to adopting scientific findings in the church and has made public efforts to protect the church’s sacral nature from such secular concepts.68 The topic of gender equality is under particular discussion because of the pending implementation of the Council of Europe’s Istanbul Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence. On this issue, both Orthodox churches have the same fundamental anthropological conviction of a binary gender order based on natural law. However, with regard to the socio-ethical challenge of structural forms of violence and discrimination, the OCU has been much more proactive since 2019 in engaging with society in dialogue on issues of violence in families. In the future, this engagement could lead to a theological view of structural aspects of gender inequality, for example in the history and anthropology of the churches, and to an assessment of the concept of gender as a category of justice. As social ethics is concerned with social structures, a given position on one issue has consequences for others. The churches’ lack of engagement with structural forms of violence also has an impact on their attitudes toward gender-based violence.69 Their ambivalence toward religious freedom has implications for the potential of religious intolerance to aggravate conflicts during the pandemic and for constructive discourse on measures to limit the pandemic in churches. The churches’ responses to these social challenges reveal a functional dimension, as they use their positions to present an attitude that benefits Ukrainian identity.

68 See Alya Shandra, “130,000 Ukrainians come to church for Easter as Moscow Patriarchate ignores COVID-19 quarantine,” Euromaidanpress, April 21, 2020, http://euromaidanpress. com/2020/04/21/130000–ukrainians-come-to-church-for-easter-as-moscow-patriarchateignores-covid-19–quarantine/. 69 See Regina Elsner, “Orthodoxy, Gender, and the Istanbul Convention: Mapping the Discourse in Ukraine,” ZOiS Report 2/2021; Heleen Zorgdrager, “Churches, Dignity, Gender: The Istanbul Convention as a Matter of Public Theology in Ukraine,” International Journal of Public Theology 14 (2020), 296–318.

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All of the issues addressed so far—the struggle for religious diversity, the structural dimensions of peace and conflict, health ethics, and gender-based violence—illustrate the Orthodox churches’ difficulties in approaching Ukraine’s complex society without resorting to prefabricated, mostly binary, concepts. In most cases, these concepts are oriented toward the goal of reducing complexity by demanding clear rules from the state and referring individuals to seemingly unambiguous, often moral categories. In contrast, discourse on socio-ethical issues often lacks a perception of society as a sphere between the state and the individual with its own logic and structures. The Orthodox churches’ only instrument of interaction with society on socio-ethical issues seems to be the idea of a unifying Ukrainian identity, which is supposed to offer certain principles as a leitmotif for solving societal challenges—even in the cases of COVID-19 and gender inequality. However, this reduces civil society to identity-focused interests. Instead of taking society’s existing diversity and ambivalences seriously, the churches offer a concept of demarcation and exclusion. What is more, this concentration on identity discourse in social issues brings the churches close to rightwing populist and nationalist currents. Finally, neither of the Orthodox churches in Ukraine conducts theological research on fundamental questions of social ethics, such as social justice, secularization, education, values, or violence. The information available on curricula, graduate theses, and contents of theological conferences and publications rarely includes socio-ethical topics. Due to this lack of a theological foundation, the Orthodox churches mostly refer to the UCCRO’s socio-ethical statements, which have mainly been developed by the UGCC, yet without any ecumenical awareness. Characteristic in this respect are 1) the 2017 “Strategy for the Participation of Ukrainian Religious Organizations in the Peacebuilding Process,” 2) the strategy for the fight against HIV/AIDS, and 3) the Stop Violence! initiative. In all of these UCCRO projects, the UGCC and Caritas Ukraine were the driving forces, while the Orthodox churches carry these concepts forward through the UCCRO.70 The OCU’s recognition by the Patriarchate of Constantinople enabled cooperation between the UGCC and the OCU,71 so that the latter’s socio-ethical commitment now appears impressive compared to that of many other Orthodox 70 For the document for peace and reconciliation, see the talk Stratehiia uchasti tserkov i relihiinikh orhanizatsii u mirobuduvanni (April 16, 2021), https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=ZRfFhJT1W0M; also off-the-record interview on April 5, 2021, with a member of the UOC’s department for external relations. For the case of domestic violence, Caritas published its first booklet on strategies for combating violence against children in families in 2018: http://caritas.ua/vidannya/polityka-ta-protsedury-zahystu-ditej/. 71 See, for example, Blazhennishiy Svyatoslav Shevchuk: Kyivs’ke hrystianstvo, spadkoemtsiamy iakoho ie Hreko-Katolyts’ka tserkva i Pravoslavna tserkva Ukrainy, shche svoho slova do kintsia ne skazalo (February 1, 2019), https://synod.ugcc.ua/data/blazhennishyysvyatoslav-shevchuk-kyyvske-hrystyyanstvo-spadkomytsyamy-yakogo-greko-katolytskatserkva-i-pravoslavna-tserkva-ukrayny-shche-svogo-slova-do-kintsya-ne-skazalo-405/.

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churches in the post-Soviet region. However, there remains a lack of theological engagement from academies or church structures that could be described as independent Orthodox social ethics.

5. Conclusion This paper’s investigation into Orthodox social ethics in Ukraine has revealed two fundamental difficulties regarding the fault line between the two Orthodox paradigms. First, social ethics is too young a field within Orthodoxy for any anchored polarity. The socio-ethical documents of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) and the Ecumenical Patriarchate presented in past decades have indicated some differences, especially in the church’s relationship to the state and in the field of anthropology. However, both topics are subjects of intense Orthodox negotiations, which in no way point to principles that are limited to specific churches. Yet, an important difference in these negotiations is in the level of academic freedom of the theologians who take part in the discussions. This observation is also reflected in the decisive influence that religious studies and independent theologians such as Hovorun and Kovalenko have on socio-ethical discourse in Ukraine. The importance of independent academic theology hints at the second difficulty of this case study: theological social ethics is ultimately contextual. The case of Ukraine has shown dramatically how churches’ interconfessional, civil society, and geopolitical situations influence the negotiation of socio-ethical issues. Due to their lack of socio-ethical theological works and statements, the positions of the Orthodox churches can be distinguished only by their levels of participation in general discussions. Theological arguments play a lesser role than general attitudes toward the world and the churches’ part in negotiations on civic identity. The engagement of the Ukrainian Orthodox churches with socio-ethical issues is significantly affected by external influences—namely, the social processes and socio-ethical positions of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. For theological social ethics, this is a natural process, because churches and theology react to the world and society around them through social ethics. However, this reactionism leaves unanswered the question of the theological core and different possible concepts for dealing with society. None of the events described in the Orthodox churches has yet had a long-term effect on theological research. Rather, discourse still seems to depend primarily on the churches’ political—not theological—demarcation from or affiliation with the two polarities of Russian and Western positions. Discourse on Ukrainian identity, in particular, plays an important and, perhaps, decisive role in all of the socio-ethical questions addressed. The strong

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ecumenical context has a paradoxical effect. Ecumenical and interreligious cooperation on social and socio-ethical challenges in the framework of the Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations is based on the perception and acceptance of diversity as a practical reality. At the same time, the search for consensus forces churches to find a lowest common denominator, which, given the breadth of denominations and religions, cannot be found theologically. Does the fundamental fault line in Orthodox social ethics lie in the distinction between positive and skeptical attitudes toward the modern world? These attitudes are independent of the social context and find corresponding justifications in the biblical and patristic traditions. In fact, this distinction can also be observed in the two major camps of Orthodox theology—it is this attitude that distinguishes the documents of the ROC from those of the Ecumenical Patriarchate.72 Nevertheless, contextual aspects are interwoven into these attitudes. Such aspects include the historical experience of an open and free society versus a repressive state that is hostile to religion, the openness of civil society to rational religious arguments versus principled skepticism toward anything religious or ecclesiastical as clericalism or fanaticism, and society’s fundamental level of interpersonal trust and confidence in the rule of law. In this respect, Ukraine is a field of active negotiation among different social attitudes and models, and the Orthodox churches are part of these processes. Previous analyses of various socio-ethical issues have shown that a clear dividing line between an ‘open’ Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) and a ‘closed’ Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) is inappropriate here. It is not yet foreseeable whether theological work and church principles will grow out of the approaches that have been discernible so far, or whether they will bring the OCU into an equal dialogue with Ukraine’s diverse society. At present, most of the church’s socioethical contributions still appear to be instruments of identity and political positioning, which exacerbates the churches’ polarization. This polarization can be resolved only if both Orthodox churches engage in a serious interconfessional theological dialogue on socio-ethical issues.

72 See Dietmar Schon, Berufen zur Verwandlung der Welt: Die Orthodoxe Kirche in sozialer und ethischer Verantwortung [Schriften des Ostkircheninstituts der Diözese Regensburg, 6] (Regensburg: Verlag Pustet, 2021); Dagmar Heller, Neuere sozialethische Entwicklungen in der Orthodoxie (April 20, 2020), https://konfessionskundliches-institut.com/essay/ neuere-sozialethische-entwicklungen-in-der-orthodoxie/; Regina Elsner, “Kontextuelle und essentielle Unterschiede orthodoxer Sozialethik,” RGOW 11/2020, 15–18.

The Russian Orthodox Church and the Russkii Mir Kathy Rousselet

1. Introduction Political boundaries changed dramatically after the collapse of the Soviet Union and, in a context of globalization since then, Russian institutions have sought to redefine the political, economic, and cultural place of Russia within its ‘near abroad’ and around the world. Since the disappearance of state atheism, the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) in particular has tended to both broaden and consolidate its base of believers. Patriarch Alexi II, and even more Patriarch Kirill, have tried to maintain the Church’s influence in the former Soviet states and to develop its missionary strategy. They have also aimed to promote religious traditional values in the context of strong secularization in the West, as well as in Russia, and to affirm the ROC’s place in the Orthodox world in its competition with the Patriarchate of Constantinople. The number of its cadres has increased significantly, and the Church has aimed to accumulate economic, political, and symbolic resources. This multifaceted ecclesiastical strategy is influenced by Russian state policy in that the ROC benefits from the state’s administrative resources. This strategy has evolved depending not only on competing groups inside the Church, but also, at the margins, on the needs of believers themselves. The Russkii mir (Russian world) has been at the heart of this strategy. The Russkii mir has been the object of numerous studies, in which it is defined in very diverse ways: it is considered as a doctrine, a concept, an ideology, a strategy, a theory, a complex of norms and representations, an imagined community, and more.1 The content of the Russkii mir has been under debate since the 1990s. It has been used to define civilizational boundaries beyond state borders. The Russkii mir is a notion derived from the “Russian idea” (which is also a fuzzy notion), meant to define Russia’s identity. Some commentators have underlined the multifaceted character of this doctrine, which is linked to both a plural statist and an ecclesiastical strategy.2 In this study, I consider the importance of processes of performativity that create the Russkii mir, which is above all a social 1 2

S.M. Aleinikova, ‘Russkii mir’: Belorusskii vzgliad: monografia (Minsk: RIVSh, 2017), 8–9 n.1. Marlène Laruelle, for example, states: “The concept of the Russian World offers a particularly powerful repertoire: it is a geopolitical imagination, a fuzzy mental atlas on which different regions of the world and their different links to Russia can be articulated in a fluid way. This blurriness is structural to the concept, and allows it to be reinterpreted

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construction, created, in an unstable manner, through discursive repetition and through a certain set of practices.3 The Russkii mir is part of a post-secular strategy that entwines the political, the cultural, and the religious.4 It has been promoted by the Russian organization bearing the same name, launched in June 2007 and partly informed by religious principles. At the same time, Patriarch Kirill and other religious actors have also used the notion, conflating it with the idea of “Holy Russia” in a way that is also political (see Nathaniel Wood’s essay in this volume). In fact, it has been sometimes difficult to distinguish what refers to religion and what concerns politics in the discourse on Russkii mir. Religious actors address politicians and express political considerations while political actors often adopt religious notions in their speeches. All of them relate their spiritual (dukhovnye)5 reflections to a dimension of Russian identity. Part of the rhetoric of the Church and its practices need to be studied in interaction with the rhetoric and actions of state institutions, associations, and individuals that contribute to the creation of Russianness. Most researchers who have worked on the subject of the Russkii mir tend to consider the ROC as an instrument of Russia’s foreign policy, or a norm entrepreneur in the service of Russian state foreign policy or conclude that the state limits the Church’s autonomy. For his part, Nicolai Petro shows how the Church also follows its own eschatological agenda.6 The war in Donbass beginning in

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within multiple contexts. First, it serves as a justification for what Russia considers to be its right to oversee the evolution of its neighbors, and sometimes for an interventionist policy. Secondly, its reasoning is for Russia to reconnect with its pre-Soviet and Soviet past through reconciliation with Russian diasporas abroad. Lastly, it is a critical instrument for Russia to brand itself on the international scene and to advance its own voice in the world.” (M. Laruelle, “The ‘Russian World’: Russia’s Soft Power and Geopolitical Imagination” (Centre on Global Interests 2015), https://www.ponarseurasia.org/the-russianworld-russia-s-soft-power-and-geopolitical-imagination/). For such an approach, see Gesine Wallem’s PhD Doing ‘Russian-Germanness’. Performativity and Co-ethnic Belongings in the Context of Post-Soviet Migration to Germany (Paris: Sciences Po, 2020). I take here the definition given by Aleksandr Kyrlezhev: “The postsecular age does not mean desecularisation in the sense of a reversal of the results of secularisation and a return to the old. Restoration is impossible. This is indeed a postsecular situation, corresponding to a new socio-cultural situation. The world can no longer be divided into religious and nonreligious. Both spheres now coincide. They mutually penetrate each other to the degree that they are indistinguishable. Today, nothing is intrinsically secular or religious. Everything can be sacred and everything can be profane.” (A. Kyrlezhev, “The Postsecular Age: Religion and Culture Today,” Religion, State & Society 36, no. 1 (2008), 26.) K. Rousselet, “’Dukhovnost’ in Russia’s Politics,” Religion, State & Society 48, no. 1 (2020), 38–55. He states that “the ROC provides intellectual and moral support to state policies not because it has to, but because it wants to. Indeed, to the extent that there is a moral framework guiding Russian foreign policy, it is the Church’s moral framework. The Church promotes it because it is convinced that helping the Russian government to create

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2014 and then the ecclesiastical crisis in Ukraine that resulted in the proclamation of autocephaly for the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) in 2018 have shown the divergences in the agendas of the ROC and the state. Today, the hierarchy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church – Moscow Patriarchate (UOC) in Kyiv no longer uses the term “Russkii mir,” since it is considered to be too ethnically and politically connoted. For his part, in 2015 Patriarch Kirill published a work titled Seven Words about the Russkii Mir,7 which returns to some of his discourses and writings from between 2012 and 2015. In the patriarch’s published collected works, the Russkii mir is discussed in the volume dedicated to the mission of the Church in the modern world. The patriarch describes the Russkii mir as a civilization and insists on its spiritual dimension.8 Some clerics continue to debate the content of the Russkii mir, thus underlining the plurality of positions within the Church. However, it seems that the discourse on traditional values, which partly overlaps with the discourse on the Russkii mir, has come to take precedence. This study aims to show the agenda of the hierarchy of the Russian Orthodox Church through the evolution of its usage of the idea of the Russkii mir. Without denying political logic and exigencies, it aims to show that this agenda corresponds, perhaps above all, to a strategy of conquest in a context of secularization and globalization. The ROC has contributed to the construction of the Russkii mir through a religious marking of territory and through new processes of glocalization. It has thereby transformed its approach to territory, without abandoning the concept of “canonical territory.” Today the ROC’s actors, who are marked by their Soviet heritage, insist above all on promoting a moral message that transcends political borders.

2. The Post-Secular Rhetoric of the Russkii Mir The rhetoric of Russia in the near abroad and the global world is a post-secular rhetoric elaborated by the hierarchs of the ROC and political and social actors in various other institutions. All these actors look to surmount the disappearance of

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a ‘congenial international order’ will assist the Church in its threefold salvific mission – to save individual souls, to save all national cultures that have been baptized into Christ, and to save all mankind.” Nicolai Petro, “The Russian Orthodox Church,” in Routledge Handbook of Russian Foreign Policy, ed. Andrei P. Tsygankov (London: Routledge, 2018), 217–232, https://www.npetro.net/resources/NPetro+on+ROC+Foreign+Policy.pdf, 6. Kirill, Patriarch of Moscow, Sem slov o russkom mire (Moscow: Vsemirnyi russkii narodnyi sobor, 2015). Contrary to what Roman Lunkin claimed in early 2018, the concept of the Russkii mir continues to be so utilized. Roman Lunkin, “Tserkov i vneshniaia politika: ot ‘russkogo mira’ k globalizatsii,” Nauchnye vedomosti. Seria Istoria. Politologia 45, no. 1 (2018), 165–175. But its usage is changing.

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the Soviet Union, judged by many of them to be a geopolitical catastrophe, and this rhetoric allows them to propose a vision of a geopolitical order that exceeds political borders. The rhetoric uses the notion of civilization in ways reminiscent of Samuel Huntington but does not define it in the same way. The eschatological agenda of the Church is superimposed onto this post-secular rhetoric. 2.1. The First Elaborations of the Russkii Mir Many conceptions of the Russkii mir were elaborated in the 1990s outside of the Church: that of Alexander Dugin and Vadim Tsymburskii, centered specifically around Eurasia, composed of Russia and the post-Soviet countries, as opposed to the West; that of Petr Shchedrovitskii and Alexander Nekless, who saw in the Russian diaspora major technological and economic capital for Russia;9 and that of Boris Mezhuev and Sergei Gradirovskii, for whom the objective of the Russkii mir was a better integration of countries of the post-Soviet space.10 A think tank founded by Gleb Pavlovskii, the Foundation for Effective Policy, also developed its conception of the Russkii mir. Mikhail Suslov explains: According to [Pavlovski’s] vision, the Russian World is a world of specific culture bequeathed from the defunct empire, and commensurable with such other postimperial cultural “worlds” as the British Commonwealth, francophonie, or hispanidad. Pavlovsky rendered quite valuable services to President Yeltsin and Putin during the election campaign in 1999-2000. So, most likely it was Pavlovsky who communicated the Russian World idea to the Presidential Administration, and specifically to Vladimir Surkov, then the assistant of the chief ideologist […] A. Voloshin.11

In August 2001, Vladimir Putin signed a Concept of Support by the Russian Federation for Compatriots Abroad and the Russkii mir became one of the instruments of Russian soft power.12 Significant actions like the canonization of the imperial family or the re-burials of Dowager Empress Maria Fedorovna and 9

“The more individual citizens of other states need Russia, the more steady Russia’s position in the world is. The Russian statehood can and should seek the foundations of stability and usefulness within the Russkii mir world, in a policy of constructive development of its global networks.” (P. Shchedrovitskii, “Russkii mir i transnatsional’noe russkoe,” http://www.archipelag.ru/). 10 Smysly i tsennosti russkogo mira. Sbornik statei i materialov kruglykh stolov, organizovannykh fondom ‘Russkii mir’, ed. Viacheslav Nikonov (Moscow: Russkii mir, 2010), https://russkiymir.ru/events/docs/ɋɦɵɫɥɵ%20ɢ%20ɰɟɧɧɨɫɬɢ%20Ɋɭɫɫɤɨɝɨ%20ɦɢɪɚ% 202010.pdf, 4–5. 11 Mikhail Suslov, “‘Russian World’: Russia’s Policy towards its Diaspora,” Notes de l’Ifri. Russie.Nei.Visions 103 (2017), https://www.ifri.org/en/publications/notes-de-lifri/russie neivisions/russian-world-russias-policy-towards-its-diaspora, 20. 12 “Kontseptsia podderzhki Rossiiskoi federatsiei sootechestvennikov za rubezhom,” http:// ksors.ru/koncepciya-podderzhki-rossijskoj-federaciej-sootechestvennikov-za-rubezhom/.

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of White Army general Anton Denikin, permitted the rapprochement of Russian émigrés with the Russian Federation. At the turn of the 2000s, the ROC also aimed to consolidate its canonical territory and to respond to the challenges of globalization. The reconciliation in 2007 of the ROC and the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (ROCOR), strongly encouraged by Vladimir Putin, gave a new territorial dimension to the ROC and inscribed it in the global world. Patriarch Kirill, then still a metropolitan in charge of the Patriarchate’s external relations, contrasted globalism as an expression of the principle of universality versus conservatism and traditionalism as an expression of the principle of uniqueness and difference. Kirill associated “universality” with secular liberalism, thus denying “all claims for religious universalism and accepting the role of ‘traditional religion’ in a new global taxonomy as something utterly particularistic and local. ‘National culture’, ‘unique tradition’, ‘historical heritage’, and ‘cultural roots’ [were] the most common phrases associated with religion in this discourse.” Moreover, a constant theme in Kirill’s writings was the idea of the “multipolarity” of the world (as opposed to the unipolarity of Western-led globalization) or the existence of several “great civilizational models” or “the beauty of plurality.” Kirill formulated the idea of multiple, immutable (spiritual) traditions as an absolute principle of world order, as opposed to the paradigm of universal globalization.13 It is in this context that the idea of “traditional values” appeared in his discourse. In this spirit, the 2006 World Russian People’s Council, an institution bringing together religious and secular elites (also discussed by Elena Stepanova in this volume),14 adopted a declaration on human rights. Two years later, on June 2429, 2008, after altering many points of this text, the Episcopal Council of the ROC adopted the Foundations of the Teaching of the Russian Orthodox Church on Dignity, Liberty and the Rights of Man.15 During the World Russian People’s Council of March 2007, several members of the Institute of Dynamic Conservatism—Andrei Kobiakov, Vitali Averianov and Vladimir Kucherenko (Maksim Kalashnikov)—presented a work titled The Russian Doctrine, proposing the development of Russia on the basis of the “traditional principles of the Russian civilization.” The Russian Doctrine was then praised by the future patriarch. Among the experts who contributed to this essay was Alexander Borodai, prime minister of the “People’s Republic of Donetsk” from May 16 to August 7, 2014. The Constitution of 13 On this subject, see Alexander Agadjanian and Kathy Rousselet, “Globalization and Identity Discourse in Russian Orthodoxy,” in Eastern Orthodoxy in a Global Age: Tradition Faces the 21st Century, ed. Victor Roudometof, Alexander Agadjanian and Jerry Pankhurst (Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press, 2005), 29–57, here 35–38. 14 This institution, which brings together religious, political, economic, cultural and scientific elites, representatives of state structures, association leaders and delegates of Russians abroad, was put in place by an initiative of Patriarch (then Metropolitan) Kirill in 1993. 15 See Kristina Stoeckl, The Russian Orthodox Church and Human Rights (London/New York: Routledge, 2014).

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this republic incorporated elements of The Russian Doctrine, as did The Russian Donbass, presented at the beginning of January 2021.16 2.2. The Church and the Russkii Mir Foundation: A Question of Religion, Language, and Culture By 2007, the Russkii mir was no longer only an ideology; it also took an institutional form. The Russkii Mir Foundation, created in June 2007 (two months after Vladimir Putin used the term before the Federal Assembly), is in some way an extension of the Pushkin Institute founded in the Soviet period. It finances projects aimed at the popularization of the Russian language, culture, and history, similar to the Goethe Institute or the British Council, and contributes to the vivacity and influence of Russia abroad. Svetlana Solodovnik aptly affirms that this foundation also recalls the Komintern: just as the Komintern diffused Communist ideas, the Foundation, supported by the ROC, diffuses “traditional values.”17 Despite the comparisons with Soviet institutions, the Foundation, supported by several religious, educational and media institutions, appears to be a potent actor of Russian soft power.18 It is at the heart of the definition of Russianness. One of its tasks is to collaborate with the ROC and other faiths to promote the Russian language and Russian (rossiiskaia) culture. It assumes a strong relationship between Russian religion, language, and culture. In October 2007, its president, Viacheslav Nikonov,19 presented a lecture on the Russkii Mir Foundation’s principal values at an international forum on the study and teaching of Russian in North America at the American Council of Teachers of Russian and the Carnegie Endowment in Washington. In 2010, he edited a work on the meaning and values of the Russkii mir, in which the contributors responded to the issue of globalization. These different documents allow us 16 Doktrina “Russkii Donbass,” https://russian-center.ru/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/ Doktrina_Russkii-_Donbass.pdf. See, for example, “Donbass na zashshite Russkogo mira,”, ibid., 10. 17 Svetlana Solodovnik, “Khristianstvo ‘russkogo mira’,” Otechestvennye zapiski 61, no. 4 (2014), https://strana-oz.ru/2014/4/hristianstvo-russkogo-mira. 18 In 2021, Metropolitan Ilarion sat on an advisory council alongside Vladimir I. Tolstoi, advisor to the president of the Russian Federation; a vice-minister of foreign affairs; former minister of education Olga Vasilieva; several university rectors; the director of the Hermitage Museum; the director of Rossotrudnichestvo (Federal Agency for the Commonwealth of Independent States Affairs, Compatriots Living Abroad, and International Humanitarian Cooperation), established in September 6, 2008; Natalia Narochnitskaia, director of the European Institute of Democracy and Cooperation, based in Paris, which works to disseminate Russian political ideas; and Margarita Simonian, editor-in-chief of Russia Today. 19 He is the grandson of the Soviet politician and diplomat Viacheslav Molotov (1890–1986), minister of foreign affairs of the Soviet Union until 1949.

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to precisely identify the relationships between Russian religion, language, and culture that are at the foundation of the Russkii mir, as well as what is understood by culture and traditional values. Starting from the example of the Germans of Russia (in fact the Jews of Odessa, the Germans of Kazakhstan, and the Ukrainians of Siberia) who, when they arrived in Germany, suddenly discovered themselves to be “Russian,” Nikonov specifies that it is necessary to understand what is meant by “Russian”: Russians—who are they? First of all, they are the Russians we all know. Russians are not blood, but a sense of being connected to the Russian world through an image of the present, the future, the past, the people, the nation, the country. Inside Russia, “russkii” more often means ethno-cultural identity, and “rossianin” means state affiliation, citizenship, but outside, the concept of “Russian” becomes supra-ethnic, and even super-ethnic, and in a certain sense civilizational. The Russian world as a civilization is wider than ethnicities and territories, religions, political systems, ideological predilections. The Russian world is polyethnic, multiconfessional, polysemantic. It is a global phenomenon, which cannot be described by any definition. Structurally, “the Russkii mir” is Russia, plus foreign countries and people who are interested in Russia. Mentally, it is all those who are aware of their involvement in the Russian world. And in this sense, belonging to the Russian world is a feeling in itself.20

Being Russian is thus not an assigned identity. The particularly striking use of the term “feeling” underlines the place of emotions in belonging to the Russkii mir. In this same lecture, Nikonov defined “mir,” which, according to him, should not be reduced to “world”: “in Russian, mir means ‘the Universe, the Earth globe, the Planet’.”21 Based on the number of people who speak the Russian language, he shows its great extent. Playing on different meanings of the Russian term, he also gives it an axiological dimension: “But mir in Russian also means harmony, absence of enmity, malice, war. […] Russkii mir means, apart from other things, Russian reconciliation, harmony, unity, overcoming the divisions of the last century.”22 During the Foundation’s general assembly of 2009, Nikonov presented the Russkii mir as a civilization, elaborated in Russia, which could bring certain ideals to the world: those of liberty, dignity, justice, sovereignty, mutual respect between countries, faith, and traditions. The Russkii mir was seen to define a form of political construction that put community first (soobshchestvo, obshchina, krug blizkikh druzei), in affinity with the notion of sobornost,23 a central element of

20 V. Nikonov, “Ɉ sozdanii fonda ‘Russkii mir,’” Russian Language Journal / Ɋɭɫɫɤɢɣ ɹɡɵɤ 57 (2007), 223–229 (Emphasis added). 21 Ibid. 22 Ibid. 23 Sobornost is often mentioned in political texts without any further qualification. It has become a common reference, which refers to community.

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Russian Orthodox theology.24 In the presentation of the Russki mir on the Foundation’s online portal in 2021, however, it is now the feeling of patriotism that occupies the primary place.25 The hierarchy of the Orthodox Church has largely echoed these different representations. In 2007, Patriarch Alexi II’s presentation underlined the supranational character of Russian identity (or Russianness); “ethnicities” and “nations” were considered to be united by the same overarching principle, “Orthodox values,” although those values remained undefined: The self-definition of “Russianness” is not ethnic, but supra-national and cultural. It may have originated as national in the Kievan lands. Indeed, according to the old chronicles, originally only the lands nearest to Kiev were called Rus in the strict sense of the word. Over time, however, this notion became universal. Other nations, ethnically different, but Russian in spirit and in acceptance of Orthodox values, also joined the Russkii mir.26

During the fourth assembly of the Russkii Mir Foundation from November 2 to 4, 2010,27 Patriarch Kirill expanded and clarified the account of Russian Orthodoxy to the nation. He cited Galatians 3:28 (“there is neither Jew nor Greek, neither bond nor free, neither male nor female; for ye are all one in Christ Jesus”), while maintaining that each people believes via its own language and culture. In using the notion of civilization, he envisaged a community that exceeds peoples and ethnicities. In this Russian civilization that would be open to all religions and all cultures, the Russian Church would be the most active: citing “Islam, Buddhism, Judaism, and the traditional Christian denominations,” he reproduced the hierarchized pluralism that is the basis of Russian policy with regard to religions. He also perpetuated his vision of Russia as an Orthodox country with religious minorities. This civilization would be united by the same system of values: “faith and interreligious peace, liberty and the moral perfection of the personality, selfsacrifice, the family, respect for elders, guidance and action elaborated in a community fashion [sobornyi], creativity, work ethic [trudoliubie], justice, love of country, care [zabota] for the created world.”28

24 “Mir in Russian is also a community, a group of close people. […] Regardless of how communality and collectivism are viewed, their historical existence was based on the very real practices of the vast majority of the population. The practice of the last decades, unfortunately, has atomised and divided us, but now it is possible to restore this community again” (Ibid., see n. 20). 25 https://russkiymir.ru/fund/. 26 “Russkost’ – poniatie sverkhnatsionalnoe,” Rodina 7 (July 2007), 7. 27 “Slovo Sviateishego Patriarkha Moskovskogo i vseia Rusi Kirilla na otkrytii IV Assamblei Russkogo mira ‘Uchitel Russkogo mira: missiia, tsennosti’ v Moskve,” https://www. mospat.ru/ru/news/56488/. 28 Ibid.

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2.3. Kirill and the Russkii Mir as a Civilization in the World Kirill has continued to develop this idea of the Russkii mir as a civilization that finds its origins in the baptism of the Rus but whose bearers go beyond these borders and whose values exceed evangelical values. One can note that Rus and Russia are sometimes conflated in his discourse, as for example during the World Russian People’s Council of 2013, dedicated to Russia as a State-Civilization. A Society of Solidarity and the Future of the Russian People. He explained: In a sense, Russia is synonymous with Rus. Today we have a different geopolitical reality, when independent states, many of which are also heirs of this historical Rus, emerged in the expanses of this historical Russia. Therefore, when I speak of Russia, I always mean this great civilizational space.29

On September 8, 2014, several months after the start of the war in Donbass, he specified that “the Russkii mir is a special civilization that needs to be preserved,” the contour of this civilization carries values that are “a source of our people’s love of peace.”30 He detached this civilization from all political borders and argued that “The Russkii mir is a special civilization which comprises people who now call themselves different names: Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians.” He added: This world may also include people who do not belong to the Slavic world at all, but who have taken the cultural and spiritual component of this world as their own. […] Russians, even those who call themselves Russians, may not belong to this world, because speaking or understanding Russian is not the only condition for belonging to the Russkii mir. And we know that very many people do not attach themselves to the Russian tradition, spirituality, or culture, but live with other views and beliefs and lose contact with their own civilization.

In 2015, he announced his desire to continue to affirm the idea of a civilization born from the baptism of Kiev, all while “conditionally” [uslovno] only using the term Russkii mir. Despite the fact that the mere mention of the Russkii mir has already almost become a crime within the current political doctrine in Ukraine, we shall go on—quietly, calmly, but persistently—witnessing to this truth, to the truth of the baptismal font of Kiev, to the creation by our ancestors of a whole East Slavic civilization, which we conditionally call the Russkii mir.31 29 “Slovo Sviateishego Patriarkha Kirilla na XVII Vsemirnom Russkom Narodnom Sobore,” https://vrns.ru/documents/slovo-svyateyshego-patriarkha-kirilla-na-xvii-vsemirnom-russ kom-narodnom-sobore/. 30 “Sviateishii Patriarkh Kirill: Russkii mir — osobaia tsivilizatsiia, kotoruiu neobhodimo sberech’,” Patriarkhia.ru (2014), http://www.patriarchia.ru/db/text/3730705.html. 31 “Sviateishii Patriarkh Kirill: Net nichego bolee dalekogo ot istiny, chem otozhdestvliat Russkii mir iskliuchitelno s Rossiiskoi Federatsiei,” Patriarkhia.ru (2015), http://www. patriarchia.ru/db/text/4164499.html.

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During the World Russian People’s Council of November 2018, in a context of canonical quarrel, when the Patriarchate of Constantinople recognized the OCU, his discourse changed. He explicitly identified the civilizational space promoted with the canonical territory of the Church. The Russkii mir seemed on the other hand to be linked above all to the Russian nation,32 considered as a “global nation.”33 This civilizational approach, which distinguishes itself from all political consideration of territory, seems to mark a difference in agendas between the Patriarch and Vladimir Putin, even as their interests of religious and political power overlap. Considering the place of the “Russian civilization” in the world, since the 1990s, nationalist intellectuals have simultaneously underlined the specificity of Russian civilization and affirmed that the ROC has a universal mission. Vladimir Semenko criticized the cultural particularism that Kirill, then still only a metropolitan, defended at the time and insisted that Orthodoxy is a universal ethos. Alexander Panarin similarly considered Orthodox civilization not as one civilization among others, but rather as the civilization that brings salvation to humanity. He opposed Huntington’s theory of a clash of civilizations, maintaining that even if religions can provoke conflict, civilizations historically have permitted us to engage in interreligious dialogue, such as occurs in Russia between Orthodoxy and Islam.34 It is in the extension of these debates that Kirill’s discourse at the XX World Russian People’s Council on November 1, 2016, needs to be situated.35 The year was marked by his meeting with Pope Francis in Havana on February 12, which provoked strong opposition within the ROC on the part of fundamentalists hostile to any form of rapprochement with the West and to any form of ecumenism. During this council dedicated to “Russia and the West: Dialogue of Nations in Quest of Answers to Civilizational Challenges,” Kirill opposed two patterns that generally structure these relations: on the one hand, that of a modern and civilizing West to which Russia should catch up; on the other hand, that of an antagonism between Western civilization and the civilization of the Russkii mir. Following the same particularist approach that he had adopted in his first texts on Russian civilization at the end of the 1990s and beginning of the 32 He juxtaposed Russian identity, Russian World and Russian soul. See “Slovo Sviateishego Patriarkha Kirilla na XXII Vsemirnom Russkom Narodnom Sobore,” (2018), http://www. patriarchia.ru/db/text/5295249.html. 33 Ibid. 34 Vladimir I. Iakunin, “Ⱥ. S. Panarin o kategorii ‘Tsivilizatsia’, Rossii kak tsivilizatsii i meste Rossii v dialoge tsivilizatsii,” Vestnik Moskovskogo universiteta. Seria 12 Politicheskie nauki 1 (2011), https://cyberleninka.ru/article/n/a-s-panarin-o-kategorii-tsivi lizatsiya-rossii-kak-tsivilizatsii-i-meste-rossii-v-dialoge-tsivilizatsiy. 35 Remaining quotations in this section all from: “Doklad Sviateishego Patriarkha Kirilla na XX Vsemirnom Russkom Narodnom Sobore,” November 1, 2016, https://www.vrns.ru/ documents/doklad-svyateyshego-patriarkha-kirilla-na-xkh-vsemirnom-russkom-narodnomsobore/.

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2000s, he advocated in 2016 for a coexistence of civilizations following parallel paths without anyone having superiority over the others (an approach he attributed to Nikolai Danilevskii (1822–1885)). The Russkii mir would be more attentive to the spiritual evolution of society than the largely de-Christianized Western civilization. During the same council, Kirill specified the agenda of the Russkii mir: We, representatives of the Russkii mir, urge that attention be paid not only to changes in the external conditions of our existence, but also to internal changes affecting the human soul. Of course, we are saddened by the possibility of extinction of biological species, the fate of our “lesser brothers,” the disappearance of biodiversity created by the Creator. But no less alarming is the disappearance of peoples, languages, cultures, ethnocultural diversity on the planet. We believe that today the problem of inhumane treatment of unborn children cannot be removed from the agenda, leading as it does to mass abortions, the destruction of the family, the erosion of basic moral values, and the aggressive attack on traditional religious cultures, which, in particular, is reflected in the policy of large-scale and intentional de-Christianization.

But Patriarch Kirill takes care to consider the West, and in particular Europe, as a plural ensemble, traversed by very diverse values; he refuses to oppose Russia to the West. For the past two decades, he has called for a new dialogue of civilizations, each preserving its own identity. The major concern would be the clash of these civilizations, anchored in one tradition and one culture, against globalized secularization and liberalism: In my opinion, the most acute conflict of our time is not the “clash of civilizations” declared by the American philosopher Samuel Huntington, not the struggle between religious and national cultures, as the powerful often want to present, and not even the clash between the East and the West, the North and the South, but the clash of the transnational, radical, secular globalist project with all traditional cultures and with all local civilizations. And this struggle goes on not only along the borders that divide states and regions, but also within countries and peoples, and maybe, within our own country as well. And here there is a clash of two worlds, two visions of man and of the future of human civilization.36

2.4. The Eschatological Agenda of the Russian Orthodox Church: Holy Russia as Seen by Patriarch Alexi II and Patriarch Kirill The post-secular construction of the Russkii mir is accompanied by eschatological rhetoric on the place of Holy Russia in the history of the salvation of the world. 36 Doklad Sviateishego Patriarkha Kirilla na XX Vsemirnom Russkom Narodnom Sobore (2016), https://www.vrns.ru/documents/doklad-svyateyshego-patriarkha-kirilla-na-xkhvsemirnom-russkom-narodnom-sobore/.

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Holy Russia, to which Patriarch Alexi II and Patriarch Kirill constantly refer, is at its origin a reality more spiritual than human. It is a project of salvation which the ROC has reinterpreted in the 21st century. As Sergei Averintsev reminds us, Holy Russia, in the lexicon of the Russian people, allows one to embody the theological concept of the universal Church, to put it in a more earthly and at the same time epic perspective, a perspective, so to speak, of historiosophy, for the use of laypeople. […] It is important to understand that this concept does not hide either a national idea […] or a geographic or ethnic concept. Holy Russia is an almost cosmic category. Its limits (or its infinity) include at the least Eden, the Old Testament and Evangelical Palestine.37

Prince Andrei Kurbskii (1528–1583) contrasted the idea to the forces of evil incarnated by Ivan the Terrible; the Slavophiles interpreted it as a metaphor of celestial Russia. Patriarch Alexi II and Patriarch Kirill, for their part, have given it an essentially geopolitical dimension,38 but seem to inscribe it equally in an eschatological perspective. In 2009, during the third assembly of the Russkii Mir Foundation, the newly elected Patriarch Kirill evoked the Russian people as “God-bearers,” baptised at Kiev, nourished by the tradition of a multitude of saints (hierarchs, princes, boyars, priests, monks, lay people), a way of living, and “spiritual” values. These saints “taught our people to love God and their neighbour, to fear sin and evil, and to long for the good, for holiness, and for truth.”39 The idea of a “God-bearing” people can be traced back at least to the 19th century and to Dostoyevskii. It speaks of a suffering people, abandoned by all, which history would join to Christ.40 At the beginning of the 20th century, neo-Slavophile poets like Viacheslav Ivanov, for their part, put forward the idea of a chosen people.41 The representation of Holy Russia’s messianic task was renewed by Patriarch Kirill. In 2010, he specified the pastoral mission of the Rus people, a mission for which they will have to account at the end of time: Through his servants, God established the Russian Church and entrusted it with his pastoral ministry among the peoples of Rus for all time. The Russian Church responds constantly to the accomplishment of this God-given ministry and it will be judged by Him at the end of times. This is why, throughout its millennial history, the Church 37 Sergei Averintsev, “Vizantia i Rus’: dva tipa dukhovnosti. Statia pervaia. Nasledie sviashchennoi derzhavy,” Razvitie lichnosti 1 (2018), 238. 38 Mikhail D. Suslov, “‘Holy Rus’: The Geopolitical Imagination in the Contemporary Russian Orthodox Church,” Russian Social Science Review 56, no. 3 (2015), 43–62. 39 “Vystuplenie Sviateishego Patriarkha Kirilla na torzhestvennom otkrytii III Assamblei Russkogo mira,” http://www.patriarchia.ru/db/text/928446.html. 40 Michael. Cherniavsky, “‘Holy Russia’: A Study in the History of an Idea,” The American Historical Review 63, no. 3 (1958), 634. 41 Ben Hellman, Poets of Hope and Despair: The Russian Symbolists in War and Revolution (1914–1918) (Leiden: Brill, 2018), 86ff.

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concerns itself ceaselessly with the spiritual edification and the good of the Russian land. How can the Russian Church not concern itself today with the future of the Russian world, which is born from Rus and with the peoples entrusted to it by God? Not to do it would be to disobey God himself.42

The message of Kirill and the Holy Synod to the bishops, clergy, monastics, and laypeople on the 1030th Anniversary of the Baptism of Rus’ (July 14, 2018) emphasized Prince Vladimir’s eschatological choice. The ecclesiastical evolution in Ukraine prompted them to emphasize the necessary unity of Holy Russia: The Slavic world seemed to stand at a crossroads of good and evil, showing sometimes noble qualities of the soul, sometimes a dreadful abyss of darkness. A decisive and firm step was needed to make the momentous choice. And this choice was made by the Holy Prince Vladimir, Equal-to-the-Apostles. The Orthodox faith implanted in the life of our ancestors by the Grand Prince transfigured our people, developing in them the spirit of selflessness and meekness, self-sacrifice, and patience.[…] To seek the truth of Christ and to stand for it—this is the main precept given by the Holy Prince Vladimir to the peoples of Holy Rus, heirs of the Dnieper font. Our entire common history and culture, the centuries-old spiritual and ecclesiastical tradition of our peoples, have been associated with seeking this truth. It is at the core of our life and self-awareness; it unites all of us and gives us strength to follow the path of our historical development, overcoming any hardship, sorrow, and hatred. And now in fraternal Ukraine, the country where there is the sacred Dnieper font in which the peoples of Rus were baptized, the forces of this world are rising against the Church of the Holy Prince Vladimir, trying to destroy the unity of this Holy Church. The clergy and laypeople there are being subjected to unjust accusations and revilement. However, we believe that no pressure from outside can shatter the sacred bonds of Christ’s love uniting us in one Body of Church. We believe that our common prayer will help us endure all ordeals and preserve the purity of the Orthodox faith and the faithfulness to the canonical truth.43

In 2019, after the proclamation of autocephaly by the OCU, recognized by the Patriarchate of Constantinople and described as a schism by the ROC, Kirill declared that division would have an impact on the destiny of Europe, and even the world: We should not permit our enemies to divide the Orthodox people of united Holy Russia. It is not a geopolitical task, nor an imperial idea that comes from Moscow— it is a spiritual idea. Because our unity in spirit and in truth, our unity in the Orthodox Church, is the most important factor that influences the destiny of Europe and, in a 42 “Slovo Sviateishego Patriarkha Moskovskogo i vseia Rusi Kirilla na otkrytii IV Assamblei Russkogo mira ‘Uchitel’ Russkogo mira: missia, tsennosti’ v Moskve,” https://www. mospat.ru/ru/news/56488/. 43 “Message of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill and the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church to the Archpastors, Clergy, Monastics and Laypeople on the 1030th Anniversary of the Baptism of Russia,” https://mospat.ru/en/2018/07/14/news161975/.

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On December 28, 2019, he positioned himself against the conflicts that divide the Orthodox in Montenegro, and more generally the world, and reaffirmed not only the protective mission of Holy Russia but also its responsibility in ensuring the unity of Orthodoxy: Today, the Ecumenical Patriarchate finds itself in a very particular position. Never has Orthodoxy seen such a thing as this, at least not in the last centuries. Even when the Orthodox Orient was under the domination of Ottoman Turkey, its influence on world Orthodoxy was balanced by the strength of the Russian Empire, our brothers knew that there existed a protector and defender of Orthodoxy—Holy Russia […] I believe that the Lord will not abandon us, just as he did not abandon the other Orthodox Churches if our Russian Church stays resolutely faithful to Holy Orthodoxy. As the biggest local [pomestnaia] Church in the world, we carry a particular responsibility for the unity of Orthodoxy, and I would like bishops, clergy, monastics, and all our faithful, to take note of this responsibility.45

By disengaging from politics, and by inscribing the destiny of Holy Russia and the ROC in the history of salvation, Kirill looked to spiritually legitimize his actions. After the Pan-Orthodox Council of Crete in June 2016 failed to present a unified Orthodox community, with the ROC (and, subsequently, some others) refusing to participate, the Patriarchate of Moscow has tried over the past several years to stage the admittedly partial unity of the patriarchates, whether through the commemoration of the reestablishment of the Patriarchate of Moscow in November 2017 or more recently during the 1030th anniversary of the baptism of Rus. On February 26, 2020, another council was held in Amman (Jordan), at the invitation of Patriarch Theophilos III of Jerusalem. However, this attempt at unification also failed: Constantinople refused the invitation, and denied that the Patriarch of Jerusalem had the right to convene such a meeting. The council brought together only the representatives of the Patriarchates of Moscow, Serbia, Romania, the Polish Orthodox Church, and the Church of the Czech Republic and Slovakia. The Churches of Antioch, Bulgaria and Georgia, which had refused to participate in the Council of Crete, were also not present at Amman. This shows the evolution of the ROC’s current zone of influence.

44 “Sviateishii Patriarkh Kirill: Edinstvo Sviatoi Rusi osnovano prezhde vsego na edinstve Russkoi Pravoslavnoi Tserkvi,” October 7, 2019, http://www.patriarchia.ru/db/text/ 5508869.html (Emphasis added). 45 “Sviateishii Patriarkh Kirill: Segodnia nikto ne dolzhen ostavatsia v storone ot togo, chto proiskhodit v mirovom Pravoslavii,” http://www.patriarchia.ru/db/text/5556072.html.

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3. A Strategy of Conquest In June 2010, Hegumen Filip Riabykh, former student of the State Institute of International Relations of Moscow (MGIMO) and vice president of the Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate, addressed himself to twenty-seven young people from different regions of Russia, Kiev, and Paris, as part of a session of the School of Russian Policy, founded in 2008 in Moscow by the Center for Socio-Conservative Policy. He presented the Russkii mir as a “potential entity,” not as a geopolitical reality, and enjoined his listeners to try to make this dream civilization a reality.46 In pursuit of the same aim, the Church embarked on a process of consolidating its world of influence, in the name of the Russian World, but also in the name of “traditional values.” 3.1. Consolidating the Canonical Territory of the Russian Orthodox Church and its Zone of Influence With the successive modifications of its statutes since the beginning of the 1990s, the ROC has progressively expanded the borders of its canonical territory beyond the borders of the Soviet Union. It now includes Orthodox Christians of the Russian Federation, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Azerbaijan, the five Central Asian countries, the three Baltic countries, China, Mongolia, Japan, and all the Orthodox who live in other countries and wish to belong to it. The definition of this canonical territory is accompanied by a growing institutionalization of the Church outside Russia, particularly since 2009, when Patriarch Kirill became the head of the ROC.47 At the Assembly of Bishops on November 29, 2017, Kirill affirmed that “the activity of the Russian Orthodox Church had a distinctly supra-national character,”48 that it was not in the service of a single people, and that it was present in more than fifteen different countries. In Ukraine, in 2017, “The Drop of Peace” program [kaplia mira] was born, one of whose objectives is the construction of churches in the towns and villages where places of worship that belonged to the UOC are now part of the OCU. As a result, four churches were built at the end of 2019. From 2016 on, every July church processions beginning from the 46 “Zamestitel predsedatelia OVTsS: ‘Russkii mir’ – eto tsivilizatsionnaia obshchnost, obrazovannaia obshchimi tsennostiami i obshchim opytom obshchestvennogo stroitelstva,” http://www.mospat.ru/ru/2010/06/17/news20574/. 47 This growing activity of the Church under the rule of Kirill even prompted the metropolitan of Rostov and of Novocherkassk to boast on January 27, 2019 of the activities of the “God-bearer” patriarch. See https://pravobraz.ru/mitropolit-rostovskij-i-novocherkasskijmerkurij-segodnyashnij-patriarx-russkoj-cerkvi-eto-patriarx-bogonosec/. 48 “Sviateishii Patriarkh Moskovskii i vseia Rusi Kirill. Doklad na Osviashchennom Arkhiereiskom Sobore Russkoi Pravoslavnoi Tserkvi,” (2017), http://www.patriarchia.ru/ db/text/5072994.html.

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monasteries (lavra) of Pochaev in Western Ukraine and Sviatogorsk in the East of Ukraine (close to Russian-occupied territory), converge near the capital of Ukraine and Kyiv Caves Lavra [Vseukrainskii krestnyi khod mira, liubvi i molitvy za Ukrainu]. This ecclesiastical strategy of consolidation in post-Soviet space is partly disconnected from the strategy of the Russian state. As already mentioned, in Ukraine, Metropolitan Onufrii, head of the UOC, refuses to use the notion “Russkii mir” because it refers to a political construction.49 Metropolitan Ilarion (Alfeiev), chairman of the ROC’s Department of External Church Relations, has explained many times that political borders do not necessarily correspond to religious borders. The difference between state and ecclesiastical considerations appeared at the moment of the annexation of Crimea and of the civil war in Donbass. Concerned with preserving Ukrainian Orthodoxy within the Patriarchate of Moscow, Patriarch Kirill was not present at the signing of the Agreement between the Russian Federation and the Republic of Crimea on the Accession of the Republic of Crimea in the Russian Federation and on Forming New Constituent Entities within the Russian Federation on March 18, 2014.50 Recognizing the conflict in Donbass as a civil war, the Church has not cooperated officially with the leaders of the unrecognized republics of Luhansk and Donetsk—even though, on the ground, some UOC priests are on the side of the separatists and the Church has deployed humanitarian action there. The semi-independent status of the UOC obtained in 1990 (as discussed by Sergii Bortnyk in this volume) does not make it fully independent: it is not canonical autonomy. Nonetheless, the Moscow Patriarchate, Onufrii, and the UOC all oppose attempts to define this Church as a Russian Church. In April 2021, Metropolitan Ilarion Alfeiev reacted to the aim of the Ukrainian state to rename it:51 The Ukrainian Orthodox Church should be rebaptised the Russian [rossiiskaia] Orthodox Church in Ukraine, but the UOC opposes this for a number of reasons. First, 49 “Mitropolit Onufri: Ia ne prodvigaiu ‘Russki mir’ i drugie politicheskie kontseptsii,” Religia v Ukraine (2015), https://www.religion.in.ua/news/vazhlivo/29814–mitropolitonufrij-ya-ne-prodvigayu-russkij-mir-i-drugie-politicheskie-koncepcii.html. 50 Vladimir Putin addressed the World Congress of Compatriots Living Abroad in 2015 as follows: “We felt your solidarity during the reunification of Crimea and Sevastopol with Russia. This is a historic event. And, of course, the strong support of our compatriots, who firmly expressed their will to be with Russia, to support Russia, helped to unite all of Russian society and became an important factor in consolidating the Russian diaspora [rossiiskoe zarubezhe] and the entire Russian world [rossiiskii mir].” (“Putin: podderzhka sootechestvennikov oshchushchalas’ pri prisoedinenii Kryma,” (2015), https://ria.ru/ 20151105/1314246205.html). The adjective “rossiiskii” suggests that Putin regards the Russian world as a community linked to the Russian Federation and to Russia meant as a civic and not an ethnic nation. 51 On December 20, 2018, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko signed a law obliging the UOC to have its name designate its belonging to the ROC.

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the real center of this Church is not in Moscow but in Kiev—it is an autonomous Church, it determines its own foreign policy, it chooses its own bishops without referring to Moscow, it chooses its own head, it does not depend in any way on the Russian Church financially, administratively, or otherwise. It is the national Church of Ukraine, and it is absolutely unjust to rename it the Russian Church. It is not composed of Russians, but of Ukrainians.52

3.2. Marking Territory in the West The ROC’s strategy of conquest is equally marked by the religious marking of territory in the West. The construction of the Russkii mir transforms the ROC’s approach to territory: it both globalizes itself and gives place to certain forms of glocalization.53 During a colloquium on “Religion and Diplomacy” in 2001, echoing the Concept of Support by the Russian Federation for Compatriots Abroad, Kirill, who was then head of the Department of External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate, affirmed that the Church collaborated closely with the minister of foreign affairs to “re-establish historical equity” and to “give the mother country the architectural and artistic treasures created by Russian artists and with the money of the Russian people.”54 In addition, the Moscow Patriarchate has affirmed since the beginning of the 2000s its intention to bring together Christians of the Russian tradition living in the West. On April 1, 2003, Alexi II sent a letter proposing the creation of an autonomous metropolia of the Russian tradition in Western Europe, to “reunify the Russian jurisdictions that were one in 1922.”55 In 2004, during the VIII World Russian People’s Council, Minister of Foreign Affairs Igor Ivanov underlined the importance of Orthodox churches for compatriots: Overall, the Orthodox Church has become today a place of attraction for the numerous Russian compatriots who were dispersed around the world by the historical events of the 20th century. The feeling of belonging to a spiritual patrimony and to common traditions is of major importance for those who wish to preserve and develop their

52 “V RPTs vystupili protiv pereimenovaniia Ukrainskoi pravoslavnoi Tserkvi,” RIA Novosti, April 17, 2021, https://ria.ru/20210417/pereimonovanie-1728733911.html. 53 See in particular the editors’ introduction to Orthodox Identities in Western Europe. Migration, Settlement and Innovation, ed. Maria Hämmerli and Jean-François Mayer (London/New York: Routledge, 2014). 54 Metropolitan Kirill, “Religiia i diplomatia,” Tserkov’ i vremia 3 (2001), 72–75, cited in Antoine Nivière, “Genèse historique et enjeux éthiques contemporains de l’identité des Églises orthodoxes russes,” Revue d’éthique et de théologie morale 270, no. 3 (2012), 70. 55 “Lettre du patriarche de Moscou à l’ensemble des juridictions russes en Europe Occidentale,” http://www.exarchat.eu/spip.php?article380.

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Many Russian churches and spiritual and cultural centers have, in fact, been created over the past several years with the support of the Russian state; they mark the territory of the Russkii mir. One of the first measures taken by Patriarch Kirill upon his election was the creation of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Secretariat for Institutions Abroad by a decision of the Holy Synod of March 31, 2009. This body is intended to support the Patriarch in the canonical, pastoral, administrative, financial, and economic monitoring of the foreign institutions of the ROC. It is also charged with organizing pilgrimages in foreign countries, principally the Holy Land, but also Greece, Cyprus, and other European countries. These pilgrimages also contribute to the religious marking of the ROC’s territory, and of the Russkii mir. On July 26, 2010, the Holy Synod changed the name of the Secretariat in the Administration of the Moscow Patriarchate for foreign institutions. The secretary of the Moscow Patriarchate for Foreign Institutions was renamed Head of the Administration of the Moscow Patriarchate for foreign institutions; as a sign of its importance, the position is part of the Superior Religious Council of the ROC. The ROC has a particularly vigorous missionary strategy in France, where Russian Orthodox theology radiated after the Russian Revolution. On March 31, 2004, the ROC created a movement in France for a local Orthodoxy of the Russian tradition, to contribute to the rapprochement of the Diocese of Chersonesus of the Moscow Patriarchate,57 the Archdiocese of Parishes of the Russian Tradition in Western Europe of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, and ROCOR. Disputes with the Patriarchate of Constantinople, relating to parishes and real estate, have not ceased since. On December 28, 2018, the Patriarchal Exarchate in Western Europe was created within the ROC, composed since February 26, 2019, of six eparchies. Many of the parishes belonging to the Archdiocese of Parishes of the Russian Tradition in Western Europe (Patriarchate of Constantinople) joined with the Patriarchal Exarchate (Moscow Patriarchate).58 The ROC equally established 56 “Vystuplenie ministra inostranykh del Rossiiskoi Federatsii I. S. Ivanova na VIII VRNS,” https://vrns.ru/documents/vystuplenie-ministra-inostrannykh-del-rossiyskoy-federatsii-is-ivanova-na-viii-vrns/. 57 This diocese was established in 1960 as part of the Exarchate of the Moscow Patriarchate in Western Europe. In 1990, the Exarchate was abolished, and its dioceses were subordinated to the Holy Synod and the Patriarch of Moscow. A new Patriarchal Exarchate was established in response to the position of the Patriarchate of Constantinople in Ukraine in 2018. The diocese of Chersonesus, which covers France, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Monaco, is part of it. Its headquarters are in Paris. 58 Russian parishes in Western Europe under the jurisdiction of Metropolitan Evlogii were admitted in 1931 to the Patriarchate of Constantinople as a temporary Exarchate in Western Europe. This exarchate was abolished in 1965 but in 1971 it was accepted as an arch-

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itself in Southeast Asia, with four eparchies in the Patriarchal Exarchate of the region: Singapore, Korea, Thailand as well as the Philippines and Vietnam. Metropolitan Ilarion (Alfeiev) could thus declare in 2019: “We know very well where to find the churches with the most growth, and the Russian Orthodox Church is one of them. Thirty years ago, we had six thousand parishes, today we have 40,000; we had twenty monasteries, today we have almost a thousand.”59 The marking of territory also operates through processes of autochtonization, highlighted by James Kapalo in his study on Orthodoxy in Ireland. Some Orthodox commentators tend to find sources, which expand “the existing conceptual boundaries of territorio orthodoxiae into a lost Western realm. The historical spiritual traditions of the Irish, Welsh, Scottish, and also early Anglo-Saxon churches become assimilated into a contemporary Orthodox habitus and landscape, a case of ‘your past is our perpetual present’.”60 Orthodox Christians emphasize the link between the presence of martyrs on Western soil and the rebirth of Christianity in a secularized world. The presence of saints in Western Europe contributes to reaffirming the existence of a deeply rooted Christian civilization which should be protected by both Russia and Western Europe.61 3.3. The Evolution of Russian Belonging: Towards the Glocalization of the ROC? Both secular organizations and the ROC have highlighted the link between religion and culture, and between the Russian Orthodox religion, tradition, and the history of a state-empire whose borders have fluctuated. But the Moscow Patriarchate has increasingly broken away from any exclusive definition. The

diocese, still under the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Constantinople. In 1999, Bartholomew of Constantinople recreated an exarchate through a tomos. On November 27, 2018, the Patriarchate of Constantinople abolished the 1999 tomos and decided to dissolve its exarchate. Archbishop John (Renneteau), along with some parishes and clerics, joined with the Moscow Patriarchate. Other clerics and parishes joined with Churches such as the Greek Orthodox Metropolia of France (under the Patriarchate of Constantinople) or the Romanian Orthodox Church. 59 Ilarion Alfeiev, “Tserkov i mir,” Rossia-24, October 12, 2019. 60 James Kapalo, “Mediating Orthodoxy: Convert Agency and Discursive Autochthonism in Ireland,” in Orthodox Identities in Western Europe (see n. 53), 243. For at least forty years, Irish, English, and various North American converts of northern European descent have themselves developed this discourse independently of Russia. The ROC is now using this argument for its own purposes. 61 See Kathy Rousselet, “The Russian Orthodox Church and the Global World,” in Global Eastern Orthodoxy: Politics, Religion, and Human Rights, ed. Giuseppe Giordan and Siniša Zrinšþak (Cham: Springer, 2020), 41–57.

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ROC seems to glocalize itself in the West.62 In a context where most children of émigrés do not speak Russian, and where many immigrants from Russia are not ethnically Russian, clerical actors claim that language has a lesser role in the identity of Russian “compatriots,” than before and that only the ROC assures the preservation of the link with Russia. The testimony of Archbishop Mark of Berlin (ROCOR),63 during a meeting in Berlin at the end of 201664 dedicated to the role of the Russian Orthodox parishes abroad in the identity formation of emigrant children, is in this respect enlightening. He directly underlines that the vast majority of parishioners in his archdiocese are “ethnic Germans” who come from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and other countries. These people do not self-identify as Russians, and try to assimilate into German society, yet they are regarded as Russians in their new homeland. As stated by Archbishop Mark, “they are neither Russian nor German.” Russian is taught in the parish schools, but the Russian language has lost its attraction, especially since fewer and fewer of the children speak Russian with their parents. In such a context, to be a member of the Russian Church in the diaspora should no longer imply, according to the archbishop, knowledge of the Russian language. On the other hand, religion can permit young people to develop an interest in Russian culture and to be initiated into the language. As our experience shows, the most important for us is not the language, but the maintenance of our belonging to our Orthodox Church. It is important that children know that even if they do not speak Russian very well, they belong to the Russian Orthodox Church. We live in an epoch where this question can play a very important role. And if we do not address this question now, we can lose a large number of persons not only for the Church, but also for the Russkii mir and for the Russian culture. The preservation of the Russian language here in Germany cannot figure as the foreground. But we have the obligation to preserve the Russian culture by our love of Orthodoxy and our knowledge of the foundations of the Orthodox faith. […] Can we move from the formula that is most familiar to us—to preserve the language, and through the language come to know faith and the culture—to a different approach? What would happen if we place the preservation of Orthodoxy in the family in the foreground (even if it is in the language of the country where the child goes to

62 Glocalization means “the simultaneity—the co-presence—of both universalizing and particularizing tendencies.” (Roland Robertson, “Comments on the ‘Global Triad’ and Glocalisation,” in Globalisation and Indigenous Culture, ed. Nobutaka Inoue (Kokugakuin University, Japan: Institute for Japanese Cultural Classics, 1997), 4. 63 Archbishop Mark is himself German. He participated in the negotiations for the reconciliation of his Church with the ROC, which took place in 2007. On December 10, 2019, he became metropolitan “of Berlin and All Germany.” 64 El’vira Kitnis, “Kak ne poteriat iazyk i veru v emigratsii?” (2017), https://russkiymir.ru/ publications/219879/?sphrase id=1131213.

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school)? Through Orthodoxy, we can try to inspire a reflective interest for all that which is Russian, including language […] The teaching of Orthodox religious faith in German schools, which concerns not only Russians, but also Greeks, Serbs, and Romanians, is done in German and the manual on which the teaching is based draws on different Orthodox traditions.65

The Russian Orthodox Christian diaspora community of belonging thus starts to understand Orthodox Christianity outside the Russian culture. The major stake for the ROC today is a mission that exceeds communities of Russian origin. During the same meeting in Berlin in 2016, Hegumen Filip Riabykh, interim Moscow Patriarchate representative to the European institutions, assumed that the ROC should situate itself outside the limits of nations to be an effective norm entrepreneur, and placed the mission at the heart of the Church’s strategy: If necessary, we should teach in French, in German. People live in an environment. Children go to school, to kindergartens. It is natural that they speak the language of the country. In Strasbourg, although we try to teach children in Church to speak Russian, they still speak French or German among themselves. This does not exclude the desire to learn Russian, and this should be supported. However, one should not charge the parishes of the Russian Church with making all parishioners know Russian. This is impossible. Let us not set utopian goals. It is important that the Church teach these children to love and keep their faith. It is important that children grow up to be Orthodox, no matter what language they speak. This is a priority for the Church. Therefore if it is necessary to teach in French, in German, in other languages, it is necessary to teach in them. From these children could grow up people, who will be witnesses of Orthodoxy in the Western world. Many Germans and French come to Orthodoxy and they are not always ready to learn Russian. They just do not need it. Shall we deny them the possibility of being Orthodox? No, of course not. We must ensure this mission. This modus vivendi will allow the Russian Church abroad to be strong, powerful, to grow, to gain its weight and authority among the society in which we live.66

It is this missionary issue that is central for the hierarchy of the ROC, and in particular for Kirill.67 The ROC has entered into a global world, above all to oppose it. It is to this global world that the ROC adapts itself today, even if it means changing relations between religion and culture. 65 Nikolai Ton [Nikolaus Thon], secretary general of the Conference of Orthodox Bishops, in El’vira Kitnis, “Kak ne poteriat’ iazyk i veru v emigratsii?,” (2017), https://russkiy mir.ru/publications/219879/?sphrase id=1131213 (see n. 64). Regarding the life of Orthodox communities in Germany, see Orthodoxie in Deutschland, ed. Thomas Bremer, A. Elias Kattan and Reinhard Thöle (Münster: Aschendorff Verlag, 2016). 66 Kitnis, “Kak ne poteriat iazyk” (see n. 64). 67 On the mission of the Church, see Alicja Curanoviü, “Russia’s Mission in the World: The Perspective of the Russian Orthodox Church,” Problems of Post-Communism 66, no. 4 (2019), 253–267.

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3.4. “Traditional Values,” Discourse Performativity, and World Conquest At the heart of the discourse of the Russkii mir lies the idea of developing “traditional values” and affirming the specificity of the Russian way. Given the dialogue of civilizations promoted by Kirill, the discourse on traditional values is also a transnational discourse far exceeding the community identifying itself as the Russkii mir. As sociologist Maksim Rudnev underlines, There are three meanings attached to the word “traditional values.” First, they are values that have come down from ancient times, that have been there “for ages” or even “always.” Second, they are values to be followed, norms, right principles. In a third sense, traditionalism indicates the uniqueness of values for a country and culture. The key characteristic of these meanings is that they are free of specific content and therefore easy to manipulate.68

This performative politico-religious rhetoric allows its actors to monopolize the public space, to constrain all discussion within a conservative framework, and to advance their own agenda. One finds here a Soviet social and political logic highlighted by anthropologist Alexei Yurchak. His research on the Komsomol shows that “contrary to the Party claims, many Soviet people, especially the younger generations, creatively reinterpreted the meanings of the ideological symbols, deideologizing static dogmas and rendering communist values meaningful on their own.”69 Yurchak calls “the act of the reproduction of form with the reinterpretation of meaning” a “heteronymous shift.” This process “allowed many Soviet people to continue adhering to Communist ideals and to see themselves as good Soviet citizens.”70 For the ROC, all these discourses are contra-discourses to political modernity and secularization. The promotion of “traditional values” allows the ROC to keep on fighting against its principal enemy—secularization—and, more generally, to maintain the breaches in the socio-political order that prevails in the West. In this promotion of traditional values, it finds alliances throughout the world with other Christian Churches and with Islamic movements. Dmitri Uzlaner rightly reminds us that this idea was present in the sayings of metropolitan Ilarion (Alfeiev) as early as 2004, when he was the ROC representative to the European institutions.71 The ROC now appears as a new norm entrepreneur, lobbying at the European

68 Ɇaksim Rudnev, “Traditsionnye tsennosti i realnost’,” Vedomosti, May 17, 2019. 69 Aleksei Yurchak, “Soviet Hegemony of Form: Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 45 no. 3 (2003), 504. 70 Ibid. 71 “Rossia v transnatsionalnykh kulturnykh voinakh,” part 2, Neprikosnovennyi Zapas 132, no. 4 (2020), https://www.nlobooks.ru/magazines/neprikosnovennyy_zapas/132_nz_4_ 2020/article/22867/.

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Court of Human Rights.72 Its diaspora presence in Western Europe gives it a new legitimacy in this space.

4. Conclusion In 2015, the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences (ISRAS) investigated perceptions of the Russkii mir among the Russian population. Sociologist Leontii Byzov affirmed that the Russkii mir was nothing but “a utopia”: In general, the attempt to unite the “Russian world” into a political project proves to be utopian over and over again. Politically, the “Russian world” is precisely a utopia, or, as Lev Gumilev aptly put it, a chimera. Chimeras always appear when people fail to do something—to build their nation, to modernize, to live like in the West—and it is necessary to explain why they failed. Explanations are traditionally sought at the farthest periphery of reality—in mentality, spirituality, the cultural code […]73

For Russians today, the Russkii mir would be something of the order of the optional and of the declarative, a “theatrical pose.” According to the ISRAS study, conceptions of the Russkii mir are very diverse and only 8% of people surveyed linked the Russkii mir to adherence to Orthodoxy.74 However, the Russian Orthodox Church, and in particular Patriarch Kirill, are fully involved in the debates on the Russkii mir. For the latter, the Russkii mir is not a political project but a civilization in the name of which a strategy of world conquest is possible. The war in Donbass and the declaration of autocephaly of the OCU have weakened the supra-national approach of Russianness. As far as it concerns the diasporic socio-political context, it has contributed to the redefinition and diversification of Orthodox Christians’ understanding of ‘belonging.’ In the West, notably, belonging expands beyond the Russian and Soviet community of origin. Cultural heritage is not considered as the only structuring principle, because the Orthodox religion can be experienced outside all feeling of cultural belonging to the Russian community. The ROC glocalizes itself, just like the Ecumenical Patriarchate.75

72 Kristina Stoeckl, “The Russian Orthodox Church as Moral Norm Entrepreneur,” Religion, State & Society 44, no. 2 (2016), 132–151. 73 “O proekte ‘russkogo mira’ v poslednie mesiatsy govoriat vse rezhe. Chto by eto znachilo?,” Ogonek, February 29, 2016, 8; republished by Kommersant “Real’nost’ est’. Proekta net,” https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/2912047. 74 “Russkii mir kak strategicheskii proekt,” Russkoe Pole, August 21, 2015, http://russkoepole.de/ru/news-18/2610–russkij-mir-kak-strategicheskij-proekt.html. 75 On this issue, see Victor Roudometof, Globalization and Orthodox Christianity: The Transformations of a Religious Tradition (New York/London: Routledge, 2014).

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Reaffirmed by the constitutional amendments of 2020, the ROC’s relation to territory is unique among the ensemble of religious institutions in the contemporary world: it is at the same time profoundly anchored in territory and linked to the Russian nation, while developing a project at the international level, a project that emancipates the Russian nation. The amendment about Russians as a “stateforming people” establishes the Russian Orthodox Church as a national Church. The last two amendments on traditional family values establish the Russian Orthodox Church as one of the defenders of Christian traditions in the global culture wars.76 It is thus that Kirill pursues the mission of his Church in the contemporary world: the struggle against globalized secularization and liberalism. The Russkii mir, just like Holy Russia or “traditional values,” has been above all part of a performative discursive practice justifying a large diversity of political and religious actions. It is thus less important to linger on the content of the Russkii mir, or of traditional values, or of Holy Russia, as on the actions that are undertaken in their name. Behind this rhetoric loom material considerations: the possession of places of worship and related income, the support of “compatriot” patrons for the restoration or construction of new places of worship. Cécile Vigouroux asked whether the discursive production of Francophonie, an organization promoting French language and culture: “[…] has fostered speakers’ identification to a ‘spiritual community’77 in which they would claim membership. Or, shall we conclude […] that la francophonie is a ‘worldwide interlocking movement of interlocking elites’?”78 If Viacheslav Nikonov claims the first approach, it seems heuristic to privilege the second. The discourse on the Russkii mir, like the practices carried out in its name, are part of various state and ecclesiastical policies that are defined according to very diverse national contexts. They permit above all the networking of Russian-speaking transnational elites, including religious elites. And, like Francophonie, the Russkii mir should be considered as a field of negotiations between these elites with possibly opposing interests. The same can be said about the discourse on “traditional values.”

76 Kristina Stoeckl, “The End of Post-Soviet Religion. Russian Orthodoxy as a National Church,” Public Orthodoxy, https://publicorthodoxy.org/2020/07/20/the-end-of-postsoviet-religion/. 77 Léopold Sédard Senghor, “La Francophonie comme culture,” Etudes littéraires 1 no. 1 (1968), 131. 78 Cécile Vigouroux, “Francophonie,” Annual Review of Anthropology 42 (2013), 392, quoting B. Weinstein, “Francophonie: A Language-Based Movement in World Politics,” International Organization 30, no.3 (1976), 485.

“Kyivan Christianity” and the “Churches of the Kyivan Tradition”: Concepts of Distinctiveness of Christianity in Ukraine before and after 2019 Alfons Brüning

Introduction Voices for an independent Ukrainian church emerged in parallel with the process leading to the declaration of Ukrainian political independence in 1991. The establishment of an independent Ukrainian state for many Ukrainians coincided with the resurrection of Christian religion in a distinct national character. The autocephalous movement of the early 1920s (discussed by Denysenko in this volume) had already claimed such distinctiveness, parallel with attempts to create an independent state. After 1991, an autocephalous church, by expressing the national religious spirit, was supposed to support the emergence of a common identity.1 But what would this “Ukrainian Christianity” actually consist of? Preliminary answers by Ukrainian intellectuals emphasized the openness and lack of dogmatism of Ukrainian religiosity, the crucial role of laymen and popular religious culture, and the inclination towards learning—all this being different from the supposed Russian predilection for authoritarian structures, rites, and asceticism.2 Concepts and historical myths related to a distinct Ukrainian Christianity were by no means newly created during the early years of independence. Part had survived in the catacombs,3 part had returned from exile. They re-emerged alongside new Christian denominations, whose emergence was made possible by a more liberal religious policy in the final years of the Soviet regime. Liberated religiosity and patriotic sentiments merged in several ways. Contemporary observers, for instance, noted the many Ukrainian flags and symbols at public manifestations and open-air liturgical ceremonies after the reestablishment of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC), thanks to a 1989

1 2 3

Cf. the voices collected in Andrew Wilson, The Ukrainians. Unexpected Nation (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2002), 237–240. Ibid., 239, with further references. For church life in Ukraine under Communism, including attempts at self-assertion, see Natalia Shlikhta, Tserkva tykh, khto vyzhyv. Radianska ukraina, seredyna 1940–kh – pochatok 1970–kh rr. (Kharkiv: Akta, 2011).

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agreement between Mikhail Gorbachev and Pope John Paul II.4 Yet the Western districts of the new Ukrainian state which were the center of the Greek Catholic revival also saw newly-opened parishes of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Church (UAOC), led by clerics either returning from diaspora centers in North America, or former Russian Orthodox priests who had changed jurisdiction. The monopoly of the exile UAOC, on its part, was soon contested by another Ukrainian Orthodox Church: the Kyivan Patriarchate (UOC-KP) under the former Moscow Patriarchate metropolitan Filaret (Denysenko), who led a genuine post-Soviet, nonexile, and pro-Ukrainian movement of bishops and clerics. By 1995, a complex ecclesiastical landscape, including no less than four denominations of Byzantine rite Christianity, had developed. 5 Each of these denominations had its own idea of what “Ukrainian Christianity” should mean, what it should be called, and what it should look like in the future in an independent state. These controversies reflected, and became a significant subpart of, the wider discourse on Ukrainian nationhood and national ideology, including historical narratives, constitutional consequences, and possible integrative functions for post-Soviet society. Points of agreement included such patterns as a Christian Ukraine on the border between the spheres of Eastern and Western Christianity, which resulted in a distinct character of Christian religiosity, that would quasiautomatically ask for autonomous church structures or even autocephaly. A more than vague consensus also existed about the capital of Kyiv as being destined to form the center of Ukrainian Christianity, both in an administrative and in a symbolic sense, as a site of memory and place in the history of salvation. The capital quickly took center stage: “Ukrainian Christianity” (or “Christianity in Ukraine”) morphed into “Kyivan Christianity.” Every further step in the direction of concrete stories and structures proved a cause for controversy. Controversies became manifest through the struggles over possession of religious sites within the capital. As no decision could be reached about which denomination could legitimately claim possession of St. Sophia Cathedral, whose history reaches back to the very beginnings of Christianity in

4

5

Esther B. Fein, “Ukrainian Catholics Move Into the Open,” NY Times, October 29, 1989, Section 1, p. 18; “150.000 Catholics march in L’viv: Liubachivsky looks to legalization,” The Ukrainian Weekly, no. 39, September 24, 1989, 1, http://ukrweekly.com/archive/1989/ The_Ukrainian_Weekly_1989–39.pdf; Bohdan Bociurkiw, “The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in the Contemporary USSR,” Nationalities Papers 20, no. 1 (1992), 17– 30. Details of this complex formative phase of the ecclesiastical landscape in Ukraine, including underlying concepts and religious-political interactions, can best be found in Religion and Nation in Modern Ukraine, ed. Serhii Plokhy and Frank E. Sysyn (Edmonton and Toronto: CIUS Press, 2003). See also Andrew Wilson, The Ukrainians (see n. 1), esp. 234–252.

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medieval Rus, the church remained the museum it had been in Soviet times while also hosting state-organized ceremonies.6 Each of the Eastern churches tried to maintain or select prominent places for their permanent settlement in Kyiv: the UOC-MP and its metropolitan resided in the Caves Monastery, the UOC-KP in St. Michael’s Monastery (ukr. Mykhaylivskyi Zolotoverkhyi monastyr), and the UAOC in St. Andrew’s Cathedral (ukr. Andriivska tserkva) in the Podil district.7 Underlying schemes of both Ukrainian and “Ukrainian Christian” history also proved controversial. The supposed “borderland character” of Ukrainian Christianity, which for some scholarly interpretations was an advantage in terms of openness, tolerance, and cultural encounter, meant for more derogatory interpretations being at “the periphery of everything.” National historians and churchmen countered with the claim that Ukraine and Ukrainian Christianity were not merely an amorphous mixture of external influences, but had been something distinct from the time of Kyivan Rus. The “borderland studies” genre still prompts disagreement as whether it appropriately reflects Ukrainian history over the long run.8 Another question concerns the oversimplifying character of any division into just two parts, whether Eastern / Western, Latin (Catholic and Protestant) / Greek (Orthodox) or whatever else. The reality behind the simplifying schemes of “churches between East and West” would also have to include strong regional specificities, flexible or even arbitrary attitudes and behavior by believers, and the

6 7

8

Lilija Berežnaja, “Der Kiewer Kirchenstreit. ‘Erinnerungsorte’ der Konfessionen,” Osteuropa 59, no. 6 (2009), 171–188; on St. Sophia Cathedral, ibid., 179–180. Formally, all these buildings are still owned by the state. Internet resources are remarkably silent concerning juridical status and actual nature of agreement with the state. For example, the current status of St. Michael’s Monastery apparently goes back to the opening of a theological academy on the site by the UOC-KP in the early 1990s, when the newly erected church also took over the costs for initial restoration work on the building complex. After 1995, the Kuchma administration agreed to continue the restoration work and assume further costs (G. Iu. Ivakin and L. D. Fedorova, “Kyivskyi Sviato-Mykhailivskyi Zolotoverkhyi Monastyr,” in Entsiklopediia istorii Ukraiiny, vol. 4 (Kyiv: Naukova Dumka, 2007), 267–271. Since 1993, the UGCC has pursued the project of building a cathedral in Kyiv on the left bank of the Dnipro river (cf. Serhii Plokhy, “Between Moscow and Rome: The Struggle for a Ukrainian Catholic Patriarchate,” in Religion and Nation in Ukraine (see n. 5), 146–165, here 162–164). The intense debate about Ukrainian national identity in past and post-Soviet present has produced a vast literature. For a good reflection of the debate and main concepts of historiography about Ukraine, see A Laboratory of Transnational History. Ukraine and Recent Ukrainian Historiography, ed. Georgiy Kasianov and Philipp Ther (Budapest and New York: CEU Press, 2009); and The Future of the Past. New Perspectives on Ukrainian History, ed. Serhii Plokhy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2016). For church history, see Liliya Berezhnaya, “Does Ukraine have a Church history?,” Kritika 10, no. 4 (2009), 897–914.

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fate of such famous religious sites as the monasteries of Pochaiv in Western Ukraine or the Monastery of the Caves in Kyiv.9 However, beyond all complexities of intellectual discourses on the one hand, and realities of faith, society, and politics in post-Soviet Ukraine on the other hand, one can identify two broad directions these discourses have taken: “the Churches of the Kyivan Tradition,” and “Kyivan Christianity.” These two labels have reached Western scholarship, where they are sometimes reproduced as synonyms rather than differentiated alternatives. The “Churches of the Kyivan tradition” notion, however, is originally shaped mostly by ecclesiological and theological arguments, and is closely connected with profile and self-definition of the UGCC (developed further after 1989/1991). Speaking of a “Kyivan Christianity” (in a discourse mainly carried out by the several branches of Orthodox Christianity in Ukraine (UAOC, UOC-KP)), by contrast, puts a stronger accent on patterns of religious culture, devotion, and art, with particular attention to the religious life of lower social strata: parish priests, laity, and “the people.” Identifying these two main tendencies does risk introducing an artificial clarity into a reality where the two are difficult to separate, with much overlapping in theory and, as will be outlined below, much interaction. Since the establishment of the autocephalous Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) in 2019 such interactions have intensified, while the dissociative potential of both concepts, mostly with regard to Russian Orthodoxy, has also become stronger. The aim of this article is threefold. First, it outlines the development of “Kyivan Christianity,” including moments of institutional and conceptual rapprochement of initially different approaches. Secondly, it brings out the central features of “Kyivan Christianity,” contributing to a better understanding of them and of the entire discourse in its various phases. A final task will be to contextualize this discourse in a long-term perspective, and also to tentatively put in into comparative context with regard to other “borderlands.” As will become clear, notions of a Christian religion with a distinct character on roughly the territories today belonging to Ukraine have been developed, adopted, and changed since at least the 16th century by generations of politicians, clerics, intellectuals. In this respect Ukraine does not differ from other regions of Europe. What, then, were the peculiarities not of “Kyivan Christianity” as such, but of the respective definitions given to the term in the early modern period, or during the era of Romantic nationalism, or in the 20th century? Moreover, historical narratives within a church 9

See Natalia Kochan, “‘Oh, East Is East, and West Is West…’. The Character of OrthodoxGreek Catholic Discourse in Ukraine and Its Regional Dimensions,” in Eastern Orthodox Encounters of Identity and Otherness. Values, Self-Reflection, Dialogue, ed. Thomas Bremer and Andrii Krawchuk (London: Palgrave, 2014), 125–140; Natalia Shlikhta, “Eastern Christian Churches between State and Society: An Overview of the Religious Landscape in Ukraine (1989–2014),” Kyiv-Mohyla Humanities Journal 3 (2016), 123– 142.

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or religious denomination also have theological implications and presuppositions; these too need to be examined. Finally, narratives are usually created to serve a purpose which can change over time. Concluding remarks will therefore address “Kyivan” Christianity’s political applications and geopolitical implications.

About the “Kyivan Metropolia”—Developing Narratives of “Kyivan Christianity” after 1991 Since roughly 1995, i.e. after the first phase of the new religious landscape in Ukraine, both Greek Catholic and Orthodox intellectuals intensified their efforts to develop their specific narratives. The “Kyivan Metropolia” became a focal point, as an ecclesiastical unit which could claim some persistence through the centuries while secular political structures were those of foreign empires. This process of the development of a common narrative included the subsequent overcoming of inner divisions and of fervently exclusivist, even aggressive and nationalist, remains of a troubled past. As narratives are cornerstones of collective identities, alongside the integrating function towards the inside stands the dissociative function to the outside (discussed by Bortnyk in this volume). In case of the “Kyivan Metropolia,” dissociation from Russian Orthodoxy became another main theme of related discourses.10 Several events mark the establishment of the two mainstream concepts of a “Kyivan Christianity” throughout the decades following Ukrainian independence. For the Greek Catholic Church, a first milestone were the meetings of the socalled “Kyivan churches study group” between 1992 and 1994.11 In this group, bishops and theologians of the Greek Catholic Church (mainly from diaspora branches in Canada and the U.S., but also from Ukraine) and the Ecumenical 10 Dissociation from Roman Catholicism is equally relevant in relation to Poland, as shall be outlined below. In post-Soviet Ukraine this dimension was mainly addressed by Greek Catholic efforts at reconciliation with the Polish Catholic neighbor, addressing such charged issues as the Volyn massacres. They also allowed notions of “Kyivan Christianity” to acknowledge Catholic influences on Ukrainian Church life. See Myroslava Rap, The Public Role of the Church in Contemporary Ukrainian Society. The Contribution of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church to Peace and Reconciliation (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2015). 11 Proceedings from the consultations were published in four volumes of LOGOS: A Journal of Eastern Christian Studies, published by the Sheptytsky Institute in Ottawa, Canada (vol. 34, 1993, no. 1–2; vol. 34, 1993, no. 3–4; vol. 35, 1994, no. 1–2; vol. 36, 1995, no. 1–2) – also available via https://sheptytskyinstitute.ca/kyiv-church-study-group/; see further Taras Hrynchyshyn, “Do istorii Studiinoi hrupy Kyivs’koi Tserkvy,” Kovcheh. Naukovyi zbirnyk iz tserkovnoi istorii 3 (2001), 417–447; Sergii Bortnyk, “Studienguppe der Kiewer Kirche – Kyivan Church Study Group,” https://www.academic-initiative.org.ua/wpcontent/uploads/2020/11/Kievan-Church-SG-german.pdf.

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Patriarchate gathered to explore the possibilities of the UGCC to have full and visible communion with the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, without breaking the already existing communion with the Church of Rome. The answer to this question, after four meetings in Oxford, Stamford, Ottawa and finally Rome, was basically positive. While investigating such subjects as the historical circumstances of the Union of Brest, or the notion of “sister churches,” consultations did not develop a concrete agenda. The focus was on ecclesiology and church history of a “church between East and West.” This is where the process stopped.12 The debates did establish some major patterns for identity discourses of the Greek Catholic Church in Ukraine that were to follow. The study group and ensuing debates took up theological impulses delivered earlier in the 20th century by prominent hierarchs of the Greek Catholic Church, mainly Andrii Sheptyts’kyi and Iosif Slipyi. Another accent had been set by focusing on the history of the Kyivan Metropolia,13 with which the Greek Catholics see themselves in continuity up to present days. The Greek Catholic narrative, therefore, already implicitly claimed relevance not only for the Western (formerly Habsburg and Polish) part of Ukraine including the city of Lviv, where the church had had its administrative center for much of the preceding centuries, but for Ukraine as a whole. Perhaps not by accident, the first steps towards the erection of a Greek Catholic cathedral in Kyiv coincided with the gatherings of the Kyivan church study group. This narrative of the ecumenically open “Church between East and West” countered still-existing ethno-nationalist tendencies in periphery parishes, including sympathetic memories of such Western Ukrainian interwar ‘integral nationalist’ organizations as the OUN (Orhanizatsiia Ukrainskykh Natsionalistiv); its militant branch, the UPA (Ukrainska Povstanska Armiia), and its leader Stepan Bandera; combined with fervent anti-Polish and anti-Russian overtones.14 This tension between ecumenical ecclesiology and ethno-nationalism 12 There have been several unsuccessful attempts to revitalize the study group (cf. Andriy Chirovsky and Roma M. Hayda, “Kyivan Church Study Group, an ecumenical dialogue team for our times,” The Ukrainian Weekly, no. 37, September 12, 2004: 9). 13 See Borys Gudziak, “How Did They Drift Apart? The Kievan Metropolitanate, the Patriarch of Constantinople and the Genesis of the Union of Brest,” LOGOS: A Journal of Eastern Christian Studies 34 (1993), 43–66, which puts a strong accent on the 1596 Uniate bishop’s autonomous decision to join union with Rome without formal breaking of communion with Constantinople. The article anticipates the main thesis of the author’s later seminal study under the same title: Crisis and Reform. The Kyivan Metropolitanate, the Patriarch of Constantinople, and the Genesis of the Union of Brest (Cambridge/Mass.: HURI, 1998). 14 Concerning the actual extent and significance of such relics, see the controversy between Sophia Senyk, “The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church Today: Universal Values Versus Nationalist Doctrines,” in Religion, State & Society 30, no. 4 (2002), 317–332; and Serge Keleher, “Response to Sophia Senyk, ‘The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church Today: Universal Values Versus Nationalist Doctrines’,” Religion, State & Society 31, no. 3 (2003), 289–306.

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reiterated an older conflict between hierarchy and lower clergy and laymen familiar from interwar Polish Ukraine.15 Meanwhile, historians at the Institute of Church History at the Ukrainian Catholic University (UCU), which had grown out of the Theological Academy re-established in the early 1990s, tried to add a liturgical and cultural dimension to the initially predominantly ecclesiological and jurisdictional visions offered by the Kyivan church study group. In the background stood the vision of a Slavia Unita, merging Latin (Slavia Latina) and Orthodox (Slavia Orthodoxa) branches of Christianity among Slavs on Ukrainian territory.16 Such efforts, partly in cooperation with Polish historians, resulted in a synthesis of the entangled Uniate-Orthodox17 history of the Kyivan Metropolia between the late Middle Ages and the eve of modernity.18 Despite its inclusiveness, the perspective still concentrated on the Greek Catholic eparchies of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and excluded the Orthodox of the Ukrainian hetmanate, which after 1686 had come under Muscovite and Russian rule.19 This eastern part, however, became the most important for the competing Orthodox “national Ukrainian” churches. The story presented by both the UOCKP and the UAOC claimed only the non-Uniate Kyivan Metropolia as both the continuation of Kyivan Rus and an alternative to a Moscow-centered, Russian version of Christianity. The main features of this narrative had been developed by exile historians of the “autocephalous” 20th century diaspora in the U.S. and Canada.20 The historical conceptions of such exile historians as Ivan Vlasovs’kyi 15 See Andrew Sorokowski, “The Lay and Clerical Intelligentsia in Greek-Catholic Galicia 1900–1939: Competition, Conflict, Cooperation,” Harvard Ukrainian Studies 26, no. 1–4 (2003), 261–290; Bohdan Budurowycz, “The Greek Catholic Church in Galicia, 1914– 1944,” Harvard Ukrainian Studies 26, no. 1–4 (2003), 290–375; more recently John-Paul Himka, “Christianity and Radical Nationalism: Metropolitan Andrei Sheptytsky and the Bandera Movement,” in State Secularism and Lived Religion in Soviet Russia and Ukraine, ed. Catherine Wanner (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 93–116. 16 Ihor Skoczylas, “Slavia Unita – the Cultural and Religious Model of the Archdiocese of Kiev in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (the Discussion on Christian Heritage of the Nations of Eastern Europe),” in East-Central Europe in European History: Themes and Debates, ed. Jerzy Káoczowski and Hubert àaszkiewicz (Lublin: IEĝW, 2009), 243– 254. 17 English language historiographical literature still regularly applies the term “Uniate” for “Greek-Catholic.” Within the Greek Catholic Church, however, the term over time has acquired a pejorative connotation (especially the Ukrainian uniaty) and is therefore avoided. 18 Andrzej Gil and Ihor Skoczylas, KoĞcioáy Wschodnie w paĔstwie polsko-litewskim w procesie przemian i adaptacji: metropolia kijowska w latach 1458–1795 (Lublin and Lwów: IEĝW, 2014). 19 Ibid., 48–49. 20 See Frank E. Sysyn, “The Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church and the Traditions of the Kyiv Metropolitanate,” in Religion and Nation in Modern Ukraine (see n. 5), 23– 39.

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(1883–1969) and metropolitan Ilarion (Ivan) Ohienko (1882–1972) saw reprint and intense reception among church historians in post-Soviet Ukraine.21 According to this perspective, from 1458 (when both Moscow and in Kyiv elected new successors to the metropolitan see, cementing their separation) to 1686 (when Kyiv was integrated into the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate), the Kyivan Metropolitanate had actually had an independent existence, despite formally continuing connections with the Ecumenical Patriarchate. Whereas 1595/6, the date of the Brest Union, was a central site of memory for Greek Catholic identity, the integration act of 1686 obtained a similar significance in the historical memory of the two autocephalous churches: according to the exile conception, this integration had been an illegal, canonically invalid act carried out under political pressure from Moscow, to which the Ecumenical Patriarchate as mother church, effectively powerless under Ottoman rule and probably bribed, had given a vague consent only after the fait accompli.22 In other words, the autonomy of the Orthodox Kyivan Metropolia had illegally been abolished, and its cultural, theological and mental features were subsequently condemned to a hidden existence or even annihilation. This part of the discourse soon left the narrow circles of clerics and church historians. The idea of the Orthodox Kyivan Metropolia as treasure trove for Ukrainian religious culture found support also among secular historians as those from the Academy of Sciences of the young Ukrainian state. An early textbook compilation for institutions of higher learning suggested a scheme of Ukrainian religious history which, despite devoting requisite space to the Union of Brest and the Greek Catholic branch, eventually treated Orthodox Christianity as the main line. The guiding question, not different from general trends prevailing in national historiography at the dawn of the newborn Ukrainian state,23 concerned the contribution of Ukrainian, predominantly Orthodox, Christianity to Ukrainian statehood (derzhavnist). To further amend this perspective, the introductory chapters suggest a stronger focus on popular religiosity, mentality, and on the lower strata of society such as laypeople, Cossacks, and lower clergy, where the elements of a specifically Ukrainian Christianity were supposed to be found. Whereas “autocephalous” diaspora church historiography gets a critical treatment, this new focus on Orthodoxy, statehood, and popular religious culture was largely in line with 19th century approaches, from which the diaspora concepts 21 Ivan Vlasovs’kyi, Narys istorii ukrainskoi pravoslavnoi tserkvy, 4 vols. (originally Toronto, 1955–1956; Reprint: Kyiv: Lybid’, 1998); Ivan I. Ohiienko, Ukrainska Tserkva: Narysy z istorii Ukrainskoi Pravoslavnoi Tserkvy (originally: Prague, 1942; Reprint: Kyiv: Ukraiina, 1993), vols. 1–2. 22 Vlasovs’kyi, Istoriia Ukrainskoi Pravoslavnoi Tserkvy (see n. 21), vol. 2, 292–377. See also the article by Vera Tchentsova in this volume. 23 See the survey in Kateryna Wolczuk, The Moulding of Ukraine (Budapest: CEU Press, 2001), chapter two: ‘In search of a tradition: discontinuities of statehood in Ukraine’s history,’ 29–58 (also available online, https://books.openedition.org/ceup/1719).

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had also departed.24 Already the early phase after 1991 provided quite a few examples for the growing interaction between a nationally oriented religious historiography and the partly pre-existing, imported narrative of the “national churches.” This can further be illustrated by the fate of such sites of memory as the biography of the famous Kyivan reform bishop Peter Mohyla (1595–1646). Mohyla (an ethnic Moldavian) achieved the status of an early Ukrainian hero for his reforms restoring the life of the “Greek religion” in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.25 In December 1996, Mohyla was canonized first as a local saint by the UOC-MP, and as holy hierarch (sviatitel) by the UOC-KP. This is one example. Generally, academic secular historians on occasion repeated their insistence on the uniqueness of Ukrainian Orthodox religious culture, including its particular—and particularly independent—relation towards elites and the state.26 The mentioned example illustrates a convergence between academic history and the narrative of the “national” Ukrainian Orthodox Churches in the first decades after independence.27 A further step towards rapprochement of different concepts came in 2005. On August 21, 2005, the UGCC officially moved its central see from Lviv to Kyiv. The project of building a cathedral in the city had been pursued since the early 1990s. Now followed the ceremonial laying of a foundation stone of a monumental new cathedral on the eastern side of the Dnipro River, in sight of other monumental religious sites of the capital.28 The head of the UGCC, Lyubomir Husar, 24 Istoriia Tserkvy ta relihiinoi dumky v Ukraini (Zatverzheno Ministerstvom osvity Ukraini iak navchalnyi posibnyk dlia studentiv vyshchykh navchalnykh zakladiv), vols. 1–2, ed. V. I. Ulianovskyi (Kyiv: Lybid, 1994); vol. 3, ed. O.P. Kryzhanivs’kyi, S.M. Plokhii (Kyiv: Lybid’, 1994). See Ulianovskyi’s introduction to vol. 1, ibid., 3–33. 25 Valeriia Nichyk, a historian of philosophy and member of the academy of science, celebrated Mohyla as an early precursor of Ukrainian political independence, statehood, and distinct spiritual culture. Valeriia M. Nichyk, Petro Mohyla v dukhovnoi istorii Ukrainy (Kyiv: Ukrains’kyi Tsentr dukhovnoi kultury, 1997). 26 See, for example, Vasyl I. Ulianovskyi, “Mynule Ukrainy cherez pryzmu istorii pravoslavnoi tserkvy: Problemy, uroky, perspektyvy,” Kyivska starovyna 5 (2003), 3–28. See also Berezhnaya, “Does Ukraine have a Church History” (see n. 8), 898. 27 The national, both anti-Russian and post-Soviet, pillars of this view and subsequent integration of diaspora schemes, can be found in (Protoierei) Iu. Mytsyk, Za viru pravoslavnu! (Kyiv: Vydavnychnyi Dim “Slovo,” 2009). Mytsyk is a priest of the UOCKP, and professor of church history at Mohyla Academy in Kyiv. The “patriotic turn” of academicians and secular historians, including their views on religious history, found its own opponents. Illustrative is the controversy around Natalia Iakovenko’s methodological “Introduction to History” – Vstup do istorii (Kyiv, Krytyka, 2007). Iakovenko, a renowned historian and colleague of Mytsyk at the Mohyla Academy, advocates a more cautious, less “heroic” patriotic note, so as to enable students to autonomously rewrite their identity narrative. For a summary of the debate and further references, see the review article by Liliya Berezhnaya, in Ab Imperio 11, no. 1 (2011), 354–362. 28 See n. 7 above.

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cardinal and former “Major Archbishop of Lviv,” on this occasion changed his title into “Major Archbishop of Kyiv and Halych.” There was a large symbolic dimension to this step. Since its re-establishment in 1989, the center of the Greek Catholic Church and the vast majority of its 5-6 million believers had been in the Western provinces of Ukraine: Lviv, Ternopil, and Ivano-Frankivsk. Husar’s main arguments for the move towards Kyiv were historical. The history of his church, he argued, dated back to the Union of Brest in 1596, when the center of the Ukrainian Eastern rite church had been in Kyiv, which today was once more the capital of independent Ukraine. Publicly supporting the move to the capital, Husar extensively referred to the concept of the “Kyivan churches.” His manifesto, “One people of God on the hills of Kyiv,”29 was partly in line with earlier Greek Catholic narratives, and with the above-mentioned Kyivan churches study group. But there were some further accents. Archbishop Lyubomir deliberately opened an ecumenical perspective with the unity of all churches of the “Kyivan tradition” united in the capital. However, this unity was not to be achieved only via jurisdictional regulations and compromises. Instead, steps towards this unity were to be taken by real dialogue, as among equal partners, and with mutual respect concerning those parts of the “Kyivan tradition” that might have been preserved better, or more purely, by one’s opponent. Condemnations, exclusivism, and hostility were supposed to become a matter of the past, to be left behind on the path towards a united “Kyivan church,” connected on equal terms with all three Romes. Remarkable in this document, which also experienced positive reception from members of other churches, was a shift of accents from mere ecclesiological and jurisdictional questions towards the predominantly spiritual and cultural heritage of the “Kyivan tradition,” elements of which could be seen in all Eastern churches of Ukraine, and which also were to guide the further dialogue. Husar spoke explicitly about a post-confessional Christianity in Ukraine that would also better fit the conditions of a modern, post-secular society. Articles popularizing this approach in Western media also alluded to symbolic events like the joint celebration of the Divine Liturgy by representatives of “two Romes,” Patriarch Alexi II of Moscow and the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew in July 2008—together with an expression of regret, that the UGCC, linked with the other, first Rome in this context, was not allowed to join the event.30 Shortly later, in September of the same year, a conference took place, attended by 29 ‘Odyn Bozhii narod na Kyivskykh horakh’ - Slovo Blazhennishoho Liubomyra, mytropolita Kyievo-Halytskoii mytropolii Ukraiinskoi Hreko-Katolyckoi Tserkvy, z nahody zapochatkuvannia povernennia osidku mytropolyta do Kyeva, on https://risu.ua/odin-bozhijnarod-u-krayi-na-kiyivskih-gorah_n34587. An English translation is available in Conversations with Lubomyr Cardinal Husar. Towards a Post-Confessional Christianity, ed. Antoine Arjakovsky (Lviv: Ukrainian Catholic University Press, 2007), 128–139. 30 Antoine Arjakovsky, “Das Konzept der ǥKiever Kirche’ – ein Weg zur Annäherung der Konfessionen in der Ukraine,” Ost-West. Europäische Perspektiven 10, no. 3 (2009), 189– 196.

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churchmen and historians of all Orthodox and both Catholic churches present in Ukraine. Remarkably, positive statements concerning the “Kyivan tradition” also came from members of the UOC-MP. Archimandrite Cyril Hovorun, then chairman for external relations of the UOC-MP, expressed the view that “in Kyiv, the holy city […] should concentrate the efforts of all Christian faithful to find a common confessional path, regardless of whether they relate to Moscow, Constantinople, or Rome.”31 However, such affirmative statements and positive signals represented at best one faction within a church, countered by others. The consensus did not go as far as the apparent harmony on the colloquium had suggested. Its proceedings have never been published, and internet reports on the event were later deleted.32 Nevertheless, the general sympathy for the idea of a “Kyivan tradition” common to all Eastern churches on Ukrainian territory was to remain. It became manifest even in the allegedly decisively Russophile UOC-MP from 2009, in reaction to two speeches of Patriarch Kirill. He gave these speeches on occasion of the annual assembly of the “Russian World” foundation in Moscow, in November 2009 and November 2010 (discussed by Regina Elsner and Kathy Rousselet in this volume).33 The state-initiated “Russian World” foundation operated with the culturological concept of a “Russian civilization,” encompassing the territory of the former Soviet Union and the Russian diaspora abroad. All these branches are (ostensibly) united by a common set of values, customs, the Russian language, and, last but not least, the Orthodox faith. Ukraine in particular appears as an integral and inseparable part of this “Russian World,” including a special role for its capital, Kyiv. Patriarch Kirill spoke of a “Kyivan tradition,” which in his view was that of the “cradle of Russian civilization” since the baptism of Kyivan Rus. “The mother of the Russian cities” (according to the familiar passage in Nestor’s chronicle, to which Kirill alluded) can now again serve as a center for a unifying, spiritually oriented project like the “Russian world.” This is contrary, in his eyes, to a narrow-minded, Ukrainian national project. “I am convinced,” Kirill declared, “that contemporary Ukraine can continue this ancient Kyivan tradition, a distinct feature of which has always been the care for a strong Rus, capable of defending Holy Orthodoxy and demonstrating its universal, i.e. ecumenical, character—to be a home to many peoples, and not to lock up itself in its national cell.”34 As 31 Cyril Hovorun, “Pomisna Tserkva ta Kyivska ideia,” in Materialy kollokviuma pro istorii Kyivskoi Tserkvy, Veresen 2008 r. (unpublished). 32 http://old.risu.org.ua/ukr/news/article%3b24453, inactive on last access 8–26–2021. 33 Vypstuplenie Sviateishego Patriarkha Kirilla na torzhestvennom otkrytii III Assamblei Russkogo Mira (November 3, 2009), http://www.patriarchia.ru/db/text/928446.html; Patriarkh Kirill, My opredeliaem, chto khorosho, a chto plokho, iskhodia iz tsennostei Russkogo Mira (November 3, 2010), https://www.religion.in.ua/main/bogoslovya/6648patriarx-kirill-my-opredelyaem-chto-xorosho-a-chto-ploxo-isxodya-iz-cennostej-russko go-mira.html. 34 Kirill, My opredeliaem (see n. 33).

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might be expected, reactions in the Ukrainian press to these speeches—partly also following Kirill’s visit in Ukraine in July 2010—were predominantly critical. Most commentators agreed that the Moscow Patriarchate, through its leader, had lent its service and support to a concept that at its core was not spiritual or cultural, but geopolitical and neo-colonial. For Ukraine, it would be a separating and subjugating factor rather than any contribution to real unity.35 Some support for this critical view came from unexpected directions. The head of the UOC-MP, Metropolitan Volodymyr (Sabodan), himself disagreed in more than one respect. Ukraine, in Volodymyr’s words, was not to be reduced to a buffer zone between East and West, and could not be understood solely by monocultural concepts. It rather had to integrate Russian and Ukrainian, Eastern and Western (Polish, Austro-Hungarian, and other) elements and would find its mission in just this synthesis. This meant, first and foremost, a claim for a history and tradition of its own, and a rejection of Huntingtonian and other historiosophic concepts which would reduce Ukraine to just a border zone on the edge of one “civilization.”36 Voices from the “national” Ukrainian Orthodox churches added to this view by emphasizing the particularly spiritual role of Kyiv. Bishop Evstratii (Zoria), then spokesman of the UOC-KP, hinted at the old symbolic pattern of Kyiv as “the second Jerusalem,” classically juxtaposed to the first and second (and now also the third) Rome, so that here the important distinction between political power and spiritual significance became manifest. The synod of the UAOC even released an official declaration underlining this spiritual, and at the same time unifying, character of the capital.37 While at this point (around 2010) the various concepts of “Kyivan churches,” “Kyivan Christianity,” and “Kyivan tradition” already had subsequently displayed a certain convergence, and seemed to move towards each other, there still remained much disagreement in detail. Protagonists of the discourse expressed a will to overcome existing uncertainties. Cardinal Husar’s manifesto emphasized the necessity of further historical research: “Our common ancestral tradition reaches to the moment of the Baptism of Rus-Ukraine in 988. This tradition was characterized by its openness to the still-undivided centers of Christianity—Rome and Constantinople. Its subsequent thousand-year history has many complex and glorious pages. The discussion of which of these pages should be positively assessed, and which should not, has yet to be completed in professional historical 35 See Nazar Zatorsky, “Die ‘Russische Welt’ aus ukrainischer Perspektive,” Religion und Gesellschaft in Ost und West (RGOW) 40, no. 2 (2012), 22–24. 36 See Mikhail Beletskij, Kontseptsiia Russkogo Mira i Ukraina (September 25, 2010), https://www.religion.in.ua/main/analitica/6780–koncepciya-russkogo-mira-iukraina.html; also quoted by Zatorsky, “Die ‘Russische Welt’” (see n. 35), 23f. Metropolitan Volo dymyr’s speech was originally held at the annual bishop’s assembly of the UOC-MP in July 2008. 37 Both quoted after Zatorsky, “Die ‘Russische Welt’” (see n. 35), 24, with further references.

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circles.”38 Deeds followed words: in 2012, the Ukrainian Catholic University set up a research program devoted to the further exploration of “Kyivan Christianity.” According to the former program director, Ihor Skochylias, the aim of the program went beyond pure academic historical research. It sought to contribute to reconciliation in Ukrainian society by investigating historical precursors and exemplary events.39 Within this framework, subsequent years saw a series of conferences, workshops, and lectures, which also included external guests and experts with no explicit Greek Catholic background. The same holds true for the accompanying book series, which for almost a decade has published studies about commonly acknowledged key texts, and about religious life in the Orthodox Kyivan Metropolitanate.40 The program engaged a wide range of national and international experts (including those from Poland and Russia) to further develop the conceptual bases of “Kyivan Christianity.” Extensive discussions—as those during a workshop in Radomyshl in 2017—scrutinizing terms and concepts like “tradition,” “church,” “Christian culture,” and the like did not generate conclusive results, but hinted at the necessity of compiling a canon of key texts on the one hand, and of an interdisciplinary approach, including more thorough theological reflection on the other.41 More recent research projects focus on sub-units of (predominantly early modern) religious culture, such as monastic life, libraries, or miracles. Current surveys following the Radomyshl line admit that the concept of “Kyvian Christianity,” while having become a useful framework for experts from different denominations, is still under development.42 Despite such joint efforts, the official historical survey of the OCU since 2019 still consists in a prudent synthesis of both earlier UAOC and UOC-KP narratives. 38 Quoted in English translation following Arjakovsky, Conversations (see n. 29), 129. 39 http://kyiv-christ.ucu.edu.ua/en/. 40 See, for example, Maksym Iaremenko, Kyivske khrystyanstvo, vol. 4, Pered vyklykamy unifikatsii ta dystsyplinuvannia. Kyivska pravoslavna mytropoliia u XVIII stolitti (Lviv: Vydavnytstvo Ukrainskoho katolytskoho universytetu, 2017). Iaremenko, a history professor from the National Kyiv Mohyla Academy in Kyiv, aims to show that even after the incorporation into the Moscow patriarchate, church and religious life within the Kyivan metropolitanate have retained, and even further developed many features characteristic already for the previous period. 41 Ivan Almes, Iuliana Tatianina, ”V poshukakh relihiinoho”: V Radomyshli vidbuvsia mizhnarodnyi mizhdystsyplinarnyi naukovyi seminar pro relihiinu kulturu rannomodernoii ukraiiny (May 23, 2017), http://www.historians.in.ua/index.php/en/institutsiji-istorichnojinauki-v-ukrajini/2197–ivan-almes-yuliana-tatyanina-v-poshukakh-religijnogo-v-radomishlividbuvsya-mizhnarodnij-mizhdistsiplinarnij-naukovij-seminar-pro-religijnu-kultururannomodernoji-ukrajini. 42 Ivan Almes, “‘Kyivan Christianity’: Early Modern Cultural History and Impulses for Dialogue Between Churches in Ukraine,” in Stolen Churches or Bridges to Orthodoxy? Pathways for Ecumenical and Interreligious Dialogue. Vol. 1: Historical and Theological Perspectives on the Orthodox and Eastern Catholic Dialogue, ed. Vladimir Latinovic and Anastacia K. Wooden (London: Palgrave, 2021), 87–99.

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This includes a rather neutral description (and sober critique) of both Polish and Russian attempts to take over sovereignty over an independent church, which claims for itself continuity since the baptism of Rus in both apostolic and national terms. Controversial sites of memory like the Union of Brest or the Soviet Union (including the ambiguous role played by former patriarch Filaret) are treated soberly, without the hostile overtones known from earlier tracts. Nonetheless, there is little space for a synthetic integration of either Greek Catholic visions, or for patterns of culture and devotion beyond confessional level.43 Several paragraphs stem from efforts to dissociate from competing Russian (Orthodox) perspectives, due in part to the present situation. Illustrative is a statement of the head of the OCU, metropolitan Epifanii (Dumenko). In an interview with the BBC in March 2019, he explicitly favored a return to the Greek elements that once had been so important in Ukrainian religious tradition: “We have to leave behind the Russian imperial traditions which have been forced upon us for a long time. We therefore come closer to those elements which they artificially have taken from us. Whenever we visit churches of the Greek tradition, we see that these traditions still existed in the Ukrainian church in the times of Peter Mohyla. However, we cannot return all this quickly, it needs to happen as an evolution.”44 The way in which it is discussed here can serve as an illustration of a “Kyivan Christianity” concept still under development.45 Epifanii (who had received much of his theological forming in Athens), on the one hand turns a generously blind eye to the period of the tumultuous Nikonian reforms of Russia’s 17th century, the period directly following Peter Mohyla (whose liturgical book, trebnyk, Moscow adopted) and triggered by controversies over Greek tradition. On the other hand, some voices see more authentic (Greek or Kyivan) elements preserved among the Greek Catholics. It remains to be seen whether such preliminary impressions can work in favor of a dialogue on the basis of joint traditions.46 What can be stated is that all versions of “Kyivan Christianity” (suggesting that there is now agreement at least about the term) might differ in details and in their views on decisive events and personalities in the past,47 but at the same time operate with a certain fixed array of elements which are apparently constitutive for any emerging narrative. One might think here of the religious and symbolic 43 Pravoslavna Tserkva Ukrainy: Shliakh kriz viky, https://www.pomisna.info/uk/tserkva/ istoriya/. 44 “My ne maemo prava rozpaliuvaty v Ukraini relihiinyi front,” Interview with metropolitan Epifanii on BBC News Ukraina, 1 March 2019, https://www.bbc.com/ukrainian/features47408699. 45 On liturgical questions, see the chapter by Nadieszda Kizenko in this volume. 46 See also the chapter by Pavlo Smytsnyuk in this volume. 47 For a more detailed survey of controversies and diverging historical memories, see also Alfons Brüning, “Orthodox Autocephaly in Ukraine: the Historical Dimension,” in Churches in the Ukrainian Crisis, ed. Andrii Krawchuk and Thomas Bremer (London: Palgrave MacMillan, 2016), 79–101.

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significance of the capital Kyiv, the independence of the Kyivan Metropolia, and the question of legitimate succession since Kyivan Rus, but also of Ukrainians as being characterized as democratic and anti-hierarchical, educated, and ecumenically minded. While these key patterns have come to play a greater role in debates among historians beyond denominational lines, they still have not made it into official narratives, which for the time being focus on jurisdictional guidelines. To set out what these elements are and where they come from can help to better understand the “Kyivan Christianity” concept and the current discussions around it.

History of Narratives—Persistent Elements Historical narratives and myths have their own history. The key constitutive patterns for concepts of “Kyivan Christianity” are no exception.48 Claims concerning a distinctive character of both religious sites and devotional practice on the territory of what is today Ukraine can be traced as far back as the late Middle Ages. Many of them, besides the well-known controversy about which principality might legitimately see itself in succession of Kyivan Rus in political and cultural terms, concern the Rus capital itself. While, due to continuing struggles among members of the Rurik dynasty about heritage and political hegemony, political centers of power changed almost every few decades, Kyiv retained its status as a cultural and religious center. In theory and title at least, it never ceased to be the see of the Orthodox metropolitan. It was moreover present in common consciousness as the home of important religious sites testifying to the grandeur and glory of Orthodox faith in Rus, like St. Sophia’s Cathedral and the Monastery of the Caves. The city itself thereby acquired a religious character as a holy place, a “God-blessed city,” and a “Second Jerusalem.” The myth of the apostle Andrew having laid the foundation of Slavic Christianity illustrated, and at the same time reinforced, this sacred character of the city. Remnants of this symbolic meaning, blended with more contemporary national sentiments, continued to have repercussions in the 20th century, as during the Ukrainian campaigns for political independence after WWI, on the occasion of the millennium of the baptism of Rus in 1988, and in Soviet times.49 48 The following section necessarily has to restrict itself to some key patterns and texts. For a more detailed evaluation of modern historiography on “Kyivan Christianity,” see also Ihor Skochylias, “Osoblyvosti istoriopysannia kyivs’koho khrystyianstva. Radians’ki realii, diasporna integratsiia ta ukrainska reabilitatsiia,” Ukraina: kulturna spadshchyna, natsional’na svidomist’, derzhavnist’ 29 (2017), 24–39. 49 Still crucial: Omeljan Pritsak, “Kiev and All of Rus’: The Fate of a Sacral Idea,” Harvard Ukrainian Studies 10, no. 3–4 (1986), 279–300. – See further Volodymyr Rychka, Kyiv – Druhyi Ierusalim” (z istorii politychnoi dumky ta ideolohii serednovichnoi Rusi) (Kyiv: Instytut Istorii Ukrainy, 2005); Liliya Berezhnaya, “Kiew – Das ‘Neue Jerusalem’,” in

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Other features of a distinct “Kyivan Christianity” originated from early modern contexts in the context of confessional antagonisms in early modern PolandLithuania.50 After the Union of Brest in 1596, the idea of the “God-blessed city” of Kyiv experienced a propagandistic revival. (Non-uniate) Orthodoxy in PolandLithuania, re-established after 1620 with help of Patriarch Theophanes of Jerusalem and represented by monks of the Caves Monastery and the Kyivan metropolitan, engaged in publicly fostering this image through edition of printed books and restoration of church buildings. Not coincidentally, Polish was now one of the main languages applied. The books which now left the Caves Monastery’s printing press were Polish versions of classical Kyivan writings (among them a Polish edition of the famous Kyivan Paterikon), and aimed at a Polish-Lithuanian audience otherwise under the influence of Counter-Reformation.51 The emphasis on Kyiv as “The New Jerusalem” in this context meant a hint at both independence and spiritual significance in its own right: the “Second Jerusalem” as re-embodiment of the actual origin of Christianity and stage of Christ’s salvation work was juxtaposed to all Romes, the first and “the second” (Constantinople), as mere centers of hierarchy and power.52 Religiöse Erinnerungsorte in Ostmitteleuropa. Konstitution und Konkurrenz im nationenund epochenübergreifenden Zugriff, ed. Joachim Bahlcke et al. (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2013), 37–51. 50 See also Frank E. Sysyn, “The Formation of Modern Ukrainian Religious Culture: The Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries,” in Religion and Nation in Modern Ukraine, ed. Serhii Plokhy and Frank E. Sysyn (Edmonton and Toronto: CIUS Press, 2003), 1–23. Sysyn’s article is both a detailed and informative survey of Ukrainian historiography and itself a reflection of prevailing interpretative trends. 51 Cf. Harvard Library of Early Ukrainian Literature, vol. 4. Seventeenth-Century Writings on the Kievan Caves Monastery, introd. by Paulina Lewin (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988); Nataliia Synkevych, “The 1635 ‘Paterykon’ by Sylvestr Kossov. Its Purposes, Originality, Sources and Interpretation,” Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas 64, no. 2 (2016), 177–198. Currently a research project at the LMU Munich further explores efforts of Kyivan churchmen and intellectuals to establish patterns of a distinct identity of the Kyivan church in early modern times: Natalia Sinkevich, “Erfindung der Tradition: Kiewer kirchliche Tradition auf der Suche nach ihrem Weg zwischen Rom, Konstantinopel, Wittenberg, Warschau und Moskau (1596–1720),” on https://gepris.dfg. de/gepris/projekt/419138214. 52 See Natalia Iakovenko, “Simvol “Bogokhranimoho hrada” v pamiatkakh kyivskoho kola (1620–1640–vi roky),” in Paralelnyi svit. Doslidzhennia z istorii uiavlen ta idei v Ukraini XVI-XVII st., ed. Natalia Iakovenko (Kyiv: Krytyka, 2002), 296–330. The topos of “Moscow, the third Rome,” despite its invention in early 16th century Muscovy, did not play a prominent role for either Muscovite hierarchs or diplomatic correspondence, and therefore found no reflection in Kyivan writings or the time, either. Moscow thought of itself more in terms of a “New Israel” than as “Third Rome.” See Daniel B. Rowland, “Moscow – The Third Rome or the New Israel?” The Russian Review 55, no. 4 (1996), 591–614. Reference to Moscow as the Third Rome actually came in use no earlier than during the 19th century: Marshall Poe, “Moscow, the Third Rome: The Origins and

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The predominantly religious symbolism of the “God-blessed city” and center of an effectively independent church unit in some respects overlapped with what mainly Ukrainian diaspora scholarship claimed as early notions of a Ukrainian (“Ruthenian”) national consciousness.53 Such intersections could be observed in connection with attempts to re-unite the two branches of Eastern Christianity separated after the Union of 1596. Several attempts were made from the first decades of the 17th century until the Cossack uprisings of 1648. Concepts of a “Church of Rus,” for instance, had a central position in the ideas of churchmen like the Uniate Meletii Smotrytskyi,54 or in plans for a re-union of Eastern Christianity pursued, for a time, by two metropolitans, the Uniate Josyf Veliamyn Rutskyi and the Orthodox Peter Mohyla. Plans for the creation of an independent Ruthenian patriarchate with Kyiv as its see, as a further step towards independence in relation to both Moscow and Constantinople (under Ottoman rule), were motivated as much politically as out of ecclesiological or generally religious considerations. Such plans did not advance very far. Only the idea of a “Ruthenian” or “Ukrainian” patriarchate remained, to be taken up in later contexts. The same is true for other “ecumenical” efforts to overcome the divide between the two Eastern branches of Christianity in Eastern Poland-Lithuania: although they all failed, concomitant concepts and ideas had an afterlife as models to be referred to later on, certainly in the 20th century, and in rather different contexts.55 The failure, in their time, of such reunification plans was due to the fact that they met with little sympathies among the lower strata of clergy and society. Modes of thinking among ordinary monks, peasants and the “warrior faith” of the Zaporizhian Cossacks appeared to be much more simplistic and exclusivist than the sophisticated, theologically informed considerations of a clerical and noble elite.56 This dichotomy, too, had an afterlife. The split between a compromising elite, and the allegedly more “authentic” forms of belief of “the people” came to

53

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Transformations of a ‘Pivotal Moment’,” Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas 49, no. 3 (2001), 412–429. See Concepts of Nationhood in Early Modern Eastern Europe, ed. Ivo Banac and Frank E. Sysyn, special issue of Harvard Ukrainian Studies 10, no. 3–4 (1986). Such “concepts of nationhood” differed from modern notions, as they were elitist and based on nobility and on genealogical rather than ethnic or egalitarian patterns. David Frick, “Meletij Smotryc’kyj and the Ruthenian Question in the Early Seventeenth Century,” Harvard Ukrainian Studies 8 (1984), 352–375. For a more thorough evaluation and contextualization of these concepts, see Alfons Brüning, “Ökumene in der Adelsrepublik – Ekklesiologische Entwürfe der Kiever Theologen um 1640,” in Litauen und Ruthenien. Studien zu einer transkulturellen Kommunikationsregion (15.-18. Jahrhundert) / Lithuania and Ruthenia. Studies of a Transcultural Communication Zone (15th-18th Centuries), ed. Stefan Rohdewald et al. [Forschungen zur osteuropäischen Geschichte, 71] (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2007), 272–295. See Serhii Plokhy, The Cossacks and Religion in Early Modern Ukraine (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003); Mariusz Drozdowski, Religia i kozaczyzna zaporoska w Rzeczypospolitej w pierwszej poáowie XVII wieku (Warsaw: DiG, 2008).

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be another pattern to be referred to in 19th century historiographical debates. However, in this case a later revival turned the story upside down. In Tsarist Russian ukrainophile circles it was just the Cossacks’ religiosity, from which were derived the features of a kind of native religiosity of “the Ukrainian people.” Meanwhile, the idea of Kyiv as the “God-blessed city” and “Second Jerusalem” remained traceable in public reception until the early 18th century, in the times of Hetman Ivan Mazepa (1639–1709). However, what also remained— something ignored in modern historiographical debates—was a certain diversity of perspectives, dependent on confessional and political loyalties. The main historical work of the Kyivan clerical elite, the Sinopsis, in its various redactions after 1670 and on the eve of the incorporation of the Metropolia into the Russian Orthodox Church, introduced the Russian tsar as the legitimate head of the Kyivan church.57 So even at the time of the controversial change of jurisdiction of the Kyivan Metropolia from Constantinople to Moscow in 1686 (treated by Vera Tchentsova in this volume), opinions among the contemporary Kyivan Orthodox themselves were actually divided. Tendencies like that in the Sinopsis represented the ideological background against which the next generation of Ukrainian clergymen would operate. The most striking example is Archbishop Feofan Prokopovych (1681–1736), the author of the Spiritual Regulation, the central document of Emperor Peter I’s church reform. On the other hand, the popular Cossack “constitution” drafted by Mazepa’s successor Pylyp Orlyk still refers to Kyiv as the see of an independent church, free of the Muscovite yoke and spiritually connected with the patriarchal see in Constantinople.58 After Mazepa’s defeat in 1709, and during the 18th century, imperial Russia subsequently adopted the myth for its own purposes, to the effect that Kyiv was claimed as “cradle of Russian Christianity” in general, of which Ukraine (now labelled “Little Russia” [Malaia Rossiia]) was seen as an integrative subpart. Empress Catherine’s foundation of St. Andrew’s church in Kyiv’s Podil district in 1744 was testimony to this new perspective. However, the dominant “imperial” narrative never completely extinguished the alternative, “ukrainocentric” version, which retained its influence not only in imperial Russia, but also in Greek Catholic circles in the Western parts of Ukraine under Habsburg rule after 1795.59 As in other parts of Eastern Europe, the Ukrainian national movement stemmed from confessional identity. In both 19th century imperial contexts— Habsburg-ruled Galicia and in the Russian Empire—the Ukrainian national movement betrayed a narrow conceptual connection with church and religiosity, especially in its early, “Romantic,” phase. Significant and enduring patterns of a “Ukrainian Christianity” developed mainly in imperial Russia. 57 Sinopsis, Kiev 1681, facsimile, ed. and introd. by Hans Rothe (Cologne: Boehlau, 1983). 58 Pacta et Constitutiones Legum Libertatumque Exercitus Zaporoviensis (1710), Latin original online via http://litopys.org.ua/rizne/orl01.htm. 59 See Berezhnaya, “Kiew – Das ‘Neue Jerusalem’” (see n. 49), 44–48.

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The seminal significance of the Greek Catholic Church in Habsburg Galicia for the Ukrainian national movement is commonplace. However, as our survey wants to indicate the constitutive patterns of a “Kyivan Christianity” narrative, it is worth noting that 19th-century Greek Catholics developed fewer, if any, persisting patterns for Ukrainian self-identification in comparison with their Orthodox counterparts. Certainly after the “Romantic” phase, religion and nationalism in the “Ukrainian Piedmont” of Galicia took divergent directions.60 Church circles in this period were divided between Ukrainian and Russophile, Orthodox sympathies.61 The second half of the century was determined by a search of identity between imperial loyalty and self-assertion in relation to Polish Catholicism, and dissociation from secular theories, whether socialist or ethnonationalist. Some of the prominent representatives of the national movement, such as Myhailo Drahomanov (1841–1895) with his socialist tendencies, but also Ivan Franko (1856–1916) and the narodovtsy school, either displayed little sensitivity for church and religion, or at least distanced themselves from anything Catholic, including the Greek Catholic Church.62 That does not mean that there was no Greek Catholic contribution to the theme, but their attempts to solve internal conflicts bore their fruits later. While prepared in the decades before, only in the next generation, mainly after WWI, did the Greek Catholic Church again offer influential ideas of a specifically Ukrainian religious mission. Ukrainian romantic historiography in imperial Russia came up with patterns allegedly typical for “Ukrainian religiosity,” the value of which would prove persistent for further concepts of “Kyivan Christianity.” A milestone was set by the Cyril-and-Methodius Brotherhood in the 1840s. Despite its short-lived existence (only fourteen months until its dissolution by the Tsarist secret police in 1847), it offered views on Ukrainian religious life which set the tone for most further discourses until the autocephalous movement after WWI. Most important, Ukrainian theorists now detected “the people” not only in a folkloristic, but also in a cultural, political, and ecclesiological sense. Programmatic tracts such as Mykola Kostomarov’s (1817–1885) Knyhy byttia ukrainskoho narodu (The Book of Genesis of the Ukrainian People)63 or Panteleimon Kulish’s (1819–1897) 60 John Paul Himka, The Greek Catholic Church and Ukrainian Society in Austrian Galicia (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Ukrainian Studies Fund, 1986); John Paul Himka, Religion and Nationality in Western Ukraine. The Greek Catholic Church and the Ruthenian National Movement in Galicia 1867–1900 (Montreal/Kingston: McGill University Press, 1999). 61 Himka, Religion and Nationality (see n. 60), 23–28; Anna Veronika Wendland, Die Russophilen in Galizien. Ukrainische Konservative zwischen Zarenreich und Rußland, 1848–1915 (Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2001); Oleh Turii, “Greko-Katolytska Tserkva i Ukrainska natsionalna identychnist v Halychyni,” Kovcheh 4 (2003), 67–85. 62 Himka, Religion and Nationality (see n. 60), 150f. 63 Mykola Kostomarov, Knyhy bytiia ukrainskoho narodu (Augsburg: Ukrainskii muzeiarkhiv pri ukrainskii vilnii akademii nauk, seriia: pamiatky i materialy, ch. 1, 1947).

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Povist pro ukrainskii narod (The Tale about the Ukrainian People)64 introduced to their audience this Ukrainian people, first and foremost the Cossacks, as bearers of a distinct religious spirit, who combined devotion and fear of God with egalitarian and anti-authoritarian elements. These theorists presented the Ukrainians with a specific national-religious character and set of customs, and—in this early phase—also with a religiously defined mission. The motive of the “chosen people,” generally widespread in Europe of this time as a bridge between biblical universalism and national enthusiasm, was implicitly present also in Romantic Ukrainian nationalism.65 Here, the Ukrainian people had “always” rejected acknowledging any other ruler except Christ himself, and had preserved a religiously motivated, true sense of human equality, different from the godless aberrations of the French revolution. Ukrainians were now called to unite all Slavs, regardless of their confessional belonging, in a holy confederation, with Kyiv as the center (a notion evocative of early Panslavist ideas). For Kulish, the Ukrainians were defenders of faith, not only by sword, but also by word, as they had always distinguished through education and learning. Here, then, the main features of the Ukrainian people and their religious culture could be encountered: as democratic people, with a sort of egalitarian and at the same time anti-authoritarian and anti-hierarchical spirit; as educated people, where learning and theological erudition had always played a major role; and, last not least, and as ecumenical people, able—both in terms of theological cross-fertilization and cultural syncretism—to fruitfully reconcile various theological traditions and cultural influences. All these patterns were developed and fostered by Ukrainophile Russian intellectuals within contemporary reform discourses in imperial Russia, especially after the Crimean War and in the reform era of Emperor Alexander II (1855–1881). On the other hand, these patterns also stood behind further concepts of “Ukrainian Christianity” which in following decades would merge into the visions of the autocephalous movement before and after WWI.66

Although printed only in 1918, Kostomarov’s text seems to have been widely circulating. On the fate and previous editions of Kostomarov’s manuscript, see ibid., 41–60; Ivan I. Gliz’, s.v. “Knyha Byttia Ukrains’koho narodu abo ‘zakon bozhii’,” Entsiklopediia Istorii Ukrainy, vol. 4 (Kyiv: Naukova Dumka, 2007), 358. 64 Panteleimon Kulish, Povist pro Ukrainskii narod (Reprint: Lviv: Litopys, 2005). 65 For a general background see Anthony D. Smith, Chosen Peoples (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2003); see also Alfons Brüning, “Religion and Nation: The Idea of the ‘Chosen People’ in Writings of the Kievan Kyrill-and-Method Society in its European Historical Context,” in Confessiones et nationes. Discours identitaires nationaux dans les cultures chrétiennes. Moyen Age – XXe siècle, ed. Mikhail V. Dmitriev and Daniel Tollet (Paris: Éditions Honoré Champion, 2014), 239–263. 66 The basic study in this context is Ricarda Vulpius, Nationalisierung der Religion. Russifizierungspolitik und ukrainische Nationsbildung 1860–1920 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2005).

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Kostomarov further developed his ideas of “two Russian nationalities” in an article published in 1861.67 Declaring the existence of these “two Russian nationalities” by no means automatically led to separatist tendencies. Kostomarov partly, Kulish certainly, remained imperial-era Russian intellectuals (most of their writings were written in Russian), who saw the future of their own nation either in fruitful cooperation, or even in a state union with their Russian counterpart. The Ukrainian spirit would not save the world, but would first and foremost inspire the religious culture of the Russian Empire. Ten years after the publication of Kostomarov’s article, the dissertation of a student of the Kyivan Spiritual Academy, Grigorii I. Markevich, saw the sobornost principle, so often invoked in contemporary reform discussions, as historically realized already in Ukrainian church and society before the reforms of Peter I. Evidence for this could be found in the widespread application of the “electoral principle” (vybornoe nachalo) in parish priests, village communities, merchant collectives, and among the Cossacks. Markevich’s work was accepted as a doctoral thesis (kandidatskaia), and first published in the academy’s periodical, with a re-edition in 1905.68 That the thesis could be accepted also indicates more than superficial sympathies at the Kyivan Academy itself for such views. Despite tsarist censorship, Kyivan church historians like Stepan T. Golubev or Fedor I. Titov, who contributed groundbreaking studies on Kyivan religious life in the 17th century, in their writings every now and then inserted cautious remarks about the superiority of Ukrainian church life over that of contemporary Muscovy. The same can be said about the clergy in the “Southwest Russian province” of the empire, among whom views of a distinct identity of the “Kyivan province” in terms of ecclesiastical culture, education, and language became widespread. In a way similar to views of secular intellectuals like Kulish, such ideas did not prevent loyalty to the Tsar and the Russian Empire seen as a multi-national conglomerate.69 Nineteenth-century historians from the Kyiv Theological Academy, who could justifiably see their institution as continuation of the famous Kyivan academy founded by metropolitan Peter Mohyla in 1631, documented the contribution of the “Little Russians” to Russian imperial culture and theology. Both they and many contemporary Ukrainian priests and interested laymen saw Ukrainians as a people of learning, as reflected in a number of contributions published in diocesan 67 Nikolai Kostomarov, “Dve russkie narodnosti,” Osnova (St. Petersburg), no. 3 (1861), 33– 80, online at http://litopys.org.ua/kostomar/kos38.htm. 68 Grigorii I. Markevich, “Vybornoe nachalo v dukhovenstve v drevne-russkoi, preimushchestvenno iugo-zapadnoi tserkvi do reforma Petra I.,” Trudy Kievskoi Dukhovnoi Akademii 1871, no. 8, 225–273; see also Vulpius, Nationalisierung der Religion (see n. 66), 249–255. 69 See Heather Coleman, “History, Faith and Regional Identity in Nineteenth Century Kyiv: Father Petro Lebedyntsev as Priest and Scholar,” in The Future of the Past. New Perspectives on Ukrainian History, ed. Serhii Plokhy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2016), 333–362.

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journals (eparkhial’nye vedomosti).70 The difference between the Academy professors and the authors of these articles lay in the focus of the latter not on higher learning and theology, but on the dense network of parish schools which ostensibly had once provided a generally high level of literacy and religious knowledge among the average population.71 A source often enthusiastically referred to was the diary of a Syrian archdeacon, Paul of Aleppo. He had traveled through the Ukrainian lands as member of the entourage of the patriarch of Antioch in the middle of the 17th century, and had praised the network of schools and the level of literacy he had encountered there. The same reference appeared in Myhailo Hrushevskyi’s (1866–1934) monumental History of Ukraine-Rus as testimony for cultural superiority of the Ukrainian people at that time in relation to Muscovy.72 Hrushevs’kyi, a doyen of modern Ukrainian historiography, was no church historian. He was heir to the secular Kyivan school of historiography known as the “populists” (narodovtsy), founded by his mentor Volodymyr Antonovych (1834–1908). Correspondingly, his vision on Ukrainian religious history saw the hierarchs critically, giving the main credit to the lower layers of society: the peasants, the lay brotherhoods, and the Cossacks. These, as he saw it, had preserved a both democratic and genuinely Christian spirit against secular and religious hierarchies, and under conditions of foreign, either Russian or Polish, occupation.73 A third pattern, that of the ecumenically minded, culturally open people of the borderland, which once had appeared in Kostomarov’s early writings, now played a less prominent role. It could be found in Antonovych’s introductions to several volumes of the “South-West Russian Archive” [Arkhiv Iugo-Zapadnoi Rossii], a multi-volume edition of documents from the “Southwest Russian” provinces of imperial Russia published after 1883. His introductions—actually monographs in their own right—repeatedly note grassroots-level examples of cultural exchange and syncretism, such as intermarriage, pastoral cooperation of priests, common

70 These diocesan journals, on which studies like Vulpius, Nationalisierung der Religion (see n. 66) are mainly based, are only one example out of a developing press in provinces of the reform era. Priests and cleric scholars also regularly published in secular periodicals like the gubernskie vedomosti; see Coleman, “History, Faith and Regional Identity” (see n. 69), 336. Other journals, like the famous Kievskaia starina, were devoted to the history of Kyivan or “Southwest Russian” part of the empire. Religion and church life held a prominent place among the numerous texts, memoirs, and documents gathered here. See Marina Palienko, “Kievskaia Starina” u hromadskomu zhytti ukrainy (kinec’ XIX – pochatok XX st.), 3 vols. (Kyiv: Vydavnitstvo Tempora, 2005), incl. chronological and systematical index of the journal’s content. 71 Cf. Vulpius, Nationalisierung der Religion (see n. 66), 242–248. 72 Mykhailo Hrushevskyi, Istoriia Ukrainy-Rusi, vol. 9, 2 (Lviv, 1905; Reprint: Kiev: Naukova Dumka, 1997), 977. 73 Mykhailo Hrushevskyi, Z istorii relihiinoi dumky na Ukraini (Lviv: Drukarnia naukovoho tovarystva im. Shevchenka, 1925).

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holidays, and the like. It was on this basis, according to Antonovych, that a distinct culture developed in the “South-West Russian” lands.74 The same theme reappeared with stronger overtones in Western Ukraine in the following period. The vision of a “church between East and West,” called to unite a divided Christianity on the basis of the “Kyivan tradition,” took shape from the turn of the 20th century in Austrian Galicia, as a response to the inner tensions experienced in the period before. Crucial in this respect were such churchmen as metropolitan Andrii Sheptytskyi (1865–1944) and his successor, metropolitan and cardinal Iosif Slipyi (1892–1984).75 Sheptytskyi,76 born into a polonized Ruthenian noble family and raised Roman Catholic, opted for another confessional and national affiliation and became a Basilian monk. In his vision, the Greek Catholic Metropolia, through its legitimate succession from the times of ancient Kyivan Rus, represented the true heritage of a “Kyivan Christianity” and its unifying heritage. Since its founding—through the legendary first traces of the Apostle Andrew, and later through the baptism of the Rus prince Volodymyr and his people in 988—Christianity in Ukraine had maintained contacts equally with the Western, Latin churches as with Eastern Orthodoxy and the Ecumenical Patriarch in Constantinople in particular. Examples are the contacts of the Halych prince Danylo with both ecclesiastical centers in the 13th century, the signing of the Union of Florence in 1439, which had been announced and accepted in the Kyivan lands (as opposed to those in Muscovy), and finally the Union of Brest in 1596, which had to be seen as a continuation in the “ecumenical” history of Ukrainian Christianity between East and West. Sheptytskyi tried to reconcile Eastern and Western influences in his own, Greek Catholic church. He saw its “intermediate” aspects in theology, liturgy, and rite, but also in ecclesial culture, such as monasticism and the veneration of saints. His successor, metropolitan Slipyi (allowed to leave a Soviet labor camp in 1963, spending the rest of his life in Rome), continued the line of Sheptytskyi. Besides questions of ecclesiology and canonical belonging, Slipyi further identified several religious-cultural features of the “Kyivan tradition,” such as the veneration of the Mother of God, patterns of

74 Arkhiv Iugo-Zapadnoi Rossii v 8 ch., 34 tomakh (Kiev: Universitetskaia tipografiia, 1859– 1911), esp. part 1, vol. 4; part 5, vol. 1; part 7, vol. 1. 75 For a summary of the Greek Catholic vision of the “Kyivan heritage” and its development, see Nazar D. Kis, “Do pytannia pro spadshchynu kyivskoho chrystianstva Volodymyrskoho khreshcheniia. Greko-katolyky ta ideia obednannia ukrainskykh tserkov,” Nauchnyi shchorichnyk Istoriia religii v Ukraini 30 (2020), 151–157. 76 There is a vast literature on Sheptytskyi. See, most notably, Morality and Reality. The Life and Time of Andrii Sheptytskyi, ed. Paul Robert Magocsi and Andrii Krawchuk (Toronto: CIUS, 1989); Cyril Korolevsky, Metropolitan Andrew, 1865–1944, transl. and rev. Serge Keleher (Lviv: Stauropegion, 1993) [Original French: Métropolite André Szyptyckyi, 1865–1944 (Rome 1964)]; Metropolita Andrzej Szeptycki: studia i materiaáy, ed. Andrzej A. ZiĊba (Cracow: PAU, 1994).

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iconography and architecture, monasticism, etc.77 Thus, already at an early phase of the Greek Catholic vision of unity on the basis of a “Kyivan tradition,” there are also cautious attempts to include cultural patterns beyond confessional boundaries. Nonetheless, patterns described by Sheptytskyi, Slipyi and their fellow theologians were distinct in more than one respect from the “Kyivan tradition” discourse as it had appeared in imperial Russia, and thus also from the contemporary autocephalous movement.78 There is no focus on “the people” and its democratic and educational virtues, so prominent in the narratives originating from tsarist Russia: “culture” in the emerging Greek Catholic narrative is a matter first and foremost of religious culture, rite, and devotional practices.

Conclusions The patterns identified in our historical survey have reappeared in post-Soviet Ukrainian debates about what might constitute a typically Ukrainian, “Kyivan Christianity”: Kyiv as a sacred center; a direct line of succession since Kyivan Rus of the Kyivan Metropolitanate, and its effectively independent existence; the Ukrainian people as deeply religious, but at the same time democratic, antiauthoritarian, educated and tolerant; a strong dimension of lay activity as constitutive for Ukrainian religiosity.79 What the survey also suggests, however, is the fact that all of these patterns were developed in specific discursive contexts. They owed their existence, in varying historical circumstances, to the need for dissociation from either Polish Catholicism or Russian Orthodoxy, in either confessional or national terms (or a combination of both). On the other hand, none of these patterns allowed for just one possible loyalty. Kyivan theologians had once opted for remaining within the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Russian intellectuals, despite their Ukrainophile patriotic tendencies, could see the future of Ukrainian Christianity in either a separate state or in enriching the religious culture of Tsarist Russia. 77 Taras Koberynko, “Dukhovnist Kyivskoi Tserkvy v svitli zapovitu Patriarkha Iosifa,” Bohosloviia 66 (2002), 139–148; see also the text of Slipyi’s “Spiritual Testament” on http://www.dds.edu.ua/ua/articles/2/rizne/996–spirituality-of-josyf-slipyj-testament.html; Andrii Mykhaleyko, “Per aspera ad astra”. Der Einheitsgedanke im theologischen und pastoralen Werk von Josyf Slipyj (1892–1984). Eine historische Untersuchung (Würzburg: Augustinus bei Echter, 2009). 78 Instructive in this respect is the correspondence between Sheptytskyi and Russian Orthodox Metropolitan Antonii (Khrapovitskii) around 1918; see M. PapierzyĔska-Turek, “Metropolita Andrzej Szeptycki wobec prawosáawia, 1918–1939,” in Metropolita Andrzej Szeptycki (see n. 76). 79 Cf. Wilson, The Ukrainians (see n. 1); for many of the Greek Catholic patterns, see Conversations with Lubomyr Cardinal Husar. Towards a Post-Confessional Christianity, ed. Antoine Arjakovsky (Lviv: Ukrainian Catholic University Press, 2007).

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Current contexts, however, differ from those at work at the historical birthplace of one particular stereotype, pattern, myth, narrative. Allusions towards a “post-confessional” context partly reflect an awareness of such changing contexts. The traditional elements have to be adapted to new purposes, which have both integrative and dissociative implications. In this sense (integrative vs. dissociative), the concept of a “Kyivan Christianity” is still under development. The preliminary state of the concept and its adaptation to new conditions contain dangers, tasks, and chances alike. One might ask for a better theological founding of the idea of national specifics of religiosity. How, for instance, would the tradition of a “Kyivan Christianity” fit into a framework like that of “Tradition and traditions,” proposed by 20th-century Orthodox theology?80 The balance between particular views and universal perspective is at stake. The same might be true for historiographical theory. History knows many “new Jerusalems,” “chosen peoples,” claims of autonomy—and ensuing discourses about regional specifics in devotion, church order, and even cultural socio-political consequences. Other aspects might concern less the actual content of the concept than its function. A recent report on the peace-building potential of mainly the Eastern Churches in Ukraine, commissioned by the Dutch NGO PAX, concluded that an integrative narrative of religious tradition can contribute to social cohesion and conflict resolution by providing valuable elements of a “civil religion.” On the other hand, particular narratives of divergent churches can have a polarizing effect, especially if they fall into the trap of a “Balkan style religious nationalism.”81 This concerns exclusivism inside Ukrainian society,82 but also communication to the outside: “Kyivan Christianity,” especially in conditions of armed conflict, can easily be turned into a counterpart to “Russian World” geopolitical concepts with differing content, but following the same scheme. It is the ideological character of the concept which calls for assessment, understanding “ideology” not only in polemical terms, but also with regard to its social function. The answers to these questions—the balance between particularism and universalism, and between truth and function—will form the further fate of “Kyivan Christianity”.

80 Vladimir Lossky, “Tradition and traditions,” in In the Image and Likeness of God, ed. Vladimir Lossky (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Press, 1974), 141–168. 81 Denys Brylov et al., The Religious Factor in Conflict. Research on the Peacebuilding Potential of Ukrainian Religious Communities (Utrecht: PAX, 2021). 82 See also the article by Serhii Bortnyk in this volume.

III. Ecclesiological Issues

Conciliarity in Ukrainian Orthodoxy Nicholas Denysenko In the history of the modern Orthodox Churches in Ukraine, the theory and practice of conciliarity has been among the most important and controversial issues confronting Church leaders. The shape and function of conciliarity has changed several times as Ukrainian Orthodoxy has journeyed through the turbulence of the Soviet and post-Soviet periods. This essay examines the emergence of sobornopravnist1 as the governing principle of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church created in Kyiv in 1921 (1921 UAOC).2 The analysis covers the evolution of sobornopravnist as the autocephalous movement experienced sudden starts and stops through the Cold War and into the post-Soviet period. After comparing the practice of sobornopravnist in the Ukrainian Churches with the variant of sobornost established in the Churches of the Russian Orthodox tradition, the essay concludes by reflecting on legacy of sobornopravnist and the possible future of conciliarity in Ukrainian Orthodoxy.

The Movement for Autocephaly and the Creation of Sobornopravnist: 1917– 1930 Sobornopravnist emerged as a preferred concept for Church governance and structure during the heat of the movement for autocephaly that began in 1917.3 The battle for control of the Orthodox Church in Ukraine raged simultaneously with the race for political control of the country. A cohort of Ukrainian intellectuals that sought to seize the moment by creating a Ukrainian Church—one

1 2

3

Sobornopravnist literally means governance by council. In practice, the all-Church council is the highest organ of governing authority, even over a synod of bishops. For background on sobornopravnist as a principle of modernization in the UAOC, see Bohdan Bociurkiw, “The Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church and Modernization, 1920–1930: A Case Study in Religious Modernization,” in Religion and Modernization in the Soviet Union, ed. Dennis Dunn (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1977), 310–347, and Frank Sysyn, “The Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church and the Traditions of the Kyivan Metropolitanate,” in Religion and Nation in Modern Ukraine, ed. Serhii Plokhy and Frank Sysyn (Edmonton: Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, 2003), 23–39. On the background of the movement leading up to the 1918 All-Ukrainian Council, see Nicholas Denysenko, The Orthodox Church in Ukraine: A Century of Separation (DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press, 2018), 16–17.

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that was possibly autocephalous—persuaded Patriarch Tikhon (Belavin) to bless the convocation of an all-Ukrainian council in 1918.4 Opposing parties vehemently pursued their agendas during the course of the council. Initially, it seemed that a majority of the delegates favored both Ukrainization and autocephaly. By the conclusion of the council in November 1918, however, the Church in Ukraine had taken a conservative course, retaining Church Slavonic as its liturgical language, and adopting autonomy as its official canonical status.5 The dispute on the legitimacy of the conciliar proceedings has never been resolved. Those who advocated for autonomy argued that the conciliar sessions had proceeded according to the proper order of the Church. The office of metropolitan of Kyiv was made vacant by the brutal assassination of Metropolitan Volodymyr (Bogoiavlenskyi) in January 1918. The Kyiv eparchy assembled in May 1918 and elected Archbishop Antonii (Khrapovitskii) as the new metropolitan of Kyiv, and the all-Ukrainian council adopted autonomy and Church Slavonic in the third session of October-November 1918. Proponents of Ukrainian autocephaly claimed that the conciliar presiders had violated the letter and spirit of the council by using an eparchial assembly instead of the council itself to elect the metropolitan. Autocephalists also complained when the conciliar presidium removed the members of the All-Ukrainian Orthodox Church Committee (AUOCC) from the council’s constituency.6 Prominent clergy and lay members of the Ukrainian intelligentsia constituted the AUOCC— they had successfully obtained Patriarch Tikhon’s blessing to convoke the council and were the leaders of the Ukrainization and autocephaly initiatives. Removing them from the conciliar constituency shifted the balance from a pro-autocephaly majority to one favoring remaining in administrative union with the Russian Church. In his memoirs, Metropolitan Evlogii (Georgievskyi) described the Ukrainian council’s conservative course as a victory and admitted that the

4

5

6

On the 1918 council, see Andrii Starodub, Vseukrainskyi Pravoslavnyi Tserkovnyi Sobor 1918 roku: Ohliad dzherel (Kyiv: National Academy of Science of Ukraine, M. Hrushevsky Institute of Ukrainian Archeography and Source Studies, 2010). For a summary, see Denysenko, The Orthodox Church in Ukraine (see n. 3), 20–26. An autonomous Church essentially governs its own affairs. It remains a part of its mother Church, but has broad freedom in governance. The Church in Ukraine elected its own metropolitan, who had the senior seat on the synod of bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church. See Metropolitan Feodosii (Protsiuk), Obosoblencheskie dvizheniia v Pravoslavnoi Tserkvi na Ukraine (1917–1943) (Moscow: izd. Krutitskogo Podvoria, 2004), 119. A cohort of 52 delegates from Kherson, who had not been elected by their eparchy, were added to the council. The members of the AUOCC, who had been voting conciliar delegates, were removed. Bishop Pimen (Izvekov), the conciliar chair, refused to bring the question of the AUOCC’s continued participation in the council to an assembly vote.

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autocephalists were “fit to be tied.”7 The conciliar adoption of autonomy did not definitively shape the course of Ukrainian Church history, however: the autocephalists turned to subversion to implement their initiatives of Ukrainization and autocephaly.

A Shift in Power: The Battle for Parish Property After the 1918 council, the members of the former AUOCC regrouped and sought to achieve their objectives through a multifaceted strategy. The autocephalists sought support for their cause from bishops within and outside of Ukraine, cultivating a relationship with Archbishop Parfenii (Levitskyi) of Poltava, and establishing contacts with the Church in Georgia, which had successfully reclaimed its autocephaly from the Russian Church. Their activity needs to be seen within the chaotic context of the then-raging Ukrainian War of Independence/Civil War, with the Whites, Bolsheviks, and French entente among those vying for control. Different political factions had their own agendas. On the political front, an association of landowners elected Pavlo Skoropadskyi as hetman of Ukraine in 1918, following the collapse of the Central Rada, the first post-imperial governing structure in Ukraine. The Skoropadskyi Hetmanate did not support autocephaly because it conflicted with their interest in securing a place for Ukraine in a federation with Russia. When the Directory, a short-lived administration of Ukraine in its initial post-imperial phase, assumed control of Ukraine in late 1918, it mandated the autocephaly of the Orthodox Church and attempted to obtain the support of the Patriarchate of Constantinople through the efforts of Oleksander Lototskyi, the minister of religious affairs. The autocephalists exploited the first period of Soviet control of Ukraine in 1919 by registering Ukrainian parishes in Kyiv. This tactic served the interests of both the state and the autocephalists, as supporting opponents of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) within the Church weakened the new patriarchate and resulted in parishes that prayed in Ukrainian. The autocephalists took the risk of further alienating the bishops in Ukraine, especially since the Directory placed Metropolitan Antonii (Khrapovitskii) in a monastery, and the eventual Bolshevik victory in December 1919 prevented his permanent return to Kyiv. The temporary administrator of the Church in Ukraine, Bishop Nazaryi (Blinov), tolerated the creation of Ukrainian-language parishes for a short while, but the ruling bishops in Ukraine eventually removed the priests of the Ukrainian-language parishes from the ranks of the clergy when it became clear that they remained intent on creating a Ukrainian Church independent of the 7

Metropolitan Evlogy, My Life’s Journey: The Memoirs of Metropolitan Evlogy, As Put Together according to his accounts by T. Manukhin, pt. 1, trans. Alexander Lisenko, introd. Thomas Hopko (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2014), 364.

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ROC. From the perspective of the ROC bishops in Ukraine, canonical sanctions were necessary to prevent a schism from occurring within the Church, as priests deposed from holy orders would have no legal basis for presiding over Ukrainian parishes. The ROC imposed these canonical sanctions on clergy in registered Ukrainian parishes in 1920, and Patriarch Tikhon attempted to stabilize the Ukrainian Church crisis by appointing Metropolitan Mikhail (Ermakov) as the ROC’s exarch of Ukraine. For the autocephalists, however, the conflict with the bishops of the patriarchal synod in Ukraine had reached a point of no return. They pursued their plans to create their own Church with even more vigor, despite the canonical sanctions imposed by the bishops. The autocephalists conceived of these plans in 1919–20, and they began to take shape in May of 1921, when a local council gathered in Kyiv to prepare the creation of the UAOC. The leaders of the autocephalist movement continued to invest their hopes in episcopal intervention— both internally, through Archbishop Parfenii, temporary administrator of the Poltava eparchy, and externally, by appealing to the Church in Georgia.8 The autocephalists explicated their primary rationale for excluding the bishops currently presiding over the Ukrainian Church in the May 1921 Kyiv gathering by declaring the 1918 council a series of meetings of the enemies of the Ukrainian Church liberation movement.9 The autocephalists also asserted that the synod of patriarchal bishops in Ukraine was an adversarial institution that did not represent the Orthodox people of Ukraine. Furthermore, the autocephalists declared that the canonical depositions of Ukrainian priests and deacons by Bishop Nazaryi were invalid because the Ukrainian Church had already embarked on the path of autocephaly and had never elected Nazaryi and the other bishops on the synod. This sampling of resolutions from the May 1921 gathering in Kyiv represents the autocephalists’ rejection of the authority of the patriarchal bishops in Ukraine. The fact that the Ukrainian Church had not elected Nazaryi and the other bishops provided the rationale for arguing that they did not represent the Orthodox people of Ukraine. While the texts of the resolutions do not include the word “democratic,” the principle of democracy is clearly implied in the argument and became the basis for the emerging concept of sobornopravnist that would govern the 1921 UAOC. The May 1921 local council in Kyiv established the pattern for the convocation of the all-Ukrainian council that took place on October 14-30, 1921 in Kyiv. The conciliar delegates did not recognize the authority of the ROC synod in Ukraine and intended to exercise their freedom to establish their own Church. For their part, the ROC synod in Ukraine strongly discouraged the autocephalists 8 9

See Pershyi Vseukrainskyi Pravoslavnyi Tserkovnyi Sobor UAPTs, 1921, ed. P.S. Sokhan, Serhii Plokhy and L.V. Iakovleva (Kyiv: M.S. Hrushevsky Institute of Ukrainian Archeography and Source Studies, 1999), 471. Ibid.

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from convening the October council, and alternated between sharp condemnations of the autocephalists on account of their illegitimacy, and appeals for a ceasefire in religious polemics and an attempt to reconcile. The autocephalists put forward a tepid attempt to reconcile during the course of the council when Metropolitan Mikhail, the ROC’s exarch, appeared unexpectedly and addressed the gathering. When the exarch refused to consecrate bishops for a Ukrainian Church, the council deliberated its next steps. Sobornopravnist as the governing principle and structure began to take shape during this deliberation.

The October 1921 Council of the UAOC and Sobornopravnist The chief ideologues who defined the concept of sobornopravnist were Vasyl Lypkivskyi—who would be elected as the UAOC’s metropolitan—and Volodymyr Chekhivskyi. Chekhivskyi was a lay delegate who had a theological education and had a leading role in the Directory. The following analysis of the evolution of sobornopravnist at the October 1921 UAOC council draws from the proceedings and acts of the council. Lypkivskyi laid out the UAOC’s variant of sobornopravnist on October 20, 1921, the day after the council’s fateful encounter with Metropolitan Mikhail. Lypkivskyi reviewed the history of strong influences in the Church and identified monasticism as the movement that reshaped the internal culture of the Church from a community-based body of believers to a community ruled by elite monastics favored by the emperors.10 Lypkivskyi suggested that the ascension of such venerable monastics as Basil the Great to the rank of bishop led to the assumption that bishops should be celibate, which eventually limited Church leadership to candidates from the monastic ranks.11 He went so far as to claim that the Ukrainian Church lost its sense of conciliarity when it was subordinated to the Russian Church in the 17th century, taking on the culture of monastic obedience and submission to authority.12 Lypkivskyi analyzed the example of the Union of Brest of 1596 and stated that the laity represented in the brotherhoods had resisted the move to union with Rome, but that the bishops created their own council consisting only of themselves and used their authority to ratify union.13 He used this story to illuminate the antecedent of convoking a Church council without bishops to embark on its own path. Lypkivskyi concluded by stating that the conciliarity of the new 10 11 12 13

See Sokhan et al., 1921 UAPTs (see n. 8), 177. Ibid. Ibid., 178. Ibid., 179–180. On this matter, see the magisterial study of brotherhoods by Iaroslav Isaievich, Voluntary Brotherhood: Confraternities of Laymen in Early Modern Ukraine (Edmonton: Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, 2006), 79–140.

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Ukrainian Church should not be exclusively episcopal, but should consist of representatives of all of the people. He uses the word vsenarodno—all-people’s— to describe his proposed conciliarity for the new Church. The absence of internal and external episcopal patrons for the autocephalists posed an obstacle to creating a new Church without canonical bishops presiding over the ordination of new bishops. Chekhivskyi provided the rationale for creating a new episcopate without the participation of bishops by building upon the appeal for a new all-people’s conciliarity from Lypkivskyi. In the same session of October 20, 1921, Chekhivskyi argued that all holy acts of the Church, including the sacraments, are performed by the entire Church, and not merely the bishops.14 Chekhivskyi stated that whenever a bishop is ordained in the Church, the actual act is performed by the entire Church, and not only through the ritual performance of the presiding clergy.15 The thrust of Chekhivskyi’s thesis is that the gift of the Holy Spirit and divine grace are given by God to the whole Church, and not only the bishops.16 He attempted to substantiate his hypothesis by referring to episodes of Church history when bishops such as Nestorius fell into heresy, and the entire Church, especially the laypeople, defended the faith by virtue of the divine grace God had given them. Chekhivskyi understood that ordaining bishops without the participation of bishops would meet resistance and accusations of breaking the line of apostolic succession, so he asserted that the whole Church is called upon to act when demanded by extraordinary circumstances.17 Chekhivskyi compared the ROC synod in Ukraine with the selection of bishops who had failed in the past throughout Church history, and claimed that the task of renewing the grace of the Holy Spirit had been given to the rest of the Church that had gathered for the council.18 He also questioned the prudence of seeking an external patron for ordination, since it would give the appearance that the Ukrainian Church did not possess divine grace and therefore needed to obtain it from another Church.19 It is important to note that the conciliar delegates also heard arguments from representatives who supported Ukrainization and autocephaly but were opposed to proceeding with the creation of a new Church without bishops. The most prominent of these was Ksenofont Sokolovskyi, a priest who argued that the only authentically conciliar method of establishing an episcopate would include the participation of bishops. He argued that it would be better for the Ukrainians to

14 15 16 17 18 19

See Sokhan et al., 1921 UAPTs (see n. 8), 191. Ibid., 192. Ibid. Ibid., 193–194. Ibid., 195. Ibid., 196.

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be patient until circumstances permitted the participation of bishops who supported Ukrainian autocephaly.20 Ultimately, the council voted in favor of a conciliar rite of ordination, without the participation of bishops, as an exception to the norm because extraordinary circumstances called for immediate action.

The Conciliar Ordination of Metropolitan Vasyl Lypkivskyi The October 1921 council of the UAOC established a new episcopate on October 23, 1921, when the entire council participated in the ordination of Lypkivskyi to the office of metropolitan of Kyiv.21 A few changes to the customary rite were required to reflect the unique ecclesiology of sobornopravnist. Normally, the bishops participating in the ordination lay their hands upon the head of the candidate during the rite. During Lypkivskyi’s ordination, all of the delegates laid their hands on the ordinand by forming a chain from the presbyters and deacons in the sanctuary through the laity in the church, each person laying their right hand upon the shoulder of the one in front of them. The rite of ordination begins with an invocation from the deacon, who issues a series of commands to the bishops, priests, and laity to begin the ritual. During Lypkivskyi’s ordination, this command was directed explicitly to the council itself. Clearly, the rite of ordination was revised to reflect the shift in emphasis from episcopal to “all-people’s.” The rite of ordination symbolized the ecclesiological principle that was to govern the new Ukrainian Church—one in which the bishops would never possess and exercise an authority separated from and imposed upon the Church but served only within and for the Church. The canons of the 1921 UAOC explicate how sobornopravnist shaped the governing structure of the Church. The canons also echo the rationale critical of the monopoly enjoyed by monks in the Church espoused by Lypkivskyi in particular in his remarks at the council. In section 3 covering the structure of the UAOC, the first canon states that the foundational authority for the Church government is the Holy Spirit.22 The canon adds that there cannot be any lordship or aggression among members of the Church, and cites from Mt. 20:25-28 to underscore servanthood as the new ruling principle of the Church. The second canon in section 3 lays out the order of the Church’s governing structure: The system of the Ukrainian autocephalous Orthodox Church is one of all-people’s conciliarity, in agreement with the spirit of the Christian faith. The Church itself will 20 Ibid., 236–237. 21 For a detailed description of this rite and an analysis of its significance along with the other liturgical revisions adopted by the UAOC, see Nicholas Denysenko, “Liturgical Innovations in the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (1921–1930): The Untold Story,” Studia Liturgica 47 (2017), 89–112. 22 See Sokhan et al., 1921 UAPTS (see n. 8), 378.

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The identification of the All-Ukrainian Council (VPTR) as the highest organ of Church governance is not particularly remarkable, given the similar authority vested in the All-Russian council of 1917–18. What is new here is the absence of a synod of bishops that carries the authority to rule the Church. The UAOC excluded synods from exercising any exclusive authority in the Church in deference to the all-people’s feature of Ukrainian conciliarity. The VPTR was to handle all governing affairs in between all-Ukrainian council. The eighth section of the UAOC’s statute explicated the authority vested in the VPTR, stating that this was the highest governing authority in the Church. The VPTR, consisting of bishops and lay representatives, essentially replaced the synod of bishops and the primate in governing the Church. The statute contains language that grants the VPTR the authority to handle issues normally given to synods and also limits the power of the metropolitan. The council charged the VPTR with convoking councils, nominating and confirming bishops, carrying out the resolutions and directives of councils and eparchial assemblies, overseeing the translation of the Scriptures and liturgical texts, and constructing the educational institutions of the Church.24 The section defining the ministry of the metropolitan was considerably shorter, essentially assigning to him the spiritual government of the Church and the position of honorable chair of the VPTR. In addition to replacing synods with all-people’s councils, the UAOC ordained and appointed clergy on the basis of their meeting educational requirements and on their election by local church organizations, as opposed to episcopal appointment of clergy. Furthermore, the VPTR was to oversee the process of removing bishops from their offices. The VPTR’s declaration on monastics called for their reconfiguration into fraternal brotherhoods attached to existing parishes and the creation of a new monastic rule, since the old rule was no longer relevant to contemporary church life.25 The principle of an all-people’s conciliarity was inscribed within church governance and its structures. This principle strictly limited the power of bishops, removed synods, and essentially redefined the episcopate as a ministry performed together with the people. The VPTR replaced the synod as the structure bearing the highest authority in the Church, after the all-Ukrainian council. Sobornopravnist attempted to eradicate the episcopal corruption the ideologues of the UAOC had blamed for causing the Church to go astray. The dismissal of existing 23 Ibid. The canon concludes by mentioning eparchial and parish structures. 24 Ibid., 387–388. 25 Ibid., 381.

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monastic life and its replacement with brotherhoods was a subtle tactic of attempting to cast out the elites from Church governance and replace them with representatives elected by the people.

Responses to Sobornopravnist The debate about sobornopravnist that took place on the eve of the vote to ordain bishops with an assembly of lower clergy and laity disclosed a reality: the Orthodox world would not accept the variant of conciliarity created by the UAOC. Sokolovskyi’s rejection of sobornopravnist cannot be explained as opposition to autocephaly or Ukrainization, as he eventually became a bishop and led another movement for autocephaly that resulted in a smaller schism (the so-called Lubny schism).26 Sokolovskyi belonged to a cohort of Ukrainians that viewed the UAOC’s actions as dubious and hurried. Ivan Ohienko (later Bishop Ilarion of Cholm and metropolitan of Winnipeg) was the most vocal critic of the UAOC’s sobornopravnist. Ohienko construed sobornopravnist differently from the ideologues of the UAOC. He claimed that the Ukrainian Church was historically conciliar because it was traditional for local councils—consisting of lower clergy and laity, as well as the bishops—to gather in Kyiv to elect the metropolitan, with eparchial councils following the same pattern.27 Ohienko vigorously defended the Ukrainian Church’s adherence to the tradition of apostolic succession, with bishops presiding over ordinations to appoint new bishops. He argued that the so-called Alexandrian rite of presbyteral ordination of bishops took place during an epoch of liturgical diversity, and that the global Church—including Alexandria—confirmed the Nicene canon requiring three bishops to preside at an episcopal consecration.28 Ohienko stated that an Orthodox Church attempting to revert to the presbyteral ordination of a bishop had fallen into Protestantism, and that the entire idea is “Church nonsense” (tserkovvnyi nonsens).29 Ohienko also addressed Lypkivksyi’s assertion that Ukrainians had set a precedent for councils when the brotherhoods acted to protest the union and sustain Church life in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. Ohienko made two noteworthy assertions. First, for the global Church, councils had historically consisted almost entirely of bishops, and the number of participating laity was rather low. Ohienko conceded that the tradition of lay participation in Church 26 See Denysenko, The Orthodox Church in Ukraine (see n. 3), 48–49. 27 See Ivan Ohienko (Metropolitan Ilarion), Ideolohiia Ukrainskoi Tserkvi, ed. Mykola Tymoshik (Kyiv: Fundatsiia imeni Mitropolita Ilariona Ohienka, 2013), 233. 28 Ibid., 105. 29 Ibid., 107.

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governance began to include the laity during the apogee of the brotherhoods, but he argued that this could not be interpreted as lay governance of the Church.30 Ohienko asserted that sobornopravnist was actually narodotsezarysm (populocaesarism) or myrianopravstvo—appointing laity as officers of Church governance.31 Ohienko had expressed explicit grievances about the creation of the UAOC in a private letter sent to Symon Petliura (then the leader of a Ukrainian exile government in Poland) on January 27, 1922. At the time, Ohienko hoped that the news of the conciliar ordination of Lypkivskyi was just a rumor, but he speculated that it could be true because Lypkivskyi had allegedly attempted to convince him to support this method of creating an episcopate during their time together in Kamianets. Ohienko asserted that the UAOC’s action would deliver a major blow to their efforts of establishing a canonical autocephalous Church and pleaded for Petliura to fund a trip to Constantinople for the purpose of consecrating bishops who would function as the foundations of a legitimate Ukrainian episcopate.32

Polish Autocephaly and the UAOC’s Response The movement for Ukrainization and autocephaly was not limited to the parts of war-torn Ukraine ultimately falling under Soviet rule. A substantial population of Orthodox Ukrainians lived within the Austro-Hungarian Empire as well, and they were the largest ethnic group among the Orthodox in the newly-formed republic of Poland established by the Treaty of Versailles. The Orthodox Church in Poland was granted autocephaly by the Ecumenical Patriarchate (EP) in 1924, just six years after Polish independence. The small Orthodox Church, consisting mostly of Ukrainians and Belarusians, received autocephaly for a number of reasons.33 The Church in Poland had requested autocephaly from the Moscow Patriarchate, and negotiations migrated to Constantinople. State officials wanted an autocephalous Church in Poland that was independent of Moscow and would provide a buffer against the dominant Roman Catholic Church. Autocephaly was also a means of monitoring the activities of ethnic Orthodox minorities in Poland. Constantinople’s decision to grant autocephaly to the Church in Poland was connected to the Ukrainian question. The text of the tomos of autocephaly states that Moscow’s absorption of the Kyivan Metropolia into the Russian Church was 30 Ibid., 110. 31 Narodotsezarysm describes the autocratic rule of the people, a play on caesaropapism. Myrianopravstvo means lay governance. 32 See Metropolitan Oleksandr (Drabynko), Ukrainska Tserkva: Shliakh do Avtokefalii (Kyiv: Dukh i litera, 2016), 605–608. 33 See Edward D. Wynot, The Polish Orthodox Church in the Twentieth Century: Prisoner of History (New York: Lexington Books, 2015), 30–33.

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uncanonical. In the decades that followed, Ukrainian Church historians viewed the 1924 Polish tomos as the document providing the rationale for an autocephalous Ukrainian Church. In practice, Polish autocephaly was complicated, as the synod was quite small and consisted initially of Russians and Belarusians overseeing eparchies of over one million Ukrainians. Influential Ukrainians began to seek Ukrainization within the Church of Poland quite vigorously, and they were led by Bishop (later Metropolitan) Policarp Sikorskyi and the aforementioned Ohienko, who was appointed as Bishop of Cholm in 1940. Eventually, the Polish Church formed the cell of the second UAOC in Ukraine in 1942. The creation of the Polish Church and the activity of Ukrainians there set the scene for an odd situation. Most Ukrainian Orthodox under Soviet rule remained within the ROC; the UAOC was popular among the intelligentsia; and a third church emerged in Poland that shared many of the same values as the UAOC, with the exception of its variant of sobornopravnist. The UAOC’s negative response to Polish autocephaly was based largely on its defense of sobornopravnist. Recalling the rationale developed by the UAOC’s ideologues for an all-people’s conciliarity—to limit the power of bishops and contain their ministry to the spiritual sphere—the VPTR rebuked Ecumenical Patriarch Basil (Georgiadis) III for violating the canons by granting an autocephaly they claimed he had no right to grant.34 The VPTR denied the power of any external ruler, including patriarchs and monarchs, to grant autocephaly, and claimed that autocephaly was a prerogative belonging to the Church of the people.35 The VPTR called for a complete separation of the Church from the state, so that the Church would never assume powers and responsibilities resembling those of the state.36 The letter states the sister churches can offer aid, counsel, and other forms of assistance to other churches, but that giving autocephaly, the equivalent of church sovereignty, violated the spirit of the Gospel.37 The only legitimate method of autocephaly was for the people themselves to declare it and then to elect their own leaders. The letter contains an ironic passage, as the authors state that only Moscow technically had the privilege of claiming jurisdiction in Ukraine because of the acts of 1685–86 (in which Constantinople had given Moscow the right to ordain the metropolitan of Kyiv). The point of the letter was not to defend Moscow’s jurisdiction; it was to condemn acts signifying that one church yielded some kind of power over another, and to refer to an all-people’s ecclesiology that disavowed power. Constantinople’s tomos of autocephaly to Poland functioned as a decisive turning point in the ultimate fate of sobornopravnist in modern Ukrainian Church 34 35 36 37

See Drabynko, Ukrainska Tserkva (see n. 32), 617–625. Ibid., 618. Ibid., 619. Ibid., 618–619.

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history. The 1924 tomos symbolized the legitimacy of canonical autocephaly for Ukrainians because of its declaration that Moscow’s governance of the Kyivan Church was uncanonical. If autocephaly was possible for the tiny church in Poland, it would be all the more justifiable in a sovereign Ukraine. The tomos of autocephaly disclosed a division among Ukrainians on the authentic application of sobornopravnist. Conservative Ukrainians like Ohienko embraced a conciliarity that retained the power granted to primates and bishops to govern the Church. The UAOC ideologues clung to a conciliarity that limited the episcopal ministry to the spiritual sphere, attempted to prohibit bishops from accumulating and wielding power, and included the laity in Church governance through the AUOCC.

The Revision of Sobornopravnist The UAOC’s existence in Ukraine was short. The Church had a second allUkrainian council in 1927 that replaced Lypkivskyi with a new metropolitan and was heavily monitored by the Soviet authorities. The Soviet government liquidated the UAOC in 1930, though a few parishes remained functioning in Ukraine. The UAOC had established a presence in Canada and America by assigning Archbishop John Teodorovych to minister there in 1924. Teodorovych was an active participant in the October 1921 council and an ardent defender of the UAOC’s canonicity and the method used to establish an episcopate. The Orthodox of North America joined the sister churches in refusing to recognize the 1921 UAOC because of their lack of apostolic succession. Teodorovych was torn between defending the legitimacy of his church and bringing the diaspora Ukrainians into communion with the Church.38 He began to consider an ordination according to the established method in the 1930’s. The Ukrainian Orthodox tradition reverted to a more traditional variant of conciliarity when the primate of the Church in Poland, Metropolitan Dionysyi (Valedinskyi), blessed the creation of a temporary administration of the UAOC in 1942. The 1942 UAOC was active in renewing church life in German-occupied Ukraine, but existed alongside the autonomous church governed by a synod of bishops in Pochaiv (who—at least theoretically—acknowledged the jurisdiction of the ROC). The autonomous church honored the authority of the 1918 allUkrainian council and its declaration of autonomy, whereas the 1942 UAOC viewed the 1924 tomos as extending into Ukraine because of its references to the Kyivan Church. 38 See his passionate defense of the canonical legitimacy of the 1921 UAOC in Ivan Teodorovych, Blahodatnist ierarkhii U.A.P.Ts. (Ukrainskoi Avtokefalnoi Pravoslavnoi Tserkvy), ed. Iryna Prelovska (Kyiv: Arkhanhelskyi Hlas, 2009).

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Both bodies adopted the established Orthodox path of a Church ruled by bishops who were within the apostolic succession, especially since the 1942 UAOC’s orientation with Poland distanced them from the ecclesiology of the 1921 UAOC. A practical problem confronted the 1942 UAOC when clergy of the 1921 church who remained in Ukraine after the church’s liquidation requested that the 1942 church receive them into their ranks.39 Receiving them without a new ordination could be construed as acceptance of their variant of sobornopravnist. Adopting this route would threaten their status in the world’s Orthodox Church. On the other hand, the leaders of the 1942 UAOC had a brief, but intense, experience of Soviet persecution of the Church when Hitler and Stalin divided Poland in 1939 and West Ukraine fell under Soviet rule. The leaders of the 1942 UAOC depicted the figures of the 1921 church as martyrs for their faith, whose shedding of blood had removed all marks of illegitimacy. The 1942 UAOC received the 1921 clergy through a special rite of reception that resembled the rite of ordination, but functioned as a rite of renewing ministry. The reception of the 1921 clergy led some to believe that the 1942 UAOC had embraced their ecclesiology as well. The 1942 church took a sharp turn away from the variant of sobornopravnist and adopted a conciliar structure that retained the authority of the bishops, and also included lower clergy and laity in church affairs. In 1942, the church drafted a new statute for the temporary administration of the Church. The statute identified the local (pomisnyi) council as the highest authority in the Church, consisting of all the bishops, and representatives from the clergy and laity. A synod of bishops handled all affairs related to faith, liturgy, church administration, and jurisprudence. The metropolitan exercised the usual duties associated with the office of primate, and the eparchial bishops were bound to honor his primacy by virtue of Apostolic canon no. 34. The statute of the 1942 church had two other significant references. It stated, repeatedly, that the statute was based upon the 1924 tomos of autocephaly granted by Constantinople to the Church in Poland, and it noted that the statute itself could be revised when an All-Ukrainian council is convoked. The final turn away from the sobornopravnist of the UAOC occurred when the synod of bishops met in Germany in 1947, after the war. Bishop Hryhoryi (Oliinyk) promoted a revival of the 1921 UAOC, along with sobornopravnist and its traditions.40 The UAOC declared that the resolutions of the 1921 council were promulgated in an “atmosphere of revolutionary war,” and were designed to be 39 For a detailed account, see Denysenko, The Orthodox Church in Ukraine (see n. 3), 79– 83. 40 See Bohdan Bociurkiw, “The Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church in West Germany, 1945–50,” in The Refugee Experience: Ukrainian Displaced Persons after World War II, ed. Wsevolod Isajiw, Yury Boshyk and Roman Senkus (Edmonton: Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, 1992), 163–165.

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temporary.41 The bishops observed that the leaders of the 1921 council were consumed by their zeal to deliver Christian justice, and in so doing, departed from Orthodox teaching on the nature of the Church.42 The synod explicitly stated its non-recognition of the variant of sobornopravnist established by the 1921 Church.43 The bishops of the UAOC refused to recognize sobornopravnist as a legitimate governing principle, depicting it as an informal assembly of love that was not the equivalent of ecclesial conciliarity.44 The UAOC synod deposed and excommunicated Bishop Hryhoryi and the presbyters who supported his attempt to revive the 1921 UAOC.45 The 1947 council completed the turn of the autocephalous movement back to traditional Orthodoxy, a move that was manifest in a series of events. First, Bishop Hryhoryi left the 1942 UAOC and attempted to revive the 1921 version in the socalled Aschaffenburg split.46 He had a few ardent followers and this church remained independent of the unifications that occurred in Ukrainian Orthodoxy in America through 1994. Most of the clergy and faithful remained faithful to the UAOC, and the large population of immigrants arriving in the United States resulted in four church bodies—Hryhoryi’s small sobornopravna church, a small Ukrainian eparchy of the EP, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of America, and the UAOC. Teodorovych, who had strongly considered a new ordination, informed the UAOC synod in 1947 that he planned to receive a canonical ordination. The 1947 council accepted his proposal, and he was ordained in 1949, now in the U.S., with Archbishop Mstyslav (Skrypnyk) and Metropolitan Christopher (Kondogiorgos) of the Alexandrian exarchate presiding. The unification of two of the four bodies resulted in the creation of the UOC-USA, led by Teodorovych until his death in 1971, and Mstyslav until 1993. The third unification occurred in 1994 when Archbishop Vsevolod (Maidanskyi) of the EP unified with the UOC-USA; the EP received this church shortly afterwards in 1995. The 1942 UAOC’s decisive turn away from the ecclesiology of the 1921 church meant that the legacy of 1921 only flickered in the USA. The Church continued the policies of the 1942 UAOC by honoring the memory of the 1921 church and declaring them to be martyrs, while attempting to establish itself as a

41 42 43 44

See Drabynko, Ukrainska Tserkva (see n. 32), 399. Ibid., 400. Ibid. From the epistle of the UAOC synod of bishops that gathered October 24, 1947. Published in Slovo Istyny 2 (1947), 8–15. Accessed via https://diasporiana.org.ua/wp-conten/uploads/ books/10544/file.pdf. 45 Ibid. 46 See Bociurkiw, “The UAOC in West Germany,” (see n. 40) 163.

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mainstream Orthodox church. However, sobornopravnist remained in the memories of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Canada (UOCC) in particular, where Teodorovych was archbishop until 1947. In 1947, Mstyslav assumed the office of primate of the UOCC only to leave rather abruptly to join Teodorovych in the USA. Mstyslav’s leadership style chafed Canadians who had become accustomed to lay co-governance of the Church, a legacy brought by Teodorovych to Canada.47 When Mstyslav departed, the Canadian Church reached an agreement with Archbishop Ilarion (Ohienko) to become their new metropolitan. Ilarion was the same bishop who had condemned the sobornopravnist of the 1921 Church. The terms of the agreement required Ilarion to honor the traditions established in Canada, and he led the UOCC until his death in 1972.48 The sobornopravnist of 1921 surfaced in both America and Canada in the early 1990’s when the EP received both churches while declining to publicly support the reinvigorated autocephalous movement in Ukraine. Many of the faithful in Canada viewed the EP dubiously. The leaders of the UOCC attempted to manage dissidence within its ranks on the eve of an important conciliar gathering in 1990, as the UOCC was presenting its case for joining the EP. The Canadian bishops reminded the clergy and faithful that the council would be governed by the principle of sobornopravnist, meaning that the decisions would be made by the whole Church, together.49 This message was strategic, designed to both receive the people’s input, and to remind them that they contributed to the deliberative process in the event that they disliked the outcome. The UOCC’s appeal to sobornopravnist to ensure that everyone participated in the union with the EP was severely tested ten years later because of diaspora dissatisfaction with the EP’s position on Orthodoxy in Ukraine. In preparation for the UOCC’s all-Church council in 2000, St. John’s Cathedral parish in Edmonton (Western eparchy) proposed a series of resolutions, two of which are particularly significant for this discussion. First, St. John’s proposed that the UOCC annul its relationship with the EP and restore its prior canonical status as a fully autocephalous church. Second, St. John’s proposed that the UOCC “reaffirm” its commitment to sobornopravnist and implied the Church leaders had discouraged discussion and had demeaned people who disagreed with policies set forth by the hierarchy. St. Volodymyr’s Cathedral parish in Toronto (Eastern eparchy) presented a more restrained set of propositions that also insisted upon honoring the principle of sobornopravnist. These two resolutions disclose a simple yet profound protest: some of the clergy and laity felt that church leaders were demeaning

47 See Denysenko, The Orthodox Church in Ukraine (see n. 3), 98–100. 48 Ibid., 99–100. 49 See Denysenko, The Orthodox Church in Ukraine (see n. 3), 124.

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or ignoring their positions on church policy. The appeals for affirming sobornopravnist in Canada were requests that church leaders be both transparent and inclusive in their handling of church affairs.

Conciliarity in Late and Post-Soviet Ukrainian Orthodoxy When the UAOC returned to Ukraine in late 1989 and declared itself a patriarchate in 1990, it defined itself as sobornopravna in its statute. The statute identifies the local council, the hierarchical council, and the synod of bishops as holding authority within the Church. The 1989 UAOC’s statute sustained the tradition of granting the primate, in this case the patriarch, much of the authority in Church governance. The patriarch convoked the local council and most of the statute explains the role of the bishops in the hierarchical council and synod in conducting Church affairs. The 1990 statute, then, simply uses the word sobornopravnist to describe a more mainstream Orthodox Church structure that retains the privilege and authority of bishops while including the lower clergy and the laity to contribute in some aspects of church life. Each eparchy has a council, but even those are dominated by clergy, as all deans were appointed to the council, with two members of the clergy and two laity included. The only similarity between the 1990 statute and the one of 1921 is that the rector of the parish is elected by the “people of God.” The absence of a section in the statute defining the parish is noteworthy. The statutes of the current Ukrainian Orthodox Churches essentially resemble the core of the 1990 UAOC statute, with a few minor exceptions. For example, the Kyivan Patriarchate (UOC-KP) is a patriarchate and autocephalous, whereas the Ukrainian Orthodox Church – Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP) belongs to the ROC. In terms of conciliarity, the statutes of the UOC-MP and UOC-KP are somewhat similar. Both statutes regard the local council as the highest governing organ of the Church. The primate exercises a leading role for the whole Church, the eparchial bishops oversee the eparchies, and the rector is the head of the parish. The people do not elect the rector, as the eparchial bishop appoints him. The bishops handle all of the major affairs of the Church. The laity are represented at each level of church life, but there is no sense of sharing governance with the primate or bishops. In the history of the UOC-MP in the late Soviet and post-Soviet period, there has been an attempt to illuminate the emergence of conciliarity. The late Metropolitan Volodymyr (Sabodan) highlighted the significance of conciliarity (sobornist) in his address to the Church in 2012, on the occasion of the twenty-year

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anniversary of the Kharkiv Council.50 The UOC-MP views the hramota (deed) on autonomy and independence it received from the ROC in 1990 as a turning point in its history. Metropolitan Volodymyr asserted that conciliarity was manifest in the 1918 All-Ukrainian council, and beginning in 1990, the status of broad autonomy permitted the UOC-MP to navigate the challenge of a constantly evolving environment through conciliarity.51 Volodymyr analyzed the benefits and deficiencies of the UOC-MP’s new canonical status in this period by praising the newfound cooperation of the bishops while bemoaning the power given to the primate in the statute. The address identifies the 1992 Kharkiv Council as an event that exemplifies conciliarity since the bishops cooperated to resolve the crisis within the UOC-MP. Volodymyr’s comments emphasize conciliarity as episcopal synodality. He mentions the occasional participation of the laity in the Church, but in his examples, the collaborative actions of the bishops constitute conciliarity. The statute of the new OCU is similar to those of the UOC-MP and UOC-KP, although there is no reference to the parish at all.52 The current statutes of the three Orthodox Churches in Ukraine honor conciliarity in three ways: through the authority of the local council, and through the representation of lower clergy and laity at each level of Church life (local, eparchial, and parish). While the UOCKP uses the word sobornopravnist in its statute, this is simply a retention of the term from the original statute of the UAOC in 1990. The notion of an all-people’s conciliarity is currently missing from the Orthodox Churches in Ukraine.

Sobornopravnist and Sobornost Sobornopravnist shares some similarities with the concept of sobornost that evolved among Slavophiles in the 19th century and was inscribed upon the structures of the Moscow Council of 1917–18. In the context of the Moscow Council, there were diverse perspectives on the meaning of sobornost (or conciliarity). In his magisterial study of the Moscow Council, Hyacinthe Destivelle states that those on the left understood conciliarity as more of a democracy, so that laity should contribute to the life of the Church at all levels.53 Those on the 50 See Metropolitan Volodymyr, “Ukrainska Pravoslavna Tserkva na mezhi tysiacholit zdobutki ta vyklyky,” in Dopovidi, Zvernennia, Promovy (Kyiv: Fund in Memory of His Beatitude Metropolitan Volodymyr, 2014), 92–105. 51 Ibid., 95–96. 52 See Statut Pravoslavnoi Tserkvy Ukrainy (December 15, 2018), https://www.pomisna. info/uk/document-post/statut-ptsu/ (accessed July 31, 2021). The statutes of the UOC-MP and UOC-KP have sections defining the parish. 53 See Hyacinthe Destivelle, The Moscow Council (1917–1918): The Creation of the Conciliar Institutions of the Russian Orthodox Church, trans. Jerry Ryan, ed. Michael Plekon and Vitaly Permiakov, foreword Hilarion Alfeyev (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2015), 79.

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right believed that conciliarity did not preclude an office for a strong leader. In a certain sense, the Moscow Council appeased both sides, since the council renewed the patriarchate, resuming the office of strong leadership, while it also revised its structures to include laity. For example, the Moscow Council delegated authority in governance to the patriarch, the synod, and the Supreme Council of the Church. The primate and bishop possess most of the authority, while lower clergy and laity participate in the Supreme Council. The deliberate inclusion of laity at this level demonstrates an attempt to balance episcopal governance with inclusion of laity. A similar principle threaded through all levels of Russian church life. Destivelle notes that the 1917 council debated the possibility of parishes electing their rectors and came to a compromise. The eparchial bishop would receive the names of candidates proposed by the parish assembly and would take their recommendations into consideration when making the appointment.54 The Moscow Council of 1917–18 attempted to balance the power of bishops with the need to include laity in the life of the Church. Some theologians, such as Nicholas Afanasiev, were critical of the council for its application of conciliarity and claimed that privileging democratic principles could lead to a dangerous secularization of the Church.55 Destivelle notes that the robust lay participation in church life inaugurated by the 1917–18 council disappeared in the 1945 local council.56 Later local councils of the Russian Church stripped the clergy of power and granted it to the laity, evidenced by the 1961 conciliar decrees on the parish. The parish was administered by a starosta and two other people elected by the parish assembly. The priest did not belong to the council and his duties were restricted to those of the cult and spiritual realm. Soviet law required this system to diminish the authority of the clergy and connect loyalists in the parish who could report to the authorities. The Soviet government pressured the council to alter the statute as part of its antireligious policy. 57 The outcome was a disruption of the attempt to create a community that retained the authority of the priest who worked together with the people. The Russian application of the conciliarity of the Moscow Council was influential for a time. Despite the removal of lay participation from the patriarchal structures, churches that inherited the legacy of the Moscow Council inscribed this principle of conciliarity on their structures, such as the Orthodox Church in America and the now defunct Russian Exarchate of the Archdiocese of Western Europe. Currently, though, it seems that the Orthodox churches are favoring episcopal dominance in all areas of church life, given the dissolution of the Russian Exarchate and the revision of the OCA’s statute. 54 55 56 57

Ibid., 104. Ibid., 174–179. Ibid., 156–159. Ibid., 158.

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Concluding Reflections The UAOC conceptualized sobornopravnist as a method of creating their own church structure without having to depend on an external authority, and of creating a system of shared governance within the Church that strictly limited the traditional power of bishops. The rest of the Orthodox Church retained the traditional structures of governance led almost exclusively by bishops and attempted to include the lower clergy and laity through the convocation of local councils that elect primates and ratify decisions made by the Church in between assemblies. Eventually, the Ukrainian Churches adopted the modified version of conciliarity that exists in many Orthodox churches, even if they continue to apply the word sobornopravnist to the principle. From the beginning, there have been three issues at stake in the emergence of sobornopravnist and the creation of conciliar structures. The first overarching issue is the nature of the Church itself, and the ranking of its orders. The second is the problem of abuse of power, especially by bishops and synods. The third is the tendency for the state to interfere in Church affairs by manipulating bishops to impose the agenda of the state on the entire Church. Theologians continue to discuss the nature of the Church. The theological contributions of the 20th century heightened awareness of the laity as a holy order of the Church, one blessed by God by baptism and anointing with the Holy Spirit. While there is no serious attempt to confine the laity to the secular realm in the theological corpus of the Church and her academy, the internal battle for shared governance continues to persist. The Russian Exarchate of Western Europe vehemently protested the unilateral decision of the EP to liquidate it and absorb it into the EP’s European structure. The UAOC’s attempt to limit the power of bishops may have been well-intended, but the experience of the MP during the Soviet period demonstrates the problems posed by a type of lay tyranny over the clergy at the parish level. It is also essential to highlight the desire of Ukrainians to observe principles that are common to the entire Orthodox Church. Notwithstanding their differences, the statutes of the OCU, UOC-KP, and UOC-MP now represent mainstream Orthodoxy. The episcopal office includes the ministerial duties of governance, and these are featured in the statutes. It is also crucial to remember that the UAOC’s creation of sobornopravnist that appoints a primate with limited power and who is elected by the people, occurred as part of a larger enterprise to excise the Russian imperial legacy of manipulating the Church from the structure of the UAOC. In this sense, one can sympathize with both the advocates and opponents of sobornopravnist of the 1921 October UAOC council. The leaders of the council conceived of sobornopravnist for extraordinary purposes, but it is a product of a time that has now passed. Critics of sobornopravnist claimed that it was Protestant and a departure from Orthodoxy. The UAOC innovated its method for ordaining its first two bishops,

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but it did not remove bishops from the structure of the Church. Perhaps the primary rationale driving the initiatives of the UAOC was to reject dependence on all external parties, of both state and Church. The statute of the UAOC resembles the Augsburg Confession by limiting the ministry of bishops to the spiritual realm. Luther and Melanchthon were determined to remove the kind of power originating with the state that had been inscribed in the papacy and revised the ministry of the clergy to eliminate the accumulation of power and its imposition on the people.58 The UAOC’s rationale certainly has much in common with the Lutheran confrontation with Rome, although the circumstances were completely different. The task confronting Ukrainian Orthodoxy in particular and Orthodoxy in general is one of transparency. How does the Church revise structures so that church governance is transparent and accountable, and inclusive of lay participation, without becoming a tyranny of ecclesial democracy, or subject to the dictatorship of primates and synods? It seems that the Church has yet to create a system that honors the dignity and ministry of each order while maximizing accountability, and especially service. Such a mechanism is needed throughout the Church, at all its levels. A cohort of Ukrainian intellectuals has called upon the OCU in particular to construct mechanisms and foster a culture of lay participation, transparency, and accountability (see Lozova and Kalenychenko’s contribution in this volume).59 One lesson emerges from the different case studies examined in this essay. It is indeed possible for the Church to reconceptualize and then revise its structures to meet the needs of her people and respond to the crises of the times.

58 See Article XXVIII on Church Authority of the Augsburg Confession (1530), in Concordia: The Lutheran Confessions, A Reader’s Edition of the Book of Concord, trans. William Dau and Gerhard Bente, ed. Paul McCain et al. (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2005), 83–88. 59 See Sign Petition: Ten Theses for the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (February 12, 2019), https://risu.ua/en/sign-petition-ten-theses-for-the-orthodox-church-of-ukraine_n96394.

Synodality as Syncephaly? A Plea for a Pastoral-Participative Renewal of the PanOrthodox Practice of Synodality Ioan Moga

1. Synodality Today—An Orthodox Permanent Building Site and a Roman Catholic Promise Synodality is now on everyone’s lips when it comes to current reforms in the Roman Catholic Church: the intra-German, controversial dialogue process known as “The Synodal Path,” is one reform movement among many others without the inherent ecclesiological appeal of the term “synodality.” How did the allimportant word “synodality” get onto the daily political agenda of the Roman Catholic Church? We owe it first and foremost to Pope Francis, who made the call for “more” synodality one of his priorities at the beginning of his pontificate. More synodality—that was and still is a hopeful promise of Pope Francis’ term. Although this call was already brought up in Evangelii gaudium (2013) in connection with the Orthodox Church’s “experience of synodality” (EG § 246) and interpreted as an “exchange of gifts” between East and West, its resonance in the Orthodox world was not far-reaching. For example, a detailed document on Synodality in the life and the mission of the Church produced in 2018 by the International Theological Commission did not get much traction in Orthodox theology.1 One wonders: what else does the Orthodox Church expect? A Pope opens himself to the traditional Orthodox principle of synodality, and the Orthodox Church remains diffident. There are several possible answers to this. One is certainly that the Roman thrust is taking place at an inopportune time for the Orthodox Church. Orthodox synodal life at the universal level has been in an ice age since the Synod of Crete (2016) and since the ongoing ecclesial crisis around the autocephaly of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine. Or should we say: in the birth pangs of taking on a new, modern shape? One thing is certain: the longed-for, solemnly proclaimed2 climax 1 2

For the text of the document, see https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/ cfaith/cti_documents/rc_cti_20180302_sinodalita_en.html. “In confessing our faith in the holy Creed in the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, at the same time we proclaim her synodality which incarnates in history all those characteristics of the mystery of the Church, that is to say, her unity, holiness, universality, and apostolicity. Without synodality, the unity of the Church is severed, the sanctity of its

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of synodality in modern times, namely the “Holy and Great Council” on Crete in 2016, revealed a deep wound: Orthodox synodality at the declarative level only functions in fair weather. Or, to put it more precisely: synodality exists at the level of a common ecclesiological-liturgical consciousness of belonging, it becomes manifest in individual local conflicts (e.g., the Bulgarian question in the 1990s) and in the diaspora (Orthodox Bishops’ Conferences since 2009), but it falters or even stops in cases of serious crises or in the case of necessary, fundamental “renovations.” The diagnosis of this crisis varies as well. There is talk of a “crisis of primacy” (Getcha),3 but also of a “crisis of synodality” (Vletsis).4 However, it is clear to any honest theologian that this crisis is at odds with the practice and ethos of the early Church: there, synodality was not a fair-weather instrument, but primarily a means of overcoming crises, a—if not the—remedy of addressing dogmatic, canonical and other problems in the Church. Even if synodal crisis management in the early Church was a laborious path that brought no general guarantees of reconciliation or church unity, it was indisputably the most important instrument for dealing with crises. (I will not go into details regarding additional political or primatial elements in these early church processes.) In view of this ancient synodal tradition, the simple question is: Why has the synodal ethos of the Orthodox Church not been able to bring the conflicting parties to one table (meaning both altar and negotiating table) all these years since the beginning of the ecclesiastical crisis in Ukraine? Why does a synodal Church find it so difficult to communicate and overcome conflicts through dialogue? The questions sound naïve—they are naïve. But they correspond to an ecclesial reality that seems to have lost its divine-human naivety (in the sense of eschatological honesty). After all, it is not about canonical quibbles, but about the credibility of the spiritual claim of the Church and thus about the salvation of humanity. This intra-Orthodox crisis is, indirectly, a damper even for Pope Francis, because it seems to confirm, at least for intra-Catholic conservative circles, the traditional Roman Catholic conception of primacy: in times of crisis, a jurisdictional primacy, a theologically underpinned primus sine paribus, proves its utility. For

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members is reduced to mere individual morality and articulation about virtue, catholicity is sacrificed in favor of particular individual, collective, national and other secular interests or intentions, and the apostolic message falls prey to various heresies and ruses of human reason.”, Patriarch Bartholomew (Archondonis), Opening Address at the Inaugural Session of the Holy and Great Council (June 20, 2016), https://www.holycouncil.org//opening-ecumenical-patriarch. See (Archbishop) Job Getcha of Telmessos, “The Perspectives and Challenges of Primacy and Synodality in the Orthodox Church Today,” The Ecumenical Review 72, no. 3 (2020), 369. See Athanasios Vletsis, “Synodalität und Autokephalie: Ein unmöglicher Spagat? Die Krise der Synodalität in der Orthodoxen Kirche und die Rolle ihrer Autokephalie-Strukturen,” Catholica 74, no. 2 (2020), 141–158.

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Orthodox-Catholic dialogue, this crisis leads to a deadlock. The Orthodox Church cannot credibly question the Roman primacy of jurisdiction if it cannot demonstrate a functioning synodal mode of operation (with a primus inter pares at the top, however equipped) between autocephalous churches. It is on the defensive. This status quaestionis is well known. Further nuances would certainly be necessary. The “Church of synodality” is in a synodal crisis precisely at the point where the “Church of primacy” could meet it. In view of this paradoxical situation, one must venture the question: what is the Orthodox Church doing wrong if it does not manage to bridge its theological vision of synodality as a basic principle of Orthodox ecclesiology and the desolate ecclesiastical and church-political reality? We already have many answers to this question, both in the field of Orthodox-Catholic dialogue (the relationship between primacy and synodality5) and in the theological debates after the Synod of Crete.6 But my question does not aim at an ecclesiological model of reconciliation between the Constantinople and Moscow models, but rather in the sense of an applied ecclesiology, an ecclesiology that is aware of its pastoral responsibility towards the people. Here, I propose two steps. First, I look at how synodality functions in the context of the autocephalous churches, above all how their crisis processes are regulated and what this might mean for building “synodality at the world level.” Second, I discuss the extent to which the constant ambivalences in Orthodox ecclesiology’s modern synodality discourse hinder a pragmatism more suited to our age of communication. Ultimately, I plead for pastoral-theological crisis management, in the sense of a stronger participatory synodality.

2. Functioning Synodality at the Regional Level: The Search for a “Golden Formula” 2.1. Diversity and Dynamics of Synodal Structures The traditional discussion of the “synodal structure of the Church”7 is certainly not only related to the strong traditional consciousness of the Orthodox Church 5

6 7

See Serving Communion: Re-thinking the Relationship between Primacy and Synodality: A Study by the Saint Irenaeus Joint Orthodox-Catholic Working Group (Graz 2018), https://de.moehlerinstitut.de/pdf/texte/kommuniques/2018_graz_serving communion.pdf. See also Ioan Moga, “Die Studie des Irenäuskreises aus orthodoxer Perspektive,” Catholica 73 (2019), 94–108. See Ioan Moga, “Rezeption als Chance zum Aufbruch: Perspektiven der Orthodoxen Kirche nach der Synode auf Kreta,” Orthodoxes Forum 31 (2017), 119–125. For “conciliar structure of the Church,” see Paul Evdokimov, Orthodoxy (New York: New City Press, 2011), 165. For “episcopal-synodal structure of the Church” and “synodal constitution of the Church,” see Theodor Nikolaou, Glaube und forsche: Ausgewählte

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(ecumenical synods, synodal processes in the early Church). It is also found as a functioning reality at the level of the respective autocephalous churches. The leitmotif of the ideal, mutual coexistence of primacy and synodality at the local, regional, and universal level—something widespread after the 2006 meeting of the Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue Between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church in Ravenna—is a construct, or at least a beautiful desideratum, that is not currently realized either in the Orthodox Church or in the Roman Catholic Church. 8 Let us consider the Orthodox Church. At the local level, synodality exists “very limitedly”9 or is “almost non-existent.”10 “Synodal bodies are only advisory bodies to the bishop”:11 if one wants more synodality, the suspicion of democracy arises. At the universal level, synodality is a historical factor (ecumenical synods, for example), but the path from the pious anamnesis of the first millennium to its active actualization is a difficult one. I am not going to go into the reception of the pan-Orthodox Council in Crete: as expected, some see in it “a genuine manifestation of synodality at the beginning of the 21st century”12 (Archbishop Job Getcha) or even “a communio ecclesiarum par excellence, […], the zenith of conciliarity”13 (Bishop Maxim Vasiljeviü), while others deny the Council its pan-Orthodox character. Thus, if we are looking for an original model of functioning synodality in the contemporary Orthodox Church, what remains is the so-called “regional” level. Here, synodality is an institutional, well-functioning leadership reality of the autocephalous churches. A theological reflection on the mechanisms of this mode of operation, however, is missing. Consequently, the question is: how are crisis processes solved within the synodal structures of the autocephalous church? Is there anything to be learned here for crisis processes at the universal level? The status of synodality in the individual autocephalous churches is quite diverse; we are dealing with “a variety of synodal systems.”14 It is true that the “Council of Bishops in each Patriarchate,

8 9 10 11 12 13 14

Studien zur griechischen Patristik und byzantinischen Geistesgeschichte (St. Ottilien: EOS-Verlag, 2012), 173, 215. See Ioan Moga, “Synodalität zwischen Desiderat und Wirklichkeit,” Internationale Katholische Zeitschrift Communio 43 (May-June 2014), 148–155. Anargyros Anapliotis, “Synodalität in der Kirchenverfassung der Orthodoxen Kirche,” Una Sancta 75 (2020), 109. Getcha, “The Perspectives” (see n. 3), 360. Anapliotis, “Synodalität” (see n. 9), 109. Getcha, “The Perspectives” (see n. 3), 368. Maxim Vasiljeviü, “Synodality: A Misinterpreted Vision,” in Synodality: A Forgotten and Misapprehended Vision: Reflections on the Holy and Great Council of 2016, ed. Maxim Vasiljeviü and Andrej Jeftiü (Alhambra, CA: Sebastian Press, 2017), 123. Athanasios Vletsis, “Achillesferse oder Allheilmittel? Die Synodalität (in) der Orthodoxie und ihre ökumenischen Implikationen,” Ostkirchliche Studien 68 (2019), 21.

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as the supreme legislative and administrative body, has a certain omnipotence.”15 Nevertheless, in questions of composition, regularity, and competence; the use of the individual representative bodies (the so-called “permanent synods”); possible further synodal bodies extended with priests and laypeople, one discovers great diversity.16 In comparing the statutes of the different autocephalous Orthodox Churches, Johannes Oeldemann distinguishes “two structural models: a hierarchical, purely episcopal model (examples: Constantinople and Serbia), in which the assembly of all bishops bears ultimate responsibility, and an electoral, corporative model (examples: Russia and Romania), in which elected representatives of the clergy, monasticism and laity participate in the supreme church leadership alongside the bishops.”17 In addition to this diversity, there is also a certain dynamic: synodal structures change again and again in the individual autocephalous churches. For example, in the Romanian Orthodox Church, we have had three statutes (1925, 1949, 2008) in the last hundred years since 1925 (the proclamation of the Romanian Patriarchate). All brought fundamental shifts in emphasis in the composition, relevance, and relationship of the various synodal and primatial bodies, each of which underwent several minor and major amendments. The current Statute of 2008 underwent a first major alteration as early as 2011, with further amendments and additions following in the subsequent years. These subsequent amendments were published in the official gazette of the Romanian state on 11.02.2020, and the new version of the Statute thus acquired the character of state-church law. Among them were questions concerning the election of the patriarch, the judicial system in the case of accused bishops, Orthodox associations and foundations, etc.18 This dynamic certainly has its background, which cannot be gone into now, but it shows a well-functioning institution, which constantly—even in the face of current challenges—wants to perfect itself. There is nothing more natural than constantly working on existing structures and their relationship determination. In view of this strong regional diversity and dynamism, the question arises as to why the Orthodox Church seems so rigid and uncreative at a world level.

15 Anapliotis, “Synodalität” (see n. 9), 107. 16 See Anargyros Anapliotis, “Primus und Synode in den Statuten der Orthodoxen Kirche am Beispiel des Ökumenischen und des Moskauer Patriarchats,” in Autorität und Synodalität: Eine interdisziplinäre und interkonfessionelle Umschau nach ökumenischen Chancen und ekklesiologischen Desideraten, ed. Christoph Böttigheimer and Johannes Hofmann (Frankfurt am Main: Lembeck, 2008), 275–296. 17 Johannes Oeldemann, “Die Synodalität in der Orthodoxen Kirche,” Catholica 70 (2016), 143. 18 See Aurelian Iftimiu, Romania Gazettes updated statute for organization of Romanian Orthodox Church (February 20, 2020), https://basilica.ro/en/romania-gazettes-updatedstatute-for-organization-of-romanian-orthodox-church/.

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2.2. Increasing Primatialization? What else can we learn from these regional forms of synodality? I refer here selectively only to the statutes of the Russian Orthodox Church and the Romanian Orthodox Church. In the current Statute of the Russian Orthodox Church,19 the Council of Bishops acts as the final authority “in disputes between two or more bishops; in matters of ecclesiastical offences by bishops and heads of synodal institutions.”20 At the same time, however, the Patriarch of Moscow also has strong powers for crisis situations. In this context, Anapliotis speaks of an “ecclesiastical ‘reserve function’ for crisis situations in the area of enforcing synodal decisions.”21 Thus, the patriarch “may accept for examination cases related to misunderstandings between bishops, if they freely entrust themselves to his mediation without formal judicial proceedings; the patriarch’s decisions in such cases are binding on both sides” (Statute ROC, IV. X22); he “gives fraternal advice to the bishops both in regard to their private life and to their fulfilment of their episcopal duties” (Statute ROC, IV.w23) and “examines the fulfilment of the episcopal duties of the diocesan bishops,” (Statute, IV.t24) etc. Numerous other powers belonging to the “canonical authority” (Statute ROC IV.725) of the Patriarch of Moscow show very clearly that the “honorary primate” is understood by the Statute as an active, leading, and mediating leader between the different synodal bodies. The situation is similar according to the current Statute of the Romanian Orthodox Church.26 Although the Holy Synod is the highest authority in all areas which decide administrative matters (such as the foundation, dissolution, territorial reorganization, and change of dioceses) with a two-thirds majority, the functioning of the Holy Synod is inconceivable without the clear guidance, mediating and intervening powers of the patriarch. According to the most recent version of the Statute, he has 49 prerogatives! To give some interesting examples: the patriarch can “in the case of action against the Church on the part of a diocesan 19 See Die Statuten der Russischen Orthodoxen Kirche (2013), der Russischen Orthodoxen Kirche im Ausland und der deutschen Diözese der ROKA, ed. Anargyros Anapliotis (Munich: Kloster des Hl. Hiob von Poþaev, 2015). 20 Ibid., 89. 21 Ibid., 39. 22 Ibid., 94. 23 Ibid., 93. 24 Ibid., 93. 25 Ibid., 91. 26 See Statutul pentru organizarea Юi funcаionarea Bisericii Ortodoxe Române (2008, republicat 2020) / Statue for the organisation and functioning of the Romanian Orthodox Church (2008, republished 2020), http://legislatie.just.ro/Public/DetaliiDocument/ 222799; see also Organisations- und Funktionsstatut der Rumänischen Orthodoxen Kirche (2011), ed. Anargyros Anapliotis, Jürgen Henkel et al. [Deutsch-Rumänische Theologische Bibliothek, 2] (Sibiu – Bonn: Schiller, 2012).

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assembly, at the request of the diocesan bishop”27 dissolve that diocesan assembly. This is an example where a primatial function, in emergencies, has a local synodal body at its disposal (as an aid to the local bishop). Another example is that the patriarch “exercises the right of appeal and the right of devolution in the Metropolitan Sees and in the Dioceses under the direct authority of the Romanian Patriarchate for the restoration of canonical and administrative order.”28 This power, which is formulated rather generally, gives the patriarch a wide scope to intervene and decide in crisis situations of the dioceses. Similarly, the patriarch may “refer to the Permanent Synod, in a written address, the misconduct of the metropolitans, of the hierarchs under the direct authority of the Romanian Patriarchate and of the patriarchal bishops-vicars, requesting the investigation of this referral to refer the matter to the Archbishop’s First Consistory for prosecution.”29 Again, the hermeneutical scope is quite wide and the role of the patriarch is more than just a formal one. Already after the 2011 amendment, canon lawyers had concluded that “the patriarch has […] been given more powers.”30 This tendency is still present through the changes introduced in the Statute between 2011–2019. This confirms a 2016 observation by Johannes Oeldemann, namely that in various autocephalous Orthodox Churches we are dealing with an “increasing ‘primatialization’”: “Although the patriarch or first hierarch of an autocephalous Orthodox Church is still involved in synodal structures, in recent years, a stronger focus on the respective primate and a related centralization within the individual patriarchates can be observed. This is currently particularly noticeable in Russia and Romania, but also applies to other Orthodox patriarchates.”31 Is the “increasing primatialization” proof that concretized synodality cannot function well without a primacy with clear and strong powers? Or is it rather an expression of centralization as a defensive means against democratizing and pluralizing tendencies within the ecclesiastical corpus? Thus, are we dealing with a service to synodality, or a centralist pull? This question is difficult to answer. One thing is certain. On the basis of these two examples, a reality that is also known from pastoral and church-political practice can be clearly confirmed: the functioning synodality in Orthodox autocephalous churches includes an active and crisis-proof service by the primacy. How this is practiced in concrete cases by the individual heads of the autocephalous Church more or less collegially, more or less self-confidently, is another question. In terms of the statute, however, the head of an autocephalous 27 28 29 30

Statutul 2020, (see n. 26), Art. 26 (36). Ibid., Art. 26 (24). Ibid., Art. 26 (20). Anargyros Anapliotis, “Einführung in das rumänische Statut und in die Strukturen des rumänischen Patriarchats,” in Organisations- und Funktionsstatut (see n. 26), 37. 31 Oeldemann, “Die Synodalität” (see n. 17), 147.

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Orthodox Church is more than just a “primus inter pares.” Theologically this formula may be correct, but in terms of canon law and administrative law, the special position becomes visible in clear powers that enable the entire ecclesiastical system to function in a crisis-proof manner. In other words, the synodal practice of the autocephalous Orthodox Churches shows strong realism while preserving theological minimalism. While, from a theological point of view, the patriarch should always remain only a “primus inter pares,” the concrete ecclesiastical reality grants this office (and following it, the statutes which are supposed to guarantee the functioning of the ecclesiastical organism) a number of powers and privileges. 2.3. In Search of a Pastoral Identity for Orthodoxy at the World Level At the universal level, the same main agents suddenly lose this realism and, depending on their ecclesiastical-political interests, plead either for strict theological minimalism (a strict primus inter pares—according to the Moscow Patriarchate) or for a canonical-historical over-interpretation (the privileges of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, or in the dogmatic sphere, the attempt at a theology of primus sine paribus). Why does the Orthodox Church refuse to transfer its synodal-primatial realism from the regional level to the universal level? This question may be answered by pointing to church-political calculations, the personal vanities of those involved, world-political interests, intra-church tensions, etc. However, in my opinion, the question has a deeper reach. The “historically grown special position of the patriarch”32 (according to Anapliotis) at the level of the autocephalous churches and the realism it reveals is based on a pastoral identity. This, in turn, is also historically grown, nationally (or, in the case of the Moscow Patriarchate, multinationally, even imperially) and culturally conditioned, but it is first and foremost a pastoral identity. Before the eyes of every synod of bishops and every head of an autocephalous church are the very people of the church, concrete pastoral-missionary challenges, but also cultural processes. At the universal level of the Orthodox Churches, there is almost no awareness of this pastoral identity: how the Church of Alexandria understands and practices mission, congregation building, catechesis, etc. is hardly perceived or discussed in Romania or Serbia, and vice versa. It is even possible that pastoral reform processes in one autocephalous church may correspond to opposite developments in other sister churches. The principle of communicating tubes between the autocephalous Orthodox churches functions only to a very limited extent on the pastoral-theological level. The result is that massive disparities exist, with little commitment to a common, pan-Orthodox pastoral approach. The Synod on Crete 32 Anapliotis, “Einführung” (see n. 30), 30.

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wanted to be a pastoral council for common pastoral problems of the 21st century, but is considered by many to be a semi-failure, among other things because it was far too focused on finding quick solutions to a vast backlog of problems and reserved too little time to the process of listening to each other on questions that are fundamental to a pastoral identity. It is not only bishops who have to grow into this (pan-Orthodox) pastoral identity, but also the whole people of the Church. In order to get so far, the proposal of Romanian Patriarch Daniel (Ciobotea) to hold regular pan-Orthodox councils every 7 or 10 years would have to become a pastoral commitment! 33 My thesis is that there is no golden formula for the interaction between primacy and synodality. For the intra-Orthodox crisis of synodality and primacy to find a good outcome at the world level, there is no need for clever strategies or an antinomian formula in the sense of a “Chalcedony” of synodality. No! What is needed is more mutual pastoral listening and a constant anchoring in the concrete reality of the Church. In what way? The sense of belonging together ecclesiologically (as there is one Orthodox Church) must be strengthened by the experience of a common pastoral identity, so that, in the end, existing synodal-primatial structures can also prove themselves at a universal level. Otherwise, one will not be able to rise above church-political quarrels that instrumentalize the pastoral reality on the ground rather than serve it. At the moment, this pan-Orthodox pastoral identity plays out on two registers: piety (pilgrimages, Mount Athos as a reference point, contemporary saints as panOrthodox identity figures and bridge-builders) and the diaspora (e.g., the chance to teach, and the challenge of teaching, Orthodox religion at state schools, in Austria and in Germany). The first register gets along without structures, the second needs structures (bishops' conferences are a step in this direction). The diaspora experience of belonging together is, in my opinion, the key to the growth of a common pan-Orthodox pastoral identity that could foster synodal-primatial structures at the universal level. However, as long as the diaspora situation is still understood as an “exceptional state” in Orthodoxy and the bishops' conferences in the diaspora do not have their own representatives (besides the representatives of the autocephalous churches) in pan-Orthodox processes, this precious pastoral identity remains unused.

33 This proposal found its way into the Message of the Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church (Pentecost 2016), but has not really been discussed since then: “During the deliberations of the Holy and Great Council the importance of the Synaxes of the Primates which had taken place was emphasized and the proposal was made for the Holy and Great Council to become a regular Institution to be convened every seven or ten years.” (https://www.holycouncil.org/-/message).

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3. Theological Approaches: For an Anthropological Foundation of Synodality as a Corrective to Ecclesiastical Self-discourses 3.1 Cultivated Ambivalences in the Theological Discourse on Synodality The lack of pastoral-theological sensitivity for the universal unity of Orthodoxy is not the only problem in this complicated situation. In parallel to this, we are dealing with a cultivated ambivalence in the area of systematic-theological discourse. There are some commonplaces in the handbook of Orthodox discourse on 20th century synodality, such as: 1) the (Eastern) Church has not developed a theology of synodality (or of the Ecumenical Council): this thesis is to be read in connection to the discussion of a priority of apophatic, experiential theological ecclesiology; 2) the Ecumenical Synods were events, not institutions; accordingly, synodality at the world level is not an institution but a charismatic event, a gift, not a task; 3) synodality is first and foremost a liturgically anchored and experienced expression of ecclesial communion (koinonia). The list could go on. However, these three points seem to me to be central. Already between points 1 and 3 there is a contradiction. If there is no traditional theology of synodality, why is the Eucharistic-ecclesiological embedding of synodality so strongly emphasized? But the main problem is rather that these three leitmotifs are actually at odds with theological and ecclesial reality. Regarding the first point. A theology of the synod has emerged roughly since the 1960s, within the framework of ecumenical dialogue, but also in the course of the conciliar inner-Orthodox process. It is not uniform, but there is a theology of synodality or of the Ecumenical Council as such. Denying it can be interesting in the ecumenical profiling process in the sense of an apophatic self-restraint, but in the intra-Orthodox process, synodal-theological reflection and debate is more than necessary. With respect to the second point, synodality at the world level in the 21st century cannot be left to a charismatic eventful “pneumatomonism.” The strong institutional anchoring of the autocephalous Orthodox Church demands, even with a minimal pan-Orthodox synodal expression, institutional maturity, consistency, and clear regulation. Since the political (unifying) factor of the Old (or Byzantine) Church is no longer there, in the age of post-globalization, one cannot rely on social unification processes either. What is needed in the world of the 21st century is a pastorally responsible and institutionally professed ethos of Orthodox unity. Synodality at a universal level cannot function at a purely charismatic, event level, but as (a) binding institution(s). Autocephaly needs syncephaly and vice versa. Just as a diocesan bishop within an autocephalous church cannot establish his pastoral ministry to the detriment or even against the pastoral challenges of the neighboring diocese, but as member of the synod of bishops, and understands

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his autonomy as part of a synodal whole, so autocephalous churches cannot sacrifice pastoral ministry (such as Eucharistic communion between the faithful) as a means of church politics. If autocephaly is not also syncephaly, then talking about one Orthodox Church is pastorally irrelevant and self-contradictory. As for the third point, synodality is, indeed, at all levels, first and foremost a liturgical and thus present-eschatological reality. But synods are also historical events and the institution of episcopal councils, permanent synods, and so on at the regional level are not only doxological gatherings but leading bodies. Therefore, from an ecclesiological perspective, synodality cannot and must not be deprived of this historical dimension. A monophysite ethos of synodality leads nowhere. This also includes the need not only to remain in prayer in a crisis, but also to do what social or political institutions do in internal crisis situations: to find the good will and the appropriate ways for communication. It takes, in summary: 1) A stronger reflection on an applied, i.e. pastorally responsible theology of synodality, 2) an institutional regulation of synodal (and thus also primatial) bodies at the universal level and 3) the willingness and humility to learn from lay crisis management experts how to communicate with each other again in frozen, canonically and ecclesiastically deadlocked, conflicts. For the second point (reform of synodal structures), there are interesting and very concrete reform proposals from the German-speaking world by theologians like Anastasios Kallis34 and Athanasios Vletsis35 on how the synodal and primatial 34 See Athanasios Kallis, Das Jerusalemer Konzil von 2054: Eine Vision der Kirchengemeinschaft (Münster: Theophano Verlag, 2012). 35 See Athanasios Vletsis, “Orthodoxe Synodalität zwischen Ideal und Wirklichkeit: Plädoyer für eine synodale Kirche oder die Lehre aus dem Panorthodoxen Konzil,” Una Sancta 75, no. 2 (2020), 110–121. Here, Vletsis pleads not only for a “kind of parallelism between the synodal bodies in the individual Autocephalous Churches” (114), but also for an “institutionalized design” or “regulation” of synodal life (115) at the universal level. In another essay, Vletsis put forth his vision in terms of a reform program of synodality at all three levels. At the local level (diocese), the laity should be involved in all bodies of the diocese; at the regional level (national church), clergy of all levels and laity should be represented in the central synodal bodies, with clear terms of reference between the Synod of Bishops and the National Synod; at the universal level, a “Pan-Orthodox Coordination Centre” should be created; in addition, there should be a permanent synod for appellation issues, with members drawn from all national churches. The “Protos” at the universal level would, of course, have no jurisdictional primacy, but would preside over the pan-Orthodox synodal bodies; for him to have authority, he would also have to be elected by all the head pastors of the autocephalous Church. See Athanasios Vletsis, “Orthodoxie ‫ދ‬reloaded‫ ތ‬oder

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bodies of the Orthodox Church at world level could be organized in the future. For the third point (crisis management), one would have to venture into interdisciplinary work. It remains for me to contribute something to the first point (the theology of synodality). 3.2 Anthropological Perspectives of Synodality: Communicative Selfcommitment Johannes Oeldemann distinguishes “three models of an Orthodox theology of synodality in contemporary Orthodox theology: a model that starts with Eucharistic ecclesiology” (as does that of Zizioulas), “a second model based on a Trinitarian grounding of ecclesiology” (such as that of Stăniloae), and a third model “that could be called pneumatological ecclesiology,”36 which he equates with sobornost ecclesiology. Oeldemann’s analysis corresponds in essence to the most important trends of orthodox ecclesiology in the 20th century. As a complement, I will argue for an anthropological grounding of synodality.37 In several contributions in the 1970s on the question of synodality, the Romanian theologian Dumitru Stăniloae38 not only argued for a Trinitariantheological perspective, but also spoke to the anthropological foundation of what he calls “synodicity” (Romanian: sinodicitate). Every person is “a dialogical being,”39 because he or she can deepen and recognize his or her own human nature only in dialogue with other persons. The “essence of human synodicity”40 is grounded in the Christian doctrine of the image (man is the image of the triune God). Stăniloae calls this “natural or creative synodicity.”41 It manifests itself in a general form in every kind of social gathering, but above all in the institution of the family and, typically for Stăniloae, also in belonging to a nation. Every family has “a certain common way of life,” although each family member remains a free person; moreover, the family cannot “close in on itself, it needs other families.”42

36 37 38

39 40 41 42

das Ende der Orthodoxie? Der Ukraine-Konflikt als Chance einer neuen ‘Formatierung’ in der Orthodoxen Kirche,” Una Sancta 74 (2019), 164–166. Oeldemann, “Die Synodalität” (see n. 17), 135. See Ioan Moga, “Synodalität zwischen Desiderat und Wirklichkeit: Ein orthodoxer Beitrag,” Communio. International Catholic Review 43 (2014), 148–155. See Dumitru Stăniloae, “Natura sinodicităĠii,” Studii teologice 29, no. 9–10 (1977), 605– 615. See also: Dumitru Stăniloae, Teologia dogmatică ortodoxă, vol. 2 (4th edition) (Bucharest: ed. Institutului Biblic úi de Misiune al Bisericii Ortodoxe Romăne, 2010), 292– 300 and Dumitru Stăniloae, “Temeiurile dogmatice ale ierarhiei ‫܈‬i ale sinodalită‫܊‬ii,” Studii teologice 22, no. 3–4 (1970), 165–178. Stăniloae, “Natura” (see n. 38), 605. Ibid., 606. Ibid., 606. Ibid., 607.

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However, family and nation as moments of a human, natural “synodicity” are unstable realities because they are threatened by abuses of all kinds. It is only in Christ and in the Church that this basic communicative condition of the human being is completed in the sense of a healthy balance between unity and diversity: “In the Church, the extended mystery-body of Christ, although the natural diversity of persons and nations is not abolished, the inner unity of humanity as a whole is restored and extended, freeing it from the contradictions that came through the Fall.”43 We know enough about the ecclesiological discourse on the church as a locus for experiencing divine-human communion (koinonia). What is really interesting about Stăniloae’s view, however, is that the principle of synodality (or, as he puts it, “synodicity”) is anthropologically anchored in the human capacity for communication and solidarity. Ecclesial synodality is thus understood as a means of perfecting a natural given: the relationship between unity and diversity is not present first in Christian Trinitarian thinking, but in the basic human tension between belonging to the same species, society, culture, family circle on the one hand, and the individual vocation and life story of the individual on the other. “Synodicity” is, first and foremost, an anthropological given (communication). In the Pentecost event, through the gift of the Holy Spirit, it becomes a new, ecclesial reality in which the fullness of personal life does not contradict the fullness of unity (communion). The “general synodicity of the Church” thus means nothing other than a gracious (because co-determined by the Holy Spirit) commitment to a communicative-communal orientation of life in which “unity” and “diversity” are in perfect balance with each other. Stăniloae, however, conceives of this notion as a permanent anthropological corrective of institutional synodality: for him, ecclesial-institutional synodality (in the sense of the Synod of Bishops as the governing structure of the Church) is embedded in this anthropological synodicity and can and must be able to express it. It therefore emphasizes that the episcopal ministry is pars in toto, not pars pro toto. This means that not only must each bishop act as part of his community, but also that the Synod of Bishops must never abandon the awareness of being “part of this general synodicity.”44 It would thus be inconceivable for bishops and Synods of Bishops to govern on their own: it must always be kept in mind that “no one can preserve this [apostolic] heritage more faithfully than the Church in its entirety.”45 And communication between bishops (or synods of bishops) and the so-called “people of the Church” is not a one-way street: it is not a matter of “ruling over the [faithful],” but of leading them according to their dignity (subjects

43 Ibid., 607. 44 Ibid., 615. 45 Ibid., 614.

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endowed with freedom and reason) to even greater spiritual maturity and freedom.46 This anthropological dimension of a theology of synodality, of which Stăniloae spoke in 1977, seems to me to have been forgotten today in intra-Orthodox discourse. However, it is crucial for understanding (and solving) the Ukrainian crisis and other instances where pan-Orthodox togetherness is a work in progress: synodality is where we communicate with people—before God, of course.

4. A Pleonastic Interjection: More Participatory Synodality! Before synodality becomes an ecclesial (or even denominational) central characteristic, it is a self-commitment to communicate with each other, in the space of the church. The concept of “participation” is being rediscovered by theologians today.47 Synodality cannot be understood without a participatory perspective, indeed participatory synodality is a pleonasm. For, as Stăniloae rightly points out, even a synod of bishops is not synodal merely because the bishops share among themselves and under the leadership of a primus inter pares a common, i.e. dialogical, collegial governance of the Church. No. Synods of Bishops are synodal and sacred because they are meant to embody and express the whole participatory reality of the Church. The bishop does not represent himself, but a local congregation with which he lives in deep, participatory—liturgical and social—communion. An historical example: when in the 19th century Metropolitan Andrei (‫܇‬aguna) of Transylvania (canonized by the Romanian Orthodox Church in 2011) granted laymen and clerics a say in all synodal bodies of the diocese and the parishes,48 he had in mind this participatory basic dimension of synodality. For ‫܇‬aguna, synodality would be inconceivable without good and continuous cooperation between clergy and laity. As a bishop, he did not see this as a dangerous precursor to the “democratization” of the Church, but rather as an expression of what had always been there: the Church is a synodal organism. In summary, the synodal-primatial crisis of Orthodoxy at the world level has many causes. In the context of this essay, I have defended mainly a pastoral perspective. 46 Ibid., 612. See on this issue Alexandru Rosu, “Fr. Dumitru Stăniloae’s View on Laymen’s Participation in the Infallibility of the Church,” Review of Ecumenical Studies (Sibiu) 6 (2014), 29–48. 47 See Julia Knop, “Partizipation. Geteilte Verantwortung in Liturgie und Kirche,” Internationale Katholische Zeitschrift Communio 49 (2020), 374–385. In the same issue, see the other discussions on “participation.” 48 See Johann Schneider, Der Hermannstädter Metropolit Andrei von Saguna: Reform und Erneuerung der orthodoxen Kirche in Siebenbürgen und Ungarn nach 1848 (Cologne: Boehlau, 2005), 193–203.

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In my opinion, deadlocks (such as those in the crisis in Ukraine) cannot be solved with ecclesiastical-political strategies or canonical and historical arguments: what is needed on the part of the decision-makers is a stronger pastoral awareness of the people on the ground. At the regional level, for pastoral reasons, the Orthodox Church displays incredible dynamism and diversity in its synodal and primatial structures. This should be replicated at the global level (in the sense of syncephaly), if the awareness of the pastoral challenges of world Orthodoxy were really there. Again, it must be ensured that all Orthodox worldwide gain a stronger pastoral identity among themselves. Only in this way can and should synodal (and thus also primatial) structures be institutionalized at the world level and ensure a dynamic shape of Orthodoxy in the 21st century. Closely connected to this is the rediscovery of the participatory dimension of synodality at all levels, from top to bottom and vice versa. Canonical, churchpolitical, historical, and cultural motives must not ignore or even block this communicative basis of the Church. Firstly, because the Church would thereby distance itself from the pastoral reality and thus also from the soteriological concreteness of the Church’s vocation; secondly, because the Holy Spirit can only act when people are in dialogue, synodally (i.e. syn-odos) on the way together (synod is not an expression, not a self-celebration, but a prerequisite of the pneumatic presence); thirdly, because the credibility of the Church as the theandric fulfilment of the humanum must not be put at risk by remaining trapped in ecclesial processes that reveal only the human.

The Idea of “Unity” in Orthodoxy Evgeny Pilipenko

As in philosophy, the idea of unity is a cross-cutting theme in Christian theology which touches on the central tenets of dogmatic teaching on creation, Christ, Holy Trinity, salvation, and the Church. Its particular relevance to Orthodox ecclesiology comes from the fact that Orthodoxy seeks to preserve the ancient form of the structural organization of its life as a sister community (koinonia) of distinctive local churches on common fundamental principles. Moreover, since at the present historical stage the principle of church autocephaly in many respects bears the signs of national and political sovereignty,1 the idea of unity acquires strategic importance in opposing the centrifugal forces of the current autocephalous system. Therefore, here we will attempt to consider various aspects of this problematic, both in its theoretical understanding and justification, and in the practical formation and maintenance of ecclesiastical unity. I will begin by identifying the foundations that have been worked out for this purpose in the Orthodox tradition based on the biblical Revelation. It will then consider by the systematic coverage of the most important principles characteristic of Orthodox how the idea of unity has been refracted in the theological quest of modern times and what perspectives have been outlined for ecclesial thought and practice.

1. Biblical Images of Church Unity and their Reflections in Theological Thought The unity of the Church, according to the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, is a matter of faith—“Pisteúo […] eis mían […] ekklesían” (I believe […] in one […] Church)—and thus, dogmatically, its essential feature and genuine characteristic, so-called nota ecclesiae (i. e. marks of the Church). In justifying the unity and oneness of the Church, Orthodox theology, of course, relies on the evidence of Scripture. In this context, most references to biblical texts do not in themselves differ much from those in non-Orthodox theology, except for the specific Catholic notion of Christ’s reference to the special position of the first apostle Peter (cf.

1

Andrey Shishkov, “Church Autocephaly as Sovereignty: A Schmittian Approach,” St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 60 (2016), 369–395.

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Mt. 16:18-19; John 21:15-17) and the consequent need for centralized consolidation around his successors, the Roman pontiffs, who preside over the Church.2 For example, common to the Western and Eastern traditions of church teaching are the biblical images of the one body headed by Christ;3 the unity of the disciples by analogy with the unity of the Father and the Son; the assembly of the faithful united by the same Holy Spirit in one gospel faith and through one baptism4 around one Eucharistic cup, partaking of one Bread and remaining in one conscience. Confessional peculiarities become evident in the hermeneutical approach: in how these biblical passages are presented, and in how they are understood. This understanding, formed within the framework of patristic exegesis and dogmatic thought, is used in theological-systematic constructions in the field of ecclesiology. Let us point out the most frequently cited passages of the New Testament in Orthodox theology to support the dogmatic claim the Church is one and united. Special attention is paid to indications of divine initiative; to the superior, unearthly origin of the Church; and to the expression of the will of the Church’s existence from above. The origin of the Church is the divine Revelation and the work of salvation of God alone. The Church thus has a single divine foundation: “For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ” (1 Cor. 3:11). By establishing the Church on the apostles and prophets, God creates it as a whole edifice with “Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord.” (Eph. 2:20-21). St Cyprian of Carthage saw as a symbol of the essential ecclesiastical unity the evangelical story of the seamless coat of the Lord (John 19:2324), which is not at all divided nor cut, but is received as an entire garment, and is possessed as an uninjured and undivided robe by those who cast lots concerning Christ’s garment, who should rather put on Christ […] That coat bore with it a unity that came down from on high, that is, that came from heaven and the Father, which was not to be at

2

3 4

See “Pastor aeternus,” Enchiridion Symbolorum, definitionum et declarationum de rebus fidei et morum, ed. Heinrich Denzinger and Peter Hünermann (45th edition, Freiburg im Breisgau et al.: Herder, 2017) (henceforth: DH), 3051; “Lumen Gentium,” DH 4118; “Dominus Jesus,” DH 5088. Pius XII, Mystici corporis Christi, https://www.vatican.va/content/pius-xii/en/encyclicals/ documents/hf_p-xii_enc_29061943_mystici-corporis-christi.html. Wilfried Härle, Dogmatik (Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter, 2012), 593 (with reference to Eph. 4: 5). Cf. 1 Cor. 12: 13: “For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body— whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free—and have all been made to drink into one Spirit.”

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all rent by the receiver and the possessor, but without separation we obtain a whole and substantial entireness.5

St Cyprian calls this unity of the Church of heavenly origin a sacrament. By virtue of the Redeemer’s sacrifice on the Cross, the Church founded by Him becomes a place of reconciliation and unity between God and man, earthly and heavenly (1 Col. 1:20). This unity is so profound that it takes on organic properties and becomes like a corporate wholeness with Christ at the head: the Church “which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all” (Eph. 1:23). “Now you are the body of Christ, and members individually” (1 Cor. 12:27). The metaphor of the body, on the one hand, points to the unnaturalness of all separations—“Is Christ divided?” (1 Cor. 1:13). On the other hand, it allows one to speak not about a monistic reality, but about the ultimate unity of the many, the individual and the diverse: “And if they were all one member, where would the body be? But now indeed there are many members, yet one body” (1 Cor. 12:19-20); “for as we have many members in one body, but all the members do not have the same function, so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another” (Rom. 12:4-5). However, the description of the unity of the Church is not reduced to the analogy of an organic reality. Another important unifying force here is Christian love: we, “speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ—from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by which every joint effort, according to which every part does its share, causes the growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.” (Eph. 4:15). The unity of faith and joining the church body through Baptism are in the Orthodox explanation of the biblical origins of ecclesiology the fundamental formative moments of church identity and inner communion: “For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:26-28). Ideally, this communion should strive to resemble the unity of the Father and the Son as stated in Gospel of John: “they may be one just as we are one: I in them, and you in Me; that they may be made perfect in one […]” (John 17:22-23). From these words one often deduces the idea that the Church’s essential quality to be one is rooted in the Trinitarian prototype—in the eternal essential unity and mutual presence in each other of the Three Divine Persons6 (although the passage 5 6

Cyprian of Carthage, De unitate Ecclesiae 7, https://www.ccel.org/ccelschaff/anf05.iv.v.i. html. Ibid, De unitate Ecclesiae 6 (see. n. 5): It is “unity which thus comes from the divine strength [firmitate] and coheres in celestial sacraments”; Idem, De oratione Domini 30, https://ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf05/anf05.iv.v.iv.html: “And subsequently He beseeches the Father for all, saying, ‘Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; that they all may be one; as Thou, Father, art in me, and I in

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is speaking specifically of the relationship of the Father and the incarnate Son, not of the Trinity as such,7 and no such direct trinary-ecclesiological analogies are found in the Holy Scripture).8

7

8

Thee, that they also may be one in us.’ The Lord’s loving-kindness, no less than His mercy, is great in respect of our salvation, in that, not content to redeem us with His blood, He in addition also prayed for us. Behold now what was the desire of His petition, that like as the Father and Son are one, so also we should abide in absolute unity.” Also in contemporary dogmatic theology: “Thus the unity of the Church has a very special foundation which distinguishes the Church from all other human societies. Such a foundation is the change of the way of being of human nature.” This unity is unity in the image of the being of the Persons of the Most Holy Trinity. In the High Priestly prayer God says: ‘that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in me, and I in You […]’ (John 17: 21).” Prot. Oleg Davydenkov, Dogmaticheskoe bogoslovie (Moscow: St. Tikhon Institute, 2012), 506. See also Constantine Scouteris, “Tserkov, ‘ispolnennaia Sviatoi Troitsei’,” International Theological Conference of the Russian Orthodox Church “Orthodox Teaching on the Church,” Moscow, 17–20 November 2003 (Moscow: Synodal Theological Commission of the Russian Orthodox Church, 2004), 43–56. Cf. the more precise reading of this Gospel analogy of unity by Ignatius of Antioch: “[…] blessed are you, who are united to him [the bishop] as the Church is united to Jesus Christ, and as Jesus Christ to the Father, that so all things may agree in unity!” (Epistula ad Ephesios 5). Cf. the Christocentric understanding of this passage by Theodore of Mopsuestia, taking into account the dynamics of the transformation of human nature: “For I desire, he says, that not only they, but all those who have faith in Me through them, become one in a gracious change. Just as I have a genuine unspeakable union with You, so they too, in their faith in Us, ‘will all be one’ in the perfection of their change to good and will abide in My image and acquire union with Me, from which they will ascend to the glory of the communion of the divine nature” (Theodore of Mopsuestia, Homilia catechetica X (CPG, N 3825)). Further, St. Theodore explains church unity in the categories of the common eschatological hope of Christians for eternal blissful life with God and its full attainment only through the final overcoming of sin beyond time and changeability: “The Church is one and inclusive because of those who believe in every place and long for the reception of heavenly life […] after we have become immutable, there will be the complete cessation of sin and we will become one holy conciliar Church, [we, that is, those] who will receive immutable holiness and become immortal and immutable and will receive that to be always with Christ” (Ibid.). John Behr, “The Trinitarian Being of the Church,” St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 48, no. 1 (2003), 67–88, here 68: “What is said of the Church is certainly based upon what is said of the Trinity, but the effect of speaking in this manner, paradoxically, is that the Church is separated from God, as a distinct entity reflecting the divine being. Another way of putting this, using terms which are themselves problematic, would be to say that communion ecclesiology sees the Church as parallel to the “immanent Trinity”: it is the three Persons in communion, the one God as a relational being, that the Church is said to “reflect.” This results in a horizontal notion of communion, or perhaps better parallel “communions” without being clear about how the two intersect.”

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The more realistic and obvious “natural” factor of ecclesial unity is for interpreters9 the descent of all human nature from Adam, “from one blood” (Acts 17:26), and consequently his healing in Redeemer as the second and last Adam. Mankind, having become by virtue of the incarnation of God one body of Christ, has been recapitulated and gathered into a new people of God: And so it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being.” The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. However, the spiritual is not the first, but the natural, and afterward the spiritual. The first man was of the earth, made of dust; the second Man is the Lord from heaven. As was the man of dust, so also are those who are made of dust; and as is the heavenly Man, so also are those who are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly Man. (1 Cor 15:45-49).

Some contemporary authors see in this aspect the universal openness of the Church, “because its very being consists in reuniting separated and divided mankind,”10 and thus a relevant basis for ecumenical ecclesiology.11 How a living unity is formed and maintained in which believers are “one heart and one soul” (Acts 4:32) is indicated by the evidence of the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost (Acts 2:1-4) and His continuing work in the Church body. The communication to the members of the Church of the various unique gifts from the common Source serves as a solid guarantee of unity in diversity: There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are differences of ministries, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of activities, but it is the same God who works all in all […] one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually as He wills. For as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free—and have been all made to drink into one Spirit (1 Cor 12:4-5, 11-13). 9

Irenaeus of Lyons, Gregory the Theologian, Gregory of Nyssa, Simeon the New Theologian, and others. 10 Georges Florovsky, “The Catholicity of the Church,” in Collected Works, vol. 1, Bible, Church, Tradition: An Eastern Orthodox View, ed. Richard Haugh (Belmont, Mass.: Nordland Publishing Company, 1972), 37–55, here 39. See also Archbishop Hilarion (Troitsky), “Triedinstvo bozhestva i edinstvo chelovechestva,” in Trudy 2 (Moscow: Izdatelstvo Sretenskogo monastyria, 2004), 85. 11 Constantine Scouteris, “The unity and the catholicity of the Church according to saint Gregory of Nyssa, and its ecumenical significance,” in Einheit und Katholizität der Kirche: Forscher aus dem Osten und Westen Europas an den Quellen des gemeinsamen Glaubens; Pro-Oriente-Studientagung “L’Unité et la Catholicité de l’Église” – “Einheit und Katholizität der Kirche,” Sibiu, 27.-30. Juni 2007, ed. Theresia Hainthaler et al. (Innsbruck and Wien: Tyrolia-Verlag, 2009), 173–180, especially 174, 179; Metropolitan Gennadios of Sassima (Limouris), “Orthodoxy in Unity and in Conciliarity: Challenges Faced by the Holy and Great Council in a Pluralistic World,” The Ecumenical Review 72, no. 3 (2020), 345, 347.

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With reference to the apostolic teaching and practice of the early Christians, Orthodox theology (from the earliest Christian authors and especially within the framework of modern so-called Eucharistic ecclesiology) sees the unifying origin of the Church in the sacrament of the Eucharist. It is the assembly of the faithful united in love “for the same thing” (“epì to auto” (Acts 2:1)), that is, “in one place,” and for the common sacrament of the breaking of bread, that creates and ensures on a sacramental, mystical level the supreme wholeness of the community: “For we, though many, are one bread and one body; for we all partake of that one bread” (1 Cor. 10:17). Being rooted in the will of the one God determines the common identity of Church consciousness, “the unity of the faith” (Eph. 4:13), and the only possible act of genuine communion with His Church in the sacrament of baptism: “There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all” (Eph. 4:4-6). Faith in this context is interpreted by St. Maximus the Confessor as one substance which provides the fundamental bond of multiple hypostases and forms within the Church: In accordance with faith it gives to all a single, simple, whole, and indivisible condition which does not allow us to call to mind the existence of the myriads of differences among them, even if they do exist, through the universal relationship and union of all things with it. It is through it that absolutely no one at all is in himself separated from the community since everyone converges with all the rest and joins together with them by the one, simple, and indivisible grace and power of faith.12

Conversely, a loss or deviation from the common creed and uniform norms of church life indicates, according to some ancient authors, a lack of communion with the true God. Thus, Tertullian, commenting on this statement of the Apostle Paul, concluded that heretics alienated from the Church have “not the same God” with Orthodox Christians, “nor one—that is, the same—Christ. And therefore their baptism is not one with ours either, because it is not the same; a baptism which, since they have it not duly, doubtless they have not at all; nor is that capable of being counted which is not had. Thus they cannot receive it either, because they have it not.”13 In line with this logic, certain New Testament statements serve for Orthodox theologians as justifications for the exclusivity of the Church. That the Lord Jesus Christ intended to establish not churches, but one Church, is indicated, in their opinion, by the relevant Gospel parables (about the one flock (John 10:16), the one vine (John 15:1-7)) and statements in the singular, e.g: “I will build My 12 Maximus the Confessor, Mystagogia 1, https://maksimologija.org/st-maximus-theconfessor-mystagogy/. 13 Tertullian, De baptismo 15. Cf., https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0321.htm, Cyprianus Carthaginensis, Epistula ad Januarium.

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Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Mt. 16:18).14 St Cyprian of Carthage referred to the Old Testament prototypes of the united Church as “My dove, my perfect one, is the only one” (Song of Songs 6:9).15 It is from the fact that in the mystery of the marriage relationship between Christ the bridegroom and Church the bride (Eph 5:32) there is no place for third persons that St. Gregory of Nazianzus proceeds when he rejects bigamy: “For, if there were two Christs, there may be two husbands or two wives; but if Christ is One, one Head of the Church, let there be also one flesh, and let a second be rejected.”16 If the Church were not one, the Bridegroom would be a bigamist (let it not be!). In interpreting the special election of the Apostle Peter by Jesus Christ for the foundation of the Church in him (Mt. 16:18-19) Orthodox theology adheres to an exemplarist reading: the reference to only one Apostle is not intended to link the essence of Church unity to a particular name. It does not have an isolating, special character (Peter as the unifying foundation), but has mainly a signifying-numerical function, from which the principle of church unity itself should clearly follow. After Christ’s resurrection, to all the Apostles was given equal authority (John 20:21-23), but “yet that He might display unity, He established by His authority the origin of the same unity as beginning from one. […] the beginning proceeds from unity, that the Church of Christ may be shown to be one.”17 In this act of the Lord the principle of unity around one episcopate is revealed in the Church’s founding.

2. Unity in Tradition(alism) In addition to Holy Scripture, for Orthodoxy the most important principle of the foundation of Church unity is tradition.18 Since ancient times the Church has striven for a common understanding of divine revelation and for the elaboration of a consistent doctrine, so that there might be no divisions, but that all “might be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment” (1 Cor. 1:10). Thus in the struggle against schisms and heresies the view gradually developed that not only the biblical sayings about the unity of the Church, but also the very interpretations of these and other statements and images, permanently 14 Davydenkov, Dogmaticheskoe bogoslovie (see n. 6), 505. 15 Cyprian of Carthage, De unitate Ecclesiae (see n. 5), 500. 16 Gregory of Nazianzus Oration XXXVII, section VIII, https://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/ npnf207.iii.xx.html. 17 Cyprian of Carthage, De unitate Ecclesiae (see n. 5), 4. 18 Archbishop Filaret (Gumilevskii), Pravoslavnoe dogmaticheskoe bogoslovie, vol. 2 (Chernigov: tip. Ilinskogo monastyria, 1865), 22–24; St. Justin (Popovich), Dogmatika Pravoslavnoi Tserkvi, transl. S. Fonov, vol. 3, Soteriologiia, Ekkleziologiia, (Moscow: Palomnik, 2006), 502–504.

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perceived and recognized as true, become the authoritative criterion of truth and the principle of unification on the basis of right faith, i.e. the canon of truth (regula fidei, ho kanón tes písteos, analogia tes písteos).19 In order for tradition to fulfill a unifying function, it has over time been given a character of constancy, stability, integrity, and ultimately completeness:20 The Church, having received this preaching and this faith, although scattered throughout the whole world, yet, as if occupying but one house, carefully preserves it. She also believes these points [of doctrine] just as if she had but one soul, and one and the same heart, and she proclaims them, and teaches them, and hands them down, with perfect harmony, as if she possessed only one mouth. For, although the languages of the world are dissimilar, yet the import of the tradition is one and the same. […] But as the sun, that creature of God, is one and the same throughout the whole world, so also the preaching of the truth shines everywhere, and enlightens all men that are willing to come to a knowledge of the truth. Nor will any one of the rulers in the Churches, however highly gifted he may be in point of eloquence, teach doctrines different from these (for no one is greater than the Master); nor, on the other hand, will he who is deficient in power of expression inflict injury on the tradition. For the faith being ever one and the same, neither does one who is able at great length to discourse regarding it, make any addition to it, nor does one, who can say but little diminish it.”21

These characteristics of Tradition were later expressed in the concept of the “faith of the Fathers” of Orthodoxy, i.e. that which is sanctified by the authority of the holy Fathers and teachers of the Church as the legitimate successors of the Apostles of Christ and identical with their faith. This conception was most clearly formulated in the era of the Ecumenical Councils, which each time declared fidelity to and continuity with the preceding council decisions. On the day of the Triumph of Orthodoxy—the first Sunday of the Great Lent—after the recitation of the Credo, the Deacon solemnly proclaims: “This is the faith of the apostles! 19 Cf. Irenaeus of Lyons, Adversus haereses I 9.4, https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/ 0103110.htm. 20 See John Behr, The Way to Nicaea. The Formation of Christian Theology, vol. 1 (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2001), 17–48. 21 Irenaeus of Lyons Adversus haereses (see n. 19), I 10.2. Cf. John of Damascus, Contra imaginum calumniatores orations III, 41, https://documentacatholicaomnia.eu/03d/0675– 0749,_Ioannes_Damascenus,_Apologia_Against_Those_Who_Decry_Holy_Images,_EN .pdf: “Therefore, brethren, let us take our stand on the rock of the faith, and on the tradition of the Church, neither removing the boundaries laid down by our holy fathers of old, nor listening to those who would introduce innovation and destroy the economy of the holy Catholic and Apostolic Church of God.” Cf. John of Damascus, Expositio fidei I 1, https://ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf209/npnf209.iii.iv.i.i.html: “All things, therefore, that have been delivered to us by Law and Prophets and Apostles and Evangelists we receive, and know, and honor, seeking for nothing beyond these. […] With these things let us be satisfied, and let us abide by them, not removing everlasting boundaries, nor overpassing the Divine Tradition.”

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This is the faith of the Fathers! This is the Orthodox faith! This faith has established the universe!” From this follows a special attention to the patristic heritage, which becomes the guarantor of the preservation and integration of saving Christian truth. For example, St. Ignatii (Brianchaninov) said: Assimilate to yourself the thoughts and spirit of the holy fathers by reading their writings. The holy Fathers reached their goal: salvation. And you will reach that goal in the ordinary course of things. As being of one mind with the holy Fathers, you will be saved. […] The writings of the holy Fathers are all inspired or influenced by the Holy Spirit. The holy Fathers teach us how to approach and read the Gospel, how to understand it correctly, what helps and what hinders us in understanding it.22

To this end, the curricula of most Orthodox spiritual educational institutions are centered around extensive courses in patrology, and dogmatic manuals based mainly on quotations from the works of the holy Fathers. This strict orientation towards the thought of the holy Fathers is further reinforced by their widespread liturgical veneration in the Orthodox Church. They are called individually and collectively as “like-minded with the apostles,” “pillars of godliness,” “organs of divine grace.” This attitude has a pneumatological basis. The “Epistle of the Eastern Patriarchs on the Orthodox Faith” (1723) says that the Holy Spirit teaches the Church through the holy Fathers and teachers of the Catholic Church. For just as all Scripture is admittedly the word of the Holy Spirit, not because He directly spoke it, but because He spoke it through the Apostles and prophets; so the Church also learns from the life-giving Spirit, but not otherwise, than through the medium of the holy Fathers and teachers. […] The Holy Spirit, who always works through the faithful Fathers and teachers of the Church, preserves her from all error.23

It is often declared necessary to remain in unity with the patristic Tradition, not only in spirit, but also in letter. Thus, for example, the Fifth Ecumenical Council spoke of following the holy Fathers and teachers of the Church of God, some of whom are listed by name, in everything: “We follow them wholeheartedly and accept them in everything, […] we accept all that they have stated about the right faith and condemnation of heretics.”24 The holy Fathers’ thought thus appears as a unified and consistent whole (“A father does not fight his own children. All have become participators in the one 22 St. Ignatii, “Asketicheskie opyty,” Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, vol. 1 (Moscow: Palomnik, 2014), 143. 23 “Poslanie patriarkhov Vostochno-kafolicheskoi Tserkvi o Pravoslavnoi vere” (anno 1723) § 12, Dogmaticheskie poslaniia pravoslavnykh ierarkhov XVII–XIX vekov o pravoslavnoi vere (Sergiev Posad: Sviato-Troitskaia Sergieva Lavra, 1995), 164–165. 24 Acta Conciliorum Oecumenicorum, ed. Eduard Schwarz et al. (Berolini: De Gruyter, 1971) 4, Concilium Universale Constantinopolitanum sub Iustiniano habitum, vol. 1, 37.

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Spirit”).25 By virtue of their unbroken succession from the Apostles they form “an unbreakable chain and, joining hand in hand, they form a holy enclosure to which Christ is the door.”26 Subsequently, this construct was designated by the term consensus patrum (the common mind of the [Church] Fathers). In theological epistemology the term is intended as a criterion of truth and, as a consequence, in ecclesiology as an instrument for achieving ecclesial unity based on doctrinal unanimity. “Conformity of a given theological opinion with the “accord of the Fathers” guarantees its Orthodoxy; disagreement signifies heresy.”27 The Ecumenical Councils were elevated to a special rank of holy patristic tradition and to an exceptional degree of consensus patrum: “The fathers and theologians of the seven ecumenical councils were tongues of God who spoke from the experience of their life in Christ. Their theology was a continuation of the Gospel, a continuation of prophecy.”28 At the same time, after the schism between Western and Eastern Christianity, an opinion formed in Orthodoxy that the conciliar dogmatic activity of the Church was finished with the past seven Ecumenical Councils, and that the 8th Ecumenical Council could not take place.29 Church historian Filipp Ternovskii wrote that, by the 9th century, The cycle of dogmatic activity in Byzantium ended with the triumph of Orthodoxy. There were no major heresies after that, but there were no great church teachers either, there were no more ecumenical councils. The account of the Ecumenical Councils was fixed and completed by the symbolical number seven, and the seven Ecumenical Councils remained forever in the minds of the Eastern Christian world as the seven pillars fixed in the building of the Wisdom of God, or the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit. While in Western Christianity the number of the Ecumenical councils increased and had no limit to its increase, in Eastern Christianity, as well as in Russia, there was 25 John of Damascus, Contra imaginum calumniatores orationes II 18, http://www. documentacatholicaomnia.eu/04z/z_0675-0749__Ioannes_Damascenus__Apologia_ Against_Those_Who_Decry_Holy_Images__EN.pdf. 26 “Okruzhnoe poslanie Edinoi, Sviatoi, Sobornoi i Apostolskoi Tserkvi ko vsem pravoslavnym khristianam” (anno 1848) § 21, Dogmaticheskie poslaniia (see n. 23), 239. 27 Hilarion (Alfeiev), “Sviatootecheskoe nasledie i sovremennost”, Tserkov i Vremya 2, no. 11 (2000), 95–131, here 103. For an English translation, see idem, “The Patristic Heritage and Modernity,” The Ecumenical Review 54, no. 1 (2002), 91–111. Speaking against a simplistic formalization of this principle, the author adds, “Heresy, like patristic teaching, cannot be reduced to mere terminology” (96). 28 Stylianos Papadopoulos, “Beitrag zur Theologie der Einheit: Zum Dekret über den Ökumenismus,” in Stimmen der Orthodoxie zu Grundfragen des II. Vatikanums, ed. Damaskinos Papandreou (Wien, Freiburg, Basel: Herder, 1969), 141–186, here 148. 29 In part, this view is related to septimal symbolism and the attribution of apocalyptic significance to the number eight: “St. John the Hermit said: seven is the works of this seventh age, but eight signifies the age to come. […] Solomon said: ‘Give a serving to seven,’ – that is, to this, the seventh-numbered, age, for from the beginning of this world God preferred the number seven to all other numbers.” Iosif Volotskii, Prosvetitel’, 3rd ed. (Kazan: tip.-lit. Imperatorskogo Universiteta, 1896), 340.

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a conviction that there should not and could not be more than seven ecumenical councils. […] Most of our ancestors were inclined […] to the supposition that by the definition of the seven holy Councils the whole sum of dogmatic, ceremonial and other questions important for the church life was exhausted once and for all, so that there is no need not only to prepare new council definitions but even to write churchdogmatic books in the future.”30

Although there is a conviction among some Orthodox theologians that “there are no dogmatic grounds for stating that it is fundamentally impossible to convene a new Ecumenical Council or to recognize one of the former councils as ecumenical,” and although there are examples in history and in theology of the recognition of the Ecumenical character of the Council of Constantinople in 879,31 this openness does not find extensive support. It is to the seven councils that the highest unquestionable authority is consistently assigned as exemplary universal forms of manifestation of the teaching consent of the episcopate represented by numerous holy fathers,32 so that they actually become an inalienable attribute of the Church itself.33 Unshakable fidelity to their decisions is declared to be a guarantee of Orthodox unity: “It must be understood that dogmatic definitions of faith cannot be subjected to any change at all. […] What the Ecumenical Councils have established is the voice of the Holy Spirit himself who dwells in the Church.”34 By the 19th century the concept of the monolithic nature of Orthodox teaching, existing in inseparable unity in the holy patristic tradition and the decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, had become firmly established. The inspiration of God was in fact ascribed to the theology of the Church Fathers (especially prior to the 10th century35), who “expounded and elucidated with as much clarity as possible almost all the essential questions of Church teaching and life.”36 Along with the idea of the completeness and integrity of doctrine, a tendency to preserve the 30 Ternovskii was a professor at the Kiev Theological Academy. F. A. Ternovskii, Izuchenie vizantiiskoi istorii i eia tendentsioznoe prilozhenie v Drevnei Rusi 1 (Kiev: Universitetskaia tip., 1875), 183–184. 31 Cf. “Okruzhnoe poslanie” (see n. 26), § 5. 11, 204; Archbishop Vasilii (Krivoshein), “Simvolicheskie teksty v Pravoslavnoi Tserkvi,” Bogoslovskie Trudy 4 (1968), 12–13. 32 Ternovskii, Izuchenie (see n. 30), 186: “The authority of the ecumenical councils in the minds of our ancestors was exalted, among other things, by the large number of the Fathers who took part in the council decisions.” 33 See the repeated use of the expression “one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church of the seven Ecumenical councils” in the 1895 “Okruzhnoe Patriarshee i Sinodalnoe poslanie Konstantinopolskoi Tserkvi po povodu entsikliki L’va XIII o soedinenii Tserkvei” § 7–13, 20, Dogmaticheskie poslaniia (see n. 23), 252–255, 263. 34 Sem Vselenskikh Soborov: Po rukovodstvu Chetikh-Minei sv. Dimitriia Rostovskogo, comp. Archbishob Averkii (Taushev) (Moscow and St. Petersburg: Poligrafist, 1996), 141. 35 Cf. Papadopoulos, “Beitrag zur Theologie der Einheit” (see n. 28), 147–148. 36 Nikolai I. Sagarda, Vera i zhizn’ khristianskaia po ucheniiu sviatykh ottsov i uchitelei Tserkvi (Moscow: Palomnik, 1996), V. The text was originally published in 1916.

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unshakable unity of the Orthodox faith in its current form took shape as well. Hierarchical teaching suggested that any attempt to introduce the slightest novelty was tantamount to a devil-inspired violation of its purity. It was necessary to transmit the saving faith “to succeeding generations exactly as they themselves have received it, without any modification.”37 However, apart from its soteriological significance, the scope of this task was conditioned by its ecclesiological dimension, since the unity of doctrine is directly linked to the very unity of the Church: “The all-embracing Church of God, which preserves within itself a single, genuine and pure saving faith as a divine deposit, as it was delivered from ancient times and by the God-bearing Fathers, inspired by the Holy Spirit, revealed and inscribed in the first nine centuries, is itself one and the same forever, neither multiple nor changing under the influence of the current time. For the gospel truths never allow themselves to be changed or perfected like the various philosophical systems […]”38

This position, supplemented by an emphasis on spiritual, moral and ideological unity and the need for a hierarchical line of authority, also prevailed in the writings of many representatives of Russian academic theology, named the “moralistic school,” of the 18th and 19th centuries.39 They present the Church as a society united by common foundations, beginnings and purposes: “Upon it lies the peculiar divine seal of election and sanctification, its character and purpose are purely spiritual and purely moral. […] The aim of the union which unites the believers in the Church is the moral perfection and excellency of all, according to the image given by Jesus Christ himself.”40 The unity of the Church therefore requires “unity in the confession of faith and its sacraments”41 and “the union of all in one thought, in one spirit,” under the leadership of one hierarchy.42 Indeed, the pneumatological aspect noted in the concepts of “sacred patristic tradition” and “consensus patrum” indicates inspiration and living creative thought. However, there has always been a danger of excessive formalism and literalism, a unified approach to the views of different authors, which artificially levels their theological and ethical differences, a tendency to preserve and codify

37 “Okruzhnoe poslanie” (see n. 26), § 20, 238. 38 “Okruzhnoe Patriarshee” (see n. 33), § 24, 266. 39 See Reinhard Slenczka, Ostkirche und Ökumene: Die Einheit der Kirche als dogmatisches Problem in der neueren ostkirchlichen Theologie (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1962), 51f. 40 Archbishop Silvestr (Malevanskii), Uchenie o Tserkvi v pervye tri veka khristianstva (Kiev: Trudy Kievskoi Dukhovnoi Akademii, 1872), 53, 62. 41 Filaret, Pravoslavnoe dogmaticheskoe bogoslovie (see n. 18), 370. Cf. St. Filaret (Drozdov), Prostrannyi khristianskii katekhizis Pravoslavnoi Kafolicheskoi Vostochnoi Tserkvi, § 259 (Moscow: Sibirskaia blagozvonitsa, 2013), 67. 42 Sil’vestr, Uchenie o Tserkvi (see n. 40), 70.

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a certain set of quotations regardless of their context of origin and actual application. The German patrologist Michael Fiedrowicz attributes the emergence of this phenomenon to the end of the patristic era of the Ecumenical Councils. Already at the end of this epoch “there was finally a fatigue and torpor, especially in Eastern theology, which hardly mustered the strength for its own intellectual achievements, exhausted itself for the most part in florilegia and now also attempted to present the doctrine of the faith completely and systematically through quotations from the Fathers […]”43 On the same basis, the authority of the apostolic succession was betrayed to the imaginary uniformity and unanimity thus formed. “Consensus as evidence of the authenticity and work of the Holy Spirit became the norm for doctrine and discipline. The principle of unanimity came to stand alongside the rule of faith in the life of the Church.”44 In the second millennium, this tendency in Orthodox theology increased markedly, becoming a methodological commonplace. In the end, the misuse of the authority of the writings of the holy Fathers for the sake of achieving present doctrinal unity on a formal basis and in fixed forms has given rise to another maxim at the present stage, according to which there is no clearly defined, precise and constant criterion of truth in Orthodoxy “apart from God, Christ and the Holy Spirit Himself.”45

3. Unity in Practice Since ancient times, the Church has also striven for harmony in the practice of Christian life, for unity in forms of piety and liturgical worship. That is, the notion of Tradition unifying Orthodox Christians extends not only to doctrine, but also to liturgical forms and principles of spiritual life. In a similar way, the Church consciousness sought to give this aspect of Tradition the status of universality and immutability in order to achieve peace and unity in the face of the challenges of heresies and schisms. To this end, again, the notion of living development is preferred to the more concrete requirement of fidelity to the Tradition. At the universal teaching level, such a vision is set forth in the decrees of the Second Council of Nicaea, which demanded the preservation of “all Church traditions, whether written or unwritten,” and determined to suspend and excommunicate those who dares “to despise ecclesiastical traditions and devise innovations of any kind, or 43 Michael Fiedrowicz, Theologie der Kirchenväter. Grundlagen frühchristlicher Glaubensreflexion (Freiburg: Herder, 2007), 282. Cf. Pantelis Kalaitzidis, “From the ‘Return to the Fathers’ to the need for a modern Orthodox Theology,” St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 54, no. 1 (2010), 5–36, here 16: “Patristic theology was mythologized, removed from its historical context and approached ahistorically, almost metaphysically.” 44 Fiedrowicz, Theologie der Kirchenväter (see n. 43), 287. 45 John Meyendorff, “Smysl Predaniia,” in Zhivoe predanie (Ɇoscow: Palomnik, 2004), 27.

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reject anything dedicated to the Church,” or who “dares to devise anything with cunning and artifice in order to undermine even some of the legitimate traditions existing in the Catholic Church […]”46 The development of the idea of unity by liturgical means included attempts to systematize ideas about the sacraments of the Church. Although sacramentology in the first millennium left room for a diversity of opinions, the tendency to create a standardization of names and numbers was already evident in the Ecumenical Councils in examples of their “hierarchical ordering,”47 that is, in a certain degree of structuring. The scheme of seven unambiguously defined (based on one clear criterion: their divine institution and concreteness of the saving influence of grace on man) sacraments—baptism, confirmation, Eucharist, penance, priesthood, marriage and anointing of the sick—appears after its adoption in the early 13th century in the Christian West. Subsequently, beginning with St. Simeon of Thessalonica, it is firmly included in the dogmatic teaching and practice of Orthodoxy. Not the least reason for the success and vitality of this scheme up to the present time, despite attempts to overcome it in the 20th century, is its pragmatic advantage as a joining factor in the unification of Orthodoxy’s liturgical tradition. As a result, the Orthodox Church’s self-understanding that “the sacraments, and in particular the Divine Liturgy, are the same, luminous and touching, as those delivered by the Apostles”48 is firmly anchored in its self-consciousness, despite some changes in rites and customs tolerated in the course of history.49 The situation is similar in the formation of Orthodox piety and ethics. That the starting points here are the Ten Commandments of Moses and the Beatitudes of the Gospel is self-evident. But no less important, are the principles of the spiritual life set out in the collection of the ascetic writings of the eastern ascetics called the Philokalia (philokalía). The anthology, compiled over more than thousand years (from the 4th to the 15th century), had a strong influence not only on monasticism, but also on other Orthodox believers. Although its authors belonged to different monastic traditions and theological schools, the Philokalia is a coherent whole and shows great unity in content, genre, and style. Generally, this type of spirituality is called hesychasm. The prayer and contemplative experience of the Philokalia was considered exemplary in the Orthodox tradition as an encyclopedia of spiritual life and an authentic moral-ascetic interpretation of the Holy Scripture. The spirituality of the Philokalia was the foundation on which the hesychast practice of unceasing, heartfelt recitation of the Jesus prayer (the constant invocation of God with “Lord Jesus 46 Sacrorum conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio, ed. Joannes Dominicus Mansi, vol. 13 (Florentiae et Venetiae : Antonium Zatta, 1768), 378 sqq. 47 In the Christian East, the first attempt to systematize the Church’s sacraments was Peri tes ekklesiastikes hierakhias from the ɋorpus Areopagiticum in the 5th-6th century. 48 “Okruzhnoe poslanie” (see n. 26), § 21, 239. 49 “Poslanie patriarkhov” (see n. 23), § 2, 145.

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Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me [a sinner],” so as to achieve union with Him) developed and spread. It is seen as an ideal of prayer to which the laity, too, should aspire.50 This attitude has contributed to the Philokalia’s gradual crystallization, communication, and active incorporation into common practice as a classical standard of spirituality and piety, something confirmed both by the numerous reprints and translations of the Philokalia from its first publication in Venice in 1782 up to the present day,51 and the desire to preserve and vitally reproduce its approaches throughout the Orthodox world and its culture. Moreover, according to Andrew Louth, the spiritual-practical teachings of the Philokalia, its ideal of gracious transformation, the deification of man, still determine the character and style of Orthodox theology, making it the core of the method of experiential knowledge of God.52

4. Epistemological Unity In the 20th century several programs emerged to renew Orthodox religious thought, theology and its methodology. The largest and most influential was the direction of “neopatristic synthesis,” the chief architect of which was Archpriest Georges Florovsky. He attempted to find a balance between fidelity to the Patristic tradition and the disclosure of theology’s creative potential in modern terms. Having prevailed in competition with the sophiological approach elaborated in the theological systematics of Archpriest Sergei Bulgakov and with the quest of Russian religious philosophy, the neopatristic movement has gained a dominant position, becoming “virtually synonymous with modern Orthodox theology.”53 The theological directions of Neopalamism, liturgical theology, Eucharistic ecclesiology, and theological personalism generally fit well into the neopatristic synthesis and are not independent programs, but rather its special cases or derivatives.54 The extensive influence of the neopatristic synthesis can be explained not 50 See the 19th century anonymous Russian spiritual classic The Way of a Pilgrim: Candid Tales of a Wanderer to His Spiritual Father, transl. A. Zaranko (London: Penguin Books, 2017). 51 The Philokalia: The Complete Text Compiled by St. Nikodimos of the Holy Mountain and St. Makarios of Corinth, transl. from Greek and ed. G. E. H. Palmer et al. with the assistance of the Holy Transfiguration monastery (Brookline, MA), 4 vols. (London: Faber and Faber, 1979–1999). 52 Andrew Louth, Modern Orthodox Thinkers: From the Philokalia to the Present (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2015), XIII. 53 Paul Ladouceur, “Treasures New and Old: Landmarks of Orthodox Neopatristic Theology,” St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 56, no. 2 (2012), 191–227, here 191. 54 Cf. Ladouceur, “Treasures New and Old” (see n. 53), 196: “We use the term ‘neopatristic theology’ as a broad heading to characterize a certain approach to theology, especially an appeal to the authority and indeed the language of the Fathers, conscious that there are

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least by the appeal to the well-established unifying principle of reliance on the patristic heritage, the appeal to a time-honored past, to a common tradition and “the common mind that existed in the diversity of early Christianity and which has been preserved intact by the Orthodox Church.”55 In other words, the desire for epistemological and methodological unity ultimately prevailed. Florovsky’s position was in many respects quite totalitarian. He insisted “that this narrow path of patristic theology is the sole true way. […] Healthy theological sensitivity, without which the sought-for Orthodox awakening will not come, can only be restored in our ecclesiastical society through a return to the fathers.”56 Florovsky narrowed this path even further by thinking of it exclusively in Hellenistic categories. In his view, Hellenism is a “standing category of the Christian existence.” He therefore prescribed to Orthodox theology an obligatory “spiritual Hellenization:” “Let us be more Greek to be truly catholic, to be truly Orthodox.”57 Obviously, on this path, the prospect of preserving the identity of Orthodoxy in the contours of a uniform profile seems more realistic. This idea of Hellenism as charisma, the condition of life and the possibility of the manifestation of truth, as the historical flesh of Orthodoxy and the concrete substance of theological logos, finds its vivid continuation in the thought of Christos Yannaras.58 The character of the appeal to the Fathers in the search for a neopatristic synthesis may vary. Some important new post-patristic themes have been developed within this approach in attempts to overcome blunt formalistic repetition and to explain the vivid and creative dynamic of Christian tradition (also in its

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varieties of neopatristic theology and that, no more than ‘religious philosophy,’ can neopatristic theology be considered a coherent ‘school’ of thought – ‘movement,’ ‘trend,’ or ‘approach’ would be more apt descriptors.” Behr, “The Trinitarian Being” (see n. 8), 79. Cf. Matthew Baker, “Neopatristic Synthesis and Ecumenism: Toward the ‘Reintegration’ of Christian Tradition,” in Eastern Orthodox Encounters of Identity and Otherness: Values, Self-Reflection, Dialogue, ed. Andrii Krawchuk and Thomas Bremer (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 235–260, here 235: Florovsky’s “program for Orthodox theological renewal was, from the start, also an ecumenical program, aimed at the ‘reintegration’ of Eastern and Western traditions.” Georges Florovsky, Ways of Russian Theology (Belmont, Mass.: Nordland Publishing Company, 1979), XVII. G. Florovsky, “Patristics and Modern Theology” [1939], Diakonia 4, no. 3 (1969), 227– 232, here 232. See Kalaitzidis, “From the ‘Return to the Fathers’” (see n. 43), 8–11, and Ladouceur, “Treasures New and Old” (see n. 53), 205: “Florovsky devoted a great deal of energy to expounding and defending his vision of the vital significance of tradition in Orthodoxy in general and more specifically to Greek-Byzantine theology as the fundamental ‘norm’ for Orthodox theology, indeed for Christian theology as a whole — a exclusivist viewpoint which many are prepared to contest today.” Christos Yannaras, Istina i edinstvo Tserkvi, transl. and ed. A. Markov (Moscow: SviatoFilaretovskii institut, 2006), 162–163.

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ecumenical dimension) so as to gain the “mind and spirit of the Fathers.”59 Nevertheless, the general methodological principle as a unifying, integrative tool seems to remain the same. It is interesting that “the ‘return to the Fathers’ was conceived during the 20th century as a ‘paradigm shift’ for Orthodox theology,”60 and as a way out of the “pseudomorphosis” that had emerged as a result of the excessive adherence to Western theological models in the 18th and 19th centuries. However, both the confessions of the Orthodox faith in the so-called symbolic books (books containing “symbols of faith”) and the systematic explorations of doctrine in the dogmatic manuals of that period relied on the same formal principle of following the Church Fathers. In this respect, there was no significant heuristic change here, in my view. The epistemological shift was perhaps more noticeable in the degree of intensity: neopatristics finally turns into total—both intellectual and spiritual— normativity of patristics, and the intended synthesis is more the ongoing (re-)construction of the concept of consensus patrum. “While it was conceived as a way forward to the roots, the way was, at the same time, regulated. Florovsky’s method, largely influenced by Hegel, postulated the ‘common mind’ at the expense of the positions which did not fit into it.”61 Similarly, Neopalamism, which emerged from a special interest in the late 19th and early 20th century in the teaching of the Byzantine apologist and systematizer of Hesychasm, St. Gregory Palamas (1296–1357), defends an energetic ontology and gnoseology as well as the exclusive priority of the apophatic method and the highest ideal of theosis as the uniform constants for Orthodox theology and spirituality.62 Vladimir Lossky, one of the main representatives of this wing of neopatristics, noted that Personal experience and the common experience of the Church are identical by virtue of the catholicity of Christian tradition. […] always soteriological in its intent, this doctrinal tradition has emerged as remarkably homogeneous despite the richness of its accumulated experience and of the diversity of cultures and periods which it embraces. It forms a single spiritual family whose members are easily recognizable even though they are separated from one another by time and space. […] The Church within which human persons fulfill their vocation, within which their union with God is accomplished, is always the same; though her economy in regard to the outside world must need change according to the differences of historical period and environment in which the Church fulfills her mission. The Fathers and Doctors who, in 59 See Ladouceur, “Treasures New and Old” (see n. 53), 219–224. 60 Kalaitzidis, “From the ‘Return to the Fathers’” (see n. 43), 36. 61 Ivana Noble, “Re-formiruia tochku zreniia na khristianskoe edinstvo,” Stranitsy: Bogoslovie, kultura, obrazovanie 2, no. 3 (2017), 427–436, here 428. Cf. also Kalaitzidis, “From the ‘Return to the Fathers’” (see n. 43), 15: “Indeed, imitating the old ‘Protestant’ principle of the objective authority of the text, we often simply replace the authority of sola scriptura with the authority of the consensus patrum.” 62 Theodor Nikolaou, “Theologische Konstanten in der patristischen Tradition und die Einheit der Kirchen,” Orthodoxes Forum 19 (2005), 153–167.

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the course of her history, have had to defend and formulate different dogmas belong none the less to a single tradition; they are witnesses to the same experience.63

The conviction that the Greek-Patristic approach and the Neo-Palamite method have no alternative64 has led some Orthodox authors to question the soteriological validity and sustainability of other theological paradigms and styles in a rigorous manner. 65

5. Ecumenical Unity (?) When the Orthodox Church in the 20th century entered into ecumenical dialogue with other denominations, it had to give its own dogmatic and canonical vision of what is ecclesial unity in the face of a historically divided Christianity and what the ways and forms of reunion can be. On the one hand, theology, by inertia, often subscribed to the views expressed in this context in the 18th and 19th centuries, such as the identification of the Church of Christ exclusively with Orthodoxy and the demand for full unification with its doctrine and tradition(s). The Russian Orthodox Church’s Basic Principles of the Attitude of the Russian Orthodox Church toward the Other Christian Confessions, 66 for example, states: The Orthodox Church is the true Church of Christ established by our Lord and Savior Himself, the Church confirmed and sustained by the Holy Spirit […]” (§ 1.1) “The Orthodox Church is the true Church in which the Holy Tradition and the fullness of God’s saving grace are preserved intact. She has preserved the heritage of the apostles and holy fathers in its integrity and purity. She is aware that her teaching, liturgical

63 Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1976), 236–237. 64 Florovsky, for example, linked to the necessity of following Patristic Hellenism not only to Orthodox identity but to Christian identity in general. Cf. Paul Gavrilyuk, “Florovsky’s Neopatristic Synthesis and the Future Ways of Orthodox Theology,” in Orthodox Constructions of the West, ed. George Demacopoulos and Aristotle Papanikolaou (New York: Fordham University Press, 2013), 102–124, here 114: “Christian Hellenism is here offered as a universal, transcultural norm of authentic Christian identity in all times and places.” 65 See, for example, Georges Barrois, “Palamism revisited,” St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 19, no. 4 (1975), 229; Christos Yannaras, “The Distinction Between Essence and Energies and its Importance for Theology,” ibid., 244; Christos Yannaras, “Wie ‘orthodox’ muss die katholische Kirche werden? Erwartungen eines Orthodoxen im Hinblick auf die Einheit,” in Dialog der Wahrheit: Perspektiven für die Einheit zwischen der katholischen und der orthodoxen Kirche, ed. Anastasios Kallis (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 1981), 75–90. 66 “Basic Principles of the Attitude of the Russian Orthodox Church toward the Other Christian Confessions,” http://orthodoxeurope.org/page/7/5/1.aspx

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structures and spiritual practice are the same as those of the apostolic proclamation and the Tradition of the Early Church. (§ 1.18)67

Moreover, the “branch theory,” the idea of the equality of denominations as a fundamentally one “invisible Church,” as well as the possibility of the formation of a new “super-church,” are strictly rejected. The presence of non-Orthodox churches does not contradict the unity of the Church, insofar they “do not exist in the Church, but are external to her.”68 Archbishop (later Patriarch) Sergii (Stragorodskii) claimed that there can be no question of a separation of the Churches in the strict sense, since the one living body of the Church cannot be dismembered without being deprived of its being. Thus, one can only raise the question of the falling away from the body of the Church of individual “infected” members who thereby find themselves in a state of spiritual death.69 In order to achieve reunification, the heterodox are required to the “healing and transformation of dogmatic consciousness” in the spirit of the theological heritage of the holy Fathers of the Ecumenical Council era.70 On the other hand, the ecumenical efforts of Orthodox theology have at the same time sought alternative models and images of Church unity, acceptable to a greater or lesser extent for Orthodoxy. The main difficulty, if not an aporia, lies in trying to reconcile the dogmatic position of the unity and oneness of the (Orthodox) Church with the assumption of the existence of other Christian Churches. The problem is also the possible recognizing their ontological identity and the very fact of church division, as well as the explaining on what grounds, not only canonical, but also theological, would be thinkable to unite with them, and what 67 See also § 1.6, where from the “Epistle” (see n. 23), § 12 a passage on the unity and unchangeability of the faith handed down from the spiritual fathers is quoted. Cf. “Relations of the Orthodox Church with the Rest of the Christian World” § 1, in Official Documents of the Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church, https://www. holycouncil.org/-/rest-of-christian-world: “The Orthodox Church, as (ousa) the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church […].” 68 Davydenkov, Dogmaticheskoe bogoslovie (see n. 6), 507. 69 Archbishop Sergii, “Chto nas rasdeliaet so starokatolikami,” Tserkovnyi Vestnik 43 (1902), 1411–1412. 70 “Basic Principles” (see n. 66), §§ 2.3–2.7, 4.4; “Relations” (see n. 67), § 5. But it is interesting to note that even the rigorously minded Hilarion (Troitsky) paradoxically allows for theological pluralism within Orthodoxy itself. See Archbishop Hilarion (Troitskii), “Edinstvo Tserkvi i Vsemirnaia konferentsiia khristianstva,” in Trudy 3 (Moscow: Izdatelstvo Sretenskogo monastyrya, 2004), 499: “Members of the Church enjoy much leeway in theological views, yet the broad spectrum of theological opinion does not disrupt the unity of the Church. When it comes to that, the Church does not even have a doctrinal system with all its sections worked out in detail. This is why academic courses in dogmatic theology always differ from each other. This could not be so had the Church fixed obligatory answers to all dogmatic questions. If the question of the belonging or non-belonging to the Church were formulated in terms of theoretical dogma, it will be seen that it even cannot be resolved in a definite way.”

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this will mean for Orthodox ecclesiology.71 In the long process of working out a solution to these questions, both in the works of individual theologians and at the synodal level, there has been a tendency to shift the emphasis from the formaldoctrinal criterion of unity to internal principles: pneumo-eschatological (trust in the unifying and consummating action of the Holy Spirit), trinitarian (unity without loss of its own “hypostaticity” in the image of the triune koinonia), mystical-spiritual (joint anamnestic experience of the original common ecclesial reality as communio sanctorum and apophatic witness to it).72 All these principles can be attributed to the paradigm of unity in truth, which is understood ontologically— as the unity of the transformed image of the divine-human life in the experience of kenotic love, interpersonal communication, and sacramental-Eucharistic participation in the Body of Christ.73 However, a definitive pan-Orthodox position on this theme has not yet been formulated, even at the Orthodox Council on Crete in 2016, so that the main undisputed and verified model to this day remains “seeking the unity of all Christians on the basis of the faith and tradition of the ancient Church of the Seven Ecumenical Councils.”74

71 Cf. Emmanuel Clapsis, “The Unity of God’s Church and the Orthodox Church,” Public Orthodoxy, February 2, 2020, on https://publicorthodoxy.org/2021/02/02/unity-godschurch-orthodox-church/: “Any attempt to address this problem requires that we consider the Orthodox Church’s sensitivities about the Church’s unity. The Orthodox Church is especially sensitive about maintaining its continuity with the Apostolic faith, life, and witness. Every division in the Church’s history has been viewed as a denial of her nature, separation from Christ’s body, a departure from the temple of the Holy Spirit. In coping with schisms, the Church emphasized unity and promulgated canons to fortify Her unity in faith, life, and witness.” 72 Ioan Moga, “Das ekklesiologische Selbstverständnis der Orthodoxen Kirche: Eine Schatzsuche anhand der offiziellen Dokumente des 20. Jahrhunderts,” in Wesen und Grenzen der Kirche. Beiträge des Zweiten Ekklesiologischen Kolloquiums, ed. Ioan Moga and Regina Augustin (Innsbruck and Wien: Tyrolia-Verlag, 2015), 222–235; Tamara Grdzelidze, “Basic Elements of Church Unity,” in Orthodox Handbook on Ecumenism: Resources for Theological Education, ed. Pantelis Kalaitzidis et al. (Oxford: Regnum Books, 2014), 633–636; Athanasios Vletsis, “Orthodox Ecclesiology in Dialogue with other Understandings of the Nature of the Church,” ibid., p. 642–643. 73 See, for example, Alexander Schmemann, “‘Unity,’ ‘Division,’ and ‘Reunion’ in the Light of Orthodox Ecclesiology,” Theologia 22 (1951), 242–254, especially 249–250. Such significant modern orthodox theologians as Dumitru Stăniloae, Panayiotis Nellas, John Zizioulas, and Yannaras, also think in this manner. 74 “Relations” (see n. 67) § 5. On the possibility of an alternative hermeneutic understanding of the dogmatic approach in ecumenical issues, see Evgeny Pilipenko, “Dogmatisches Denken und Ökumenisches Ethos: Eine kritische Betrachtung des problematischen Verhältnisses in der Orthodoxie,” in Vaticanum 21: Die bleibenden Aufgaben des Zweiten Vatikanischen Konzils im 21. Jahrhundert: Dokumentationsband zum Münchner Kongress ‘Das Konzil eröffnen’, ed. Christoph Böttigheimer and René Dausner (Freiburg: Herder, 2016), 249–262.

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6. Concluding Considerations75 It follows from the above that the concept of “unity” in Orthodoxy encompasses several dimensions. The question of ecclesial unity can be treated in three ways: essentially—regarding the unity of the Church (unicitas); structurally—regarding the unity in the Church (unitas); and potentially—regarding the unity of the churches (unio). Unity as the qualitative characteristic of the Church denotes its inner unity despite all the diversity of its manifestations. The essential principle of unity is revealed through the question of what constitutes the essence of the Church. Such an ecclesiological strategy of thought is related to the philosophical search for the original substance that lies in the depths of a thing or a phenomenon, or behind it, and invisibly shapes its identity as the source ground. While the phenomenal level is in motion and can have different manifestations, the substantial level must remain stable and unchanging, so that it can be the foundation of existence. By fundamental uniqueness (unicitas) it secures the integrity and selflessness of an entity. An important role is played here by the image-ontology, according to which there is a real connection between the archetype and the image: The Holy Church bears the imprint and image of God since it has the same activity as He does by imitation and in figure. […] The holy Church of God is an image of God because it realizes the same union of the faithful with God. As different as they are in language, location, and custom, they are made one by it through faith. God realizes this union among the natures of things without confusing them but in lessening and bringing together their distinction in a relationship and union with Himself as cause, principle, and end.76

The scheme of such a philosophical metaphysics, however, becomes theologically filled in Christian ecclesiology and is not necessarily to be understood metaphysically due to its soteriological character, its deep connection with divine Revelation, and salvific economy. For thinking about essential church unity, in many cases dogmatic foundations are applied: Trinitarian theology, Christology, pneumatology, theology of divine grace. In the Trinitarian foundation, the mode of God’s oneness is made the inner essence of the Church. From the doctrine of the deepest, perichoretical unification of the three divine Hypostases in one being and love, the following ideas are conceptually extracted for ecclesiology, which serve as basic principles of Church unity: identity while preserving difference and mutual otherness.77 75 Based partly on Evgeny Pilipenko, “Orthodoxe Ekklesiologie zwischen Einheitsdenken und Autokephalie,” Catholica 74 (2020), 191–202. 76 Maximus Confessor, Mystagogia (see n. 12) 1. 77 See, for example, Grigorios Larentzakis, “Trinitarisches Kirchenverständnis,” in Trinität: Aktuelle Perspektiven der Theologie, ed. Wilhelm Breuning [Quaestiones disputatae, 101] (Freiburg: Herder, 1984), 73–96.

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The Christological foundation refers to the Church as the image and creation of Christ. The Church is rooted in Christ. His unmixed and undivided two-nature union—the hypostatic union—is prototypical for ecclesial unity.78 As the intertwining of the divine and the human, the Church lives in the one grace of Christ and becomes His one spirit-filled mystical Body. The effective instrument for the common participation in Christ is sacramental worship, especially the sacraments of baptism and the Eucharist, as the falling into oneness of the visible and the invisible, the heavenly and the historical Church. Some texts of the Christological foundation place the accent more on the history of the origin of the Church, on the moment of its birth. One can speak here of a certain genealogical principle that brings about ecclesial unity through God’s unified economy of salvation, His saving action in Jesus Christ, which affects all people in the Church equally.79 The eschatological-teleological foundation may be seen as a certain complementary counterpart to genealogical thought: The Church is one according to its ultimate purpose (telos) and in view of its consummation. The pneumatological foundation sees the Church as the temple of the Holy Spirit and its grace. The Holy Spirit appears here as the life principle of the Church, which inwardly unites all its activities. The same grace and action of the Spirit provides the inner unity of the sense of faith and spiritual life, which is the basis of the communion of the saints (communio sanctorum).80 The structural view of unity means illuminating the criteria, mechanisms, and constitutive signs, which help to perceive, reflect, and maintain the homogeneity and uniformity (unitas) of the single ontological-substantial principle “church” in historical reality. It has instrumental-technical, administrative, practical and partly epistemological aspects. In structural thinking, identity in faith and doctrine, liturgical unity, and the episcopate or priesthood play a key role. It is precisely in this context that the question of the external, visible boundaries of the Church clearly arises. On this principle, it was important for Hilarion (Troitskii) to note that in classical usage ecclesia has two attributes: “the ordered unity and the calling

78 Cf. Metropolitan Makarii (Bulgakov), Pravoslavno-dogmaticheskoe bogoslovie, vol. 2 (St. Petersburg: tip. R. Golike, 1883), 235 (§ 178); Dumitru Staniloae, Orthodoxe Dogmatik, vol. 2 (Zürich et al.: Benziger et al., 1990), 198–199, 219. 79 Metropolitan Makarii, Pravoslavno-dogmaticheskoe bogoslovie (see n. 78), 235. 80 Khomiakov’s celebrated sobornost is also mainly grounded in grace theology: “The Church is united by the uniqueness of God’s grace in all its members, which gives rise to the immanent unity that is related to freedom and love” (Aleksei Khomiakov, “Tserkov odna,” in Polnoe sobranie sochinenii 2, 5th ed. (Moscow: tip.-lit. I. N. Kushnerev, 1907), 3–25). Nicolas Afanasieff understood the Church as a creature of the Holy Spirit (idem, L’Église du Saint-Esprit, Paris: Cerf, 1975).

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(klesis, ekkaleín).”81 It meant an assembly of citizens convened on a legal basis, united by socio-legal status and common purpose. Thus, the discussion is about order and an ecclesiastical life organized according to the same patterns. Unity in faith understood first and foremost as a doctrinal unification is called to train and secure a formal agreement and discipline of thought among the members of the congregation, but which should also, if possible, create their mental unity. In the uniformity of the liturgy a higher value is accordingly given to the concrete identity-forming function—the visible unity of the baptized in the one chalice. From an Orthodox point of view, all this is based on the consciousness and willingness to preserve the one Christian tradition. In this context, the episcopate, and, by extension, the priesthood, are regarded as a sign and guarantor of ecclesial unity. Zizioulas, for example, argues that the unity of the visible Church is secured by the identity of the visible priesthood: The ministry is what makes the ecclesial community and the ordained person relational not only to each other and the world but also with regard to the other communities that exist or have existed in the world […] The ministry of the Church must reflect this catholicity by being a unifying ministry both in time and in space […] The role of the bishop as the visible center of the unity of the eucharistic community is precisely what has made him so vital for the unity of the Churches both in space and time. This has happened under two forms: apostolic succession and conciliarity.82

Episcopal councils and other comparable synodal phenomena play a special structuring role for Orthodox ecclesiology, which in earlier church history often included the Orthodox emperorship as a uniting factor within the boundaries of the oikumene. However, it is difficult to classify these as principles, given that ecumenical or pan-Orthodox councils are not held regularly and other synodal forms of life are exercised exclusively at the local level. The concept of the conciliar unity of the Church is increasingly reduced to that of “hierarchical unity,” in which dogmatic and ontological principles are significantly strengthened: “The Church, in the unbroken succession of her bishops, preserves dogmatic truths intact. This succession of the episcopate is an important guarantee of the intactness of the truth present and preached in the Church. The expression of doctrinal infallibility is precisely the hierarchy in its entirety, since the unity of the latter in the dogmatic realm is a condition for the orthodoxy and canonicity of the Church council, both ecumenical and local.”83 In this view, even the bond of 81 Archbishop Hilarion (Troitskii), Ocherki iz istorii dogmata o Tserkvi (Sergiev Posad: izd. Troitse-Sergiev Lavry, 1912), 11. 82 Metropolitan John (Zizioulas), Being as Communion: Studies in Personhood and the Church [Contemporary Greek Theologians, 4] (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1985), 236–238. 83 Pravoslavnoe uchenie o tserkovnoi ierarkhii: Antologiia sviatootecheskikh tekstov, comp. Aleksandr Zadornov (Moscow: Izdatelstvo Moskovskoi Patriarkhii ROC, 2012), 11.

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love among Christians scattered throughout the world, “is manifested in the unity of the church hierarchy. This is why communion with the church hierarchy is the main sign of belonging to the Church of Christ, and to remove oneself from it is a sin against church unity.”84 But since today at the universal level the unity and consent of the hierarchy takes on concrete, visible forms extremely rarely, staying rather in the conceptual space, the real representative area of the relationship of the episcopate with believers is limited to the framework of each autocephalous Church. This idea may sometimes get more administrative emphasis, so that “communion” is used in the sense of a more comprehensible—and, regarding the uniting function, more effective—canonical “submission.” The formative ethicalspiritual guidance by charismatic authorities (spiritual fatherhood, elderhood) becomes in this model quite secondary. The potential point of view is concerned primarily with interchurch canonical unity (unio). Usually it arises in Orthodox ecclesiology only when the fact of internal schismatic discord within the Orthodox Church or separated Christendom is affirmed as a genuine ecclesiological problem and is taken as a starting point in reflections on ecclesial unity to be achieved under the sign of the fundamental uniqueness (unicitas) of the Church’s being. Alongside the idea that the body of Christ is greater than an institutional Church and that ecclesial unity is not a product of human activity, the anthropologically applied ideas of striving for church community and caring for its unity are rightly in the foreground here. In doing so, unity comes into contact with multiplicity both conceptually as well as structurally, and seeks to define unity as a correlative concept. The potential question obviously has to do first and foremost with the ecumenical approach. In this respect it is not entirely characteristic for Orthodox ecclesiology, which rather claims of ecclesial catholicity for Orthodoxy. But from an internal point of view, the approach gains relevance in relation to the Orthodox autocephaly system as well, which is a unity in diversity of independent local churches. This becomes particularly explosive with regard to today’s situation of the autocephalized and sometimes divided sister Churches with a dominant national element, according to which even talk of a certain “inner-Orthodox ecumenism” has become possible (or necessary?). In this context, the question arises as to how the structural autocephaly principle of the Orthodox Church relates to its theological ideas of unity, more specifically: to the unitary nature of the Church. There are two opposing views on this issue in Orthodox ecclesiology. First is the idea that the internal unity of the Church is absolutely adequate and definitive as expressed in existing external structural forms and, accordingly, that the stable visible structure and doctrine confirm and ensure the essential unity:

84 Ibid., 10.

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Uniting in Christ as their invisible Head all believers necessarily and visibly unite with each other and constitute one union, one society, one Church. This unity outwardly manifests itself in a unanimous confession of faith (one symbol of faith), or in the unity of doctrine, in the unity of worship and sacraments (one prayer), the unity of hierarchical succession (episcopacy) and of church order (unity of church canons).85

In comparison to baptismal and Eucharistic ecclesiology, in which the Church is effectively revealing and realizing through the mysteries of baptism and the Eucharist, in this thinking a higher value is accordingly given to the concrete identity-forming function—the visible union of the baptized in the one chalice. The ecclesial reality, however, testifies to the opposite. It is not self-evident at all that a universal structural cohesion and communion of the autocephalies is realized adequately and to the required degree due to and as an immediate consequence of their ontological unity.86 Second, is the idea that the Church’s invisible, transcendent, and unshakeable unity on the level of essence is to a great extent, or even completely, autonomous from the external structures of its historical existence and consists in a very indirect relationship with them: “The life of the Church is unity and union […] The realm of the Church is unity. And of cause this unity is no outward one, but is inner, intimate, organic.”87 This approach often leads to a neglect of organizational tasks, which in addition to ecumenical issues88 becomes particularly evident precisely in the universal dimension of Orthodoxy. With this approach, a kind of spiritualization and sacramentalization of pan-Orthodox unity takes place, since it is believed that the independence and separateness of the organization of local churches “does not prevent them from being spiritually great members of the one body of the universal Church, having a single Head Christ and a single spirit of faith and grace.”89 The only conditions are the same confession of faith, communion in prayers, and the sacraments. So it is remarkable that, according to very influential Catechism of St. Filaret, these conditions have a more formal and static character. Even Eucharistic unity is viewed mainly metaphysically and is not really concerned with its full canonical manifestation and maintenance in and for the world dynamically, actually, and in relevant forms. However, if the unifying essence remains in principle only internal 85 N. Malinovskii, Pravoslavnoe dogmaticheskoe bogoslovie, vol. 3 (Sergiev Posad: izd. Troitse-Sergievoi Lavry, 1908), 499. 86 Cf. Anastasios Kallis, Auf dem Weg zu einem Heiligen und großen Konzil: Ein Quellenund Arbeitsbuch zur orthodoxen Ekklesiologie (Münster: Theophano-Verlag, 2013), 40– 41. 87 Florovsky, “The Catholicity” (see n. 10), 39. 88 Either ecclesiological ignorance of the separated or ecclesiological ignorance of the phenomenon of division as such in the issue of the division of the Churches. 89 Filaret (Drozdov), Prostrannyi khristianskii katekhizis (see n. 41) § 259, 67.

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and noetic, without being embodied in an adequate structure, the existing discrepancy between thought, experience and reality makes the idea of the unity of the whole Church untrustworthy. This seriously damages the practice and witness of Orthodoxy in the present. If one tries to keep these two visions, one comes to an antinomical statement that on the one hand, the unity of the Church does not depend on external divisions, and on the other hand, the visible unity refers to her nature.90 In one way or another, the dilemma of the ontological and the phenomenal in the contemporary situation is recognized as an ecclesiological problem: The unity of the Church is not a matter of organizational efforts or individual inferences, but a primordial fact of being, a mode of existence on which the Church is based. This unity is identical with the truth of the Church, that is, with what the Church is as a potentiality of being and a gift of life. But this ‘systematic’ approach to the unity of the Church must not ignore the historical manifestations and historical vicissitudes of the unity of the Church. Outside of the concrete historical reality, the connection between the notion of the Church unity and its truth risks becoming an abstract conception that has nothing to do with human life.91

Particularly in regard to the correlation between autocephaly and unity within world Orthodoxy, it has become apparent that the conventional structural principles and forms of unity today often atrophy their unifying functions. Some theological efforts are being made to rethink the principles of conciliarity and primacy at a universal level in order to achieve a clearer visible unity of Orthodoxy by correcting its common canonical organization. The possibility of giving more specific ruling functions and powers to the primate in honor as a unifying and coordinating principle is being discussed. However, attempts to provide direct dogmatic grounds for reformatting the structural level appear as quite controversial.92 It also seems necessary to reconsider the approach in which the inner essence of church unity is imagined in an exclusively metaphysical way in the spirit of ancient philosophy, and thus in the categories of statics and immutability.93 Perhaps it is necessary to put this ecclesiological idea in the perspective of historicity and life dynamics. For instance, the dynamics of the Cross, both in church and in every personal biography, as the new martyr Mikhail Novoselov (†1938) wrote about it: 90 See Viorel MehedintǞu, “Die Einheit der Kirche aus orthodoxer Sicht,” in Festhalten am Bekenntnis der Hoffnung: Festgabe für Professor Dr. Reinhard Slenczka zum 70. Geburtstag, ed. Christian Herrmann (Erlangen: Martin-Luther-Verlag, 2001), 239–257, here 256. 91 Yannaras, Istina (see n. 58), 10–11. 92 Athanasios Vletsis, “Ein orthodoxer Primat? Die Neu-Gestaltung von Primatvorstellungen unterwegs zur Einberufung des Panorthodoxen Konzils,” Una Sancta 70, no. 2 (2015), 93– 118. 93 Cf. Metropolitan Hilarion (Alfeiev), “Einheit der Kirche im Verständnis der heiligen Väter,” in Einheit und Katholizität der Kirche [Wiener Patristische Tagungen, 4] (Innsbruck/Wien: Tyrolia-Verlag, 2009), 43–55, especially 46.

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The Cross, then, is the foundation of Christianity, the foundation of the Church, the power that overcomes the world and the rulers of the darkness of this age. The Cross is the way of the Redeemer, and it is also the way for His disciples: the Head and the members of the Church are inseparably bound together by the unity of the way—the unity of suffering and glory, death and resurrection.94

94 Pavel ȿrmilov and K. Ia. Paromov, “Ekkleziologicheskie vzgliady M. A. Novoselova: po materialam 1920–kh godov,” Vestnik Ekaterinburgskoi dukhovnoi seminarii 2(26) (2019), 11–56, here 23, n.41.

Contemporary Liturgical Practices in the UOC and OCU and their Implications Nadieszda Kizenko “We knew not whether we were in Heaven or on earth.” – emissaries from Grand Prince Vladimir, Hagia Sophia, Constantinople

Lex orandi, lex credendi is a relatively new phrase in the Slavic Orthodox Christian context. Although one may argue that the connection between belief and form of worship is implicit in the apostolic tradition, the lex orandi, lex credendi formula does not appear in Orthodox liturgical or theological texts until the 20th century, engaged with in earnest for the first time by Alexander Schmemann.1 Nevertheless, the insight that liturgical form mirrors belief is a helpful point of departure from which to consider contemporary liturgical practices in Ukraine. These liturgical choices include such classic issues as liturgical language (Church Slavonic, modern Ukrainian, modern Russian, modern Rumanian, etc.), the veneration or demotion of figures with national associations (Grand Prince Vladimir, Andrei Bogoliubskii, Petro Kalnyshevskyi, Ivan Mazepa), and the wording of such traditionally state-glorifying services as those to St. Vladimir and the Elevation of the Cross.2 They also include, however, new rites or commemorations marking victims of the Holodomor, the Euromaidan events of 2014 (the “heavenly hundred”), and the so-called “green” molieben composed at the behest of Patriarch Bartholomew.3 The liturgical choices of different Ukrainian churches 1

2

3

See Alexander Schmemann, The Eucharist (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1988), 11; Alexander Schmemann, For the Life of the World (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1973), 25; Andrii Dudchenko, “Kontseptsiia liturgiinoho realizmu v teolohii Oleksandra Shmemana,” Aktualni problemy filosofii ta sotsiolohii 19 (2017), 27–30; “Pryntsypy liturhiinoi teolohii Oleksandra Shmemana: do pytannia reform u Pravoslavnii Tserkvi,” Bohoslovski rozdumky: Schidnoievropeiskyi zhurnal bohoslovia 17 (2016), 213–221 and “Liturhiinyi realizm v bohoslovi Oleksandra Shmemana,” PhD diss., National Drahomanov University (Kyiv, 2020). The St. Vladimir service will be discussed below. For the 7th century emperor Heraklios, the cross was as much a political, imperial symbol as it was a religious one. The troparion for the Exaltation of the Cross, concluding with the words “Grant victory to the emperor against the barbarians through the power of Thy Cross,” dates from his reign. See John A. McGuckin, “A Conflicted Heritage: The Byzantine Religious Establishment of a War Ethic,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 65/66 (2011–12), 29–44, esp. 40–41; and Daniel Galadza, “Sources for the Study of Liturgy in Post-Byzantine Jerusalem (638–1187 CE),” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 67 (2013), 75–94. Andrii Fert, “Equivocal memory: what does the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate remember?” in Religion during the Russian-Ukrainian Conflict, ed. Elizabeth A. Clark and Dmytro Vovk (New York: Routledge, 2020), 192–210.

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may reflect different political or cultural choices—or an urge to consider liturgy for its own sake. Similarly, when individuals are in a position to choose which church to attend, they may do so out of political or national commitment, out of aesthetic preference, or simply out of convenience. Liturgy is rarely an independent variable. This chapter will explore these issues by comparing the contemporary liturgical practices of the UOC and OCU, the two canonical Orthodox Churches in Ukraine. Neither can be regarded as an embodiment of either pure tradition or innovation. Neither can claim to speak for “true” Ukraine. The UOC was formally created in 1990 when granted self-administration (though not canonical autocephaly), eliminating the old label of “Ukrainian Exarchate.” Volodymyr Sabodan, Metropolitan of Ukraine 1992–2014, began his UOC first sermon with the words, “I have come to my homeland to serve the people and independent Ukraine.” On Sabodan’s watch, the UOC undertook several key initiatives, including the canonization of more Ukrainians and the cautious use of liturgical Ukrainian.4 Although Sabodan enjoyed general popularity, 2014 events including the Maidan protests, war in Eastern Ukraine, and the Russian annexation of Crimea, made it difficult to reconcile radically different constituencies within the UOC. Some regarded themselves as Ukrainian patriots and insisted on the territorial integrity of Ukraine; others backed the Donbas separatists. Even some of those who wanted political independence might have agreed with the 2008 words of Patriarch Alexi of Moscow on the 1020th anniversary of the baptism of Rus: “Kiev, sacred to all of us, the initial seat of the Russian Church, whence, in the words of Nestor the Chronicler, ‘the Russian land came to be,’ and whence began the Christian enlightenment of our people, the establishment of ascetic struggle, the development of Russian culture and statecraft.”5 Before 2018, it might have been enough to appeal to canonicity versus the nationalism of the Kyivan Patriarchate (henceforth KP).6 With the establishment of the OCU and the departure of some for whom Ukrainian identity was key, however, the UOC has a higher proportion of those with sympathies rest with an 4 5

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http://orthodox.org.ua/article/komissiya-po-kanonizatsii-svyatykh-pri-svyashchennom-sinodeupts. In the Laurentian Chronicle, Nestor uses variants of the word “Russkykh.” Polnoe Sobranie Russkikh Letopisei, vol. 1: Lavrent’evskaia letopis’, 2nd ed. (Leningrad: izd. Akademii Nauk SSSR, 1926), col. 102–107, http://litopys.org.ua/lavrlet/lavr05.htm. Following the practice of many Russians, Alexi II renders Nestor’s usage as “Russian.” For a discussion of the contested terms russkii and rossiiskii, see Hryhorii Pivtorak, “Shcho take ‘Rus’, ‘Rosia’, ‘Malorosia’, i iak my vtratyly svoe spokonvichne imia,” Materialy do ukrainskoi etnolohii vyp. 13 (16) (2014), 32–51. For Alexi’s report, see http://www. patriarchia.ru/db/text/426666.html. Emphases are the author’s. Tadeusz A. Olszanski, “The Ukrainian Orthodox Church’s stance on the revolution and war,” OSW Commentary, Oct 30, 2014, https://www.osw.waw.pl/en/publikacje/oswcommentary/2014–10–30/ukrainian-orthodox-churchs-stance-revolution-and-war.

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“all-Rus identification,” and must compete even harder to maintain the allegiance of multiple constituencies. Its approach to liturgy reflects the need to balance these different allegiances. The OCU’s situation is both more explicitly committed to Ukrainian identity and more flexible. Although it too has to operate within certain political constraints—most notably, a clear commitment to Ukrainian independence—because it arose as a new, autocephalous formation, it had a unique opportunity to start fresh. It could compose new rites and texts, or pick and choose from existing ones. They included those of the UOC, the KP, and the UAOC. (The UGCC, with its prominent role in Maidan protests and its simultaneously ecumenical and particularist emphasis on “Churches of the Kyivan tradition,” occasionally serves to provide a source base as well.) This study is based primarily on a comparison of the liturgical rubrics and service books used in both Churches. But, as rubrics do not always reflect what clerics and choirs actually choose to read and chant, it also draws on qualitative interviews with urban priests, choir directors, and singers from the OCU and UOC from Kyiv and Central Ukraine, and a UOC bishop from the Donetsk diocese.7 All those queried stressed that their situations reflected the specificity of their urban locations, the higher proportion of religious indifference in Eastern Ukraine, and that practices in Western Ukraine, especially in rural regions, were markedly different. All noted that less than five years have passed since autocephaly, and that the situation might evolve in future decades. This chapter is therefore meant to capture this moment of transition and to provide an initial exploration of liturgy in a single region among those who “produce” it (which includes chanters as well as clerics) rather than an exhaustive survey of liturgical “consumers” in all of Ukraine. The questions it poses and the evidence and framework it provides, however, may be useful to researchers exploring different regions in years to come.

Language The most basic issue is that of liturgical language. The OCU has no set liturgical language policy (“We have no language issue,” an OCU priest told me. “People can serve in whatever language they wish: in Kherson, some OCU priests serve in modern Russian. But the tendency is to switch to Ukrainian.”) 8 Nevertheless, using Ukrainian as a liturgical language is part of the Ukrainian national project for OCU, as it was for the UAOC and the KP. Following that discourse, the OCU 7

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Interview subjects who agreed to be identified are Priest Andrii Dudchenko (28 February 2021, OCU, Kyiv; henceforth AD); Priest Georgii Taraban (1 March 2021, UOC, Sumy; henceforth GT); choir directors and singers Lidiia Lozova (24 February 2021, OCU, Kyiv; henceforth LL); and Daria Morozova (UOC, Kyiv; henceforth DM, 1 March 2021). AD, 28 February 2021.

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tends to identify Church Slavonic with an unwelcome imperial outsider and “imperial great-power connotations.”9 There is a practical reason for resistance to Church Slavonic as well as an ideological one, in Western Ukraine in particular. Modern literary Ukrainian contains relatively few Church Slavonic elements, as they were removed when the Ukrainian literary language was created in the 19th century and replaced by words from various dialects, as well as from Polish and from Latin.10 Choosing Ukrainian may therefore imply choosing the non-imperial and the non-Russian, but it may also imply a preference for the modern vernacular as opposed to archaic language historically linked to liturgy. There are both ideological and practical considerations involved in the OCU’s favoring Ukrainian over Church Slavonic. Using Ukrainian in liturgy is not a straightforward project, however. The situation is not unlike that of English-language Orthodox parishes in the United States. There is no standard OCU version in universal use. Instead, clerics and choirs who wish to chant and sing in Ukrainian must draw on existing service books and texts, whether from the KP, the UAOC, or even Greek Catholics. As of this writing (summer 2021), there are at least seven different versions of liturgical Ukrainian to choose from. Most Ukrainian translations from Church Slavonic tend to the colloquial rather than the lofty, and are not always of the highest quality.11 Existing translations include those of the menaia, the priest’s service book (sluzhebnyk), and a revised prayerbook (molytovnyk) that is also available as an app.12 But there is neither a coherent corpus of Ukrainian-language service books, nor a consensus on which translation is best. “It’s a mess,” one respondent noted, “at the same service you can hear people singing three different versions of the Creed. If you’re a singer who joins a new choir, you can find yourself automatically singing the Cherubikon text you’re used to instead of the one on the music stand.”13 9

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Yulia Yurchuk, “Religion in Ukraine: political and social entanglements,” Andriy Fert, “Church independence as historical justice: politics of history explaining the meaning of the Tomos in Ukraine 2018–2019,” both in Baltic Worlds 13, no. 2–3 (2020), 69–73 and 74–83; DM 1 March 2021. Per-Arne Bodin aptly cites the term impersko-velikoderzhavnye konnotatsii (imperial-great power connotations) in his “Church Slavonic or Ukrainian? Liturgical Language, Tradition, and Politics,” Teologinen Aikakauskirja 125, no. 2 (2020), 176–186. For a discussion of the historical context of Church Slavonic versus Ukrainian for liturgy, see Nicholas Denysenko, The Orthodox Church in Ukraine: A Century of Separation (DeKalb, IL: NIU Press, 2018), 21–37. Bodin, “Church Slavonic or Ukrainian?” (see n. 9). AD, 28 February 2021. For earlier translations of the minea, see http://sophia.church/minea-yuri-pinchuk/. For the priest’s service-book (including the hours as well as the Liturgies of St. John Chrysostom and St. Basil the Great), see https://parafia.org.ua/biblioteka/bohosluzhbovi-knyzhky/ liturhikon/. For the prayer-book (with a link to the app), see https://ɦɨɥɢɬɨɜɧɢɤ.ɭɤɪ. LL, 24 February 2021.

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It is thus a matter of personal preference—with one exception. Where no Ukrainian translation exists, or where either clerics, readers, or singers, prefer to use it, one solution is to use Church Slavonic in what is called z vymovoiu (with Ukrainian pronunciation) or, more technically, Kyivskyi izvod. That means to pronounce Church Slavonic as a Ukrainian and not a Russian might: pronouncing the letter g as h (Hospodi, not Gospodi), the letter iat as if it were written i and not e (svit, not sviet) or softening the sound where it would occur in modern Ukrainian (pam’iat,’ not pamiat). This is also the solution favored by those who argue that Church Slavonic is a part of Ukrainian tradition (as of all East and South Slavic traditions), and not something to associate either exclusively or inherently with Russian. They may include Greek Catholics. In Kyiv’s Greek Catholic Cathedral of the Archangel Michael, the “To Thee the Champion Leader” hymn at the end of Matins is sung in Church Slavonic with Ukrainian pronunciation. Indeed, as one UOC singer bemoaning Moscow-redaction and Russian-pronounced Church Slavonic told me, “If Kyivs’kyi izvod Church Slavonic has survived anywhere, it is thanks largely to the UGCC.”14 The UOC’s position on liturgical language is different. Although serving in Romanian or Greek would pose no problems, Metropolitan Onufrii opposes any use of Ukrainian in liturgical practice, declaring that the liturgical language of the UOC is Church Slavonic. “We are not,” he states, “going to change anything.”13 Nevertheless, the UOC allows its clerics to serve in Ukrainian in parishes where a 2/3 majority of the parish wishes it (an echo of the 2/3 rule approved by Patriarch Tikhon in his appeal to the Ukrainian faithful in 1921).15 In rural areas like Volyn, some UOC parishes do serve in Ukrainian. In 2011, the UOC produced a bound Ukrainian-language book of needs (trebnyk); a liturgical Gospel followed in 2013. The UOC has not issued its own Ukrainian-language service-book (sluzhebnyk), however.16 There is another aspect of choosing or shunning Church Slavonic as opposed to vernacular Ukrainian that is worth noting. The OCU’s rejection of Church Slavonic may carry the unintended consequence of rejecting of the legacy of early Rus as well as of Moscow and St. Petersburg. The earliest liturgical language used in Rus was Church Slavonic, albeit an older variant of the language (Old Church Slavonic) as opposed to the New, or revised, Church Slavonic used later in the Russian Empire and still used in the ROC and the UOC.17 If the OCU had wanted 14 Ɍ. V. Novikova, “Istoriia Tserkovnoslovianskoi movy na terenakh Ukrainy ta ii periodyzatsiia,” Naukovyi visnyk Chernivetskoho universitetu, vyp. 678 (2013), 145–149; interview with DM, 4 March 2021; AD, 28 February 2021. 15 Cited in Pershyi Vseukrainskyi Pravoslavnyi Tserkovnyi Sobor UAPTs, 1921, ed P.S. Sokhan, S. Plokhy, and L.V. Yakovleva (Kyiv: M.S. Hrushevsky Institute of Ukrainian Archeography and Source Studies, 1999), 503. 16 AD, 28 February 2021. 17 For an argument that 9th century Church Slavonic was vernacular Ukrainian, see Andrii Danylenko, “Constantine and Methodius, “foolish Rus,” and the vagaries of literary

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to emphasize its historicity, that older variant of Church Slavonic would have done so while also differentiating from the UOC’s and the ROC’s New Church Slavonic. But because this solution does not appear to have been considered by the OCU, this suggests that appeals to historicity were not the goal. Nor did the OCU seem to have considered the compromise legacy-accessibility solution reached by the Serbian Orthodox: to switch to modern Serbian for everything read or chanted by clerics, but to maintain Church Slavonic for the hymns sung by cantor or choir. Finally, unlike the KP hierarch Filaret, who calls himself “Patriarch of Kyiv and all Rus-Ukraine,” the OCU does not use Rus as part of its official name: Epifanii’s title is “Metropolitan of Kyiv and all Ukraine.”18 All this suggests that, for the OCU, the argument for continuity with the Rus past or conveying ancient sacrality is less central than emphasizing the unique connection of the OCU to contemporary Ukraine. Bodin thus fairly concludes that “[t]he choice of Ukrainian weakens the claim that Ukraine is the only legitimate heir of Rus, that is, the Kievan State.”19 At the moment, however, the OCU does not appear to see the potential ideological and cultural implications of the rejection of any version of Church Slavonic as a problem.

Veneration of National Saints (and Demotion of Those Bad for Ukraine) In the liturgical veneration of saints, the central issues are whether someone has been designated for general (“universal”) or local veneration and whether a saint may be regarded as “good” or “bad” for Ukraine. Most East Slavic saints designated for “general” veneration continue to be commemorated by both the UOC and the OCU, with some exceptions. If a Rus-era saint is more associated with imperial Russia, such as St. Alexander Nevskii, OCU practice is to quietly ignore him, preferring instead to serve the “universal” (i.e., Byzantine-era) saint of the day.20 This is especially the case when a canonized figure is perceived to have Ukrainian,” in Old Church Slavonic Heritage in Slavonic and Other Languages ed. Ilona Janyšková, Helena Karlíková & Vít Boþek (Prague: NLN, 2021), 31–44. For a discussion of Church Slavonic literacy in the Russian Empire and a knowledge of Church Slavonic among Ukrainians vs. Russians, see A. G. Kravetskii and A. A. Pletneva, Istoriia tserkovnoslavianskogo iazyka v Rossii (konets XIX-XXv.) (Moscow: iazyki russkoi kul’tury, 2001), 25–73. 18 Onufrii has the same title as Epifanii. As Alfons Brüning suggested to me, the crucial point may be that both are metropolitans under different patriarchs, whereas Filaret claimed the title of patriarch. Perhaps only patriarchal rank allows a hierarch to fully enter the continuation of Rus controversy. 19 Bodin, “Church Slavonic or Ukrainian?,” (see n. 9.), 184 ; DM, 1 March 2021. 20 For OCU practice, see AD. For Nevskii’s cult and its implications, see Frithjof Benjamin Schenk, Aleksandr Nevskii v russkoi kulturnoi pamiati (Moscow: NLO, 2007), originally

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damaged the Ukrainian national cause, as will be seen in the case of Andrei Bogoliubskii. Saints and icons can be problematic even when both the OCU and UOC agree they should be venerated. Prince Vladimir (Volodomyr), who earned the “equalto-the-apostles” title for the adoption of Orthodox Christianity for himself and his land ca. 988, would be the prime example. Menaia texts in the Russian Empire used Vladimir to foster the shared all-Rus narrative: “Rejoice, glory of Rus,” in the aposticha is emblematic. But the service also glorified the authority of Russian Orthodox Christian rulers over their subjects. The troparion and kontakion hymns (sung at Vespers, Matins, Liturgy, and any molieben to the saint) both end with the words “Pray that the leaders of your Russian realm, the Christ-loving Emperor, and the multitude of subjects be saved.”21 Interestingly, the Greek Catholic menaion used from the 18th to the 20th centuries contains nearly identical phrasing, substituting only the word “king” for “emperor.”22 The ikos (an expansion of the themes in the previous kontakion hymn) similarly compares Vladimir to the Biblical Moses enlightening his land and redeeming “the Russian land sunk in sin,” and calling upon him to save “his inheritance, the Christ-loving Emperor and multitude of [his] subjects from the pagans that oppose it.”23 These and other references to the “Christ-loving emperor” and his “subjects” became anachronistic with Nicholas II’s abdication in March 1917 and vanished under the Provisional Government.24 In the Soviet period, with an atheistic government going after Orthodox Christianity in part because its previous support of the Tsars, finding new language in which to pray for the authorities was even more problematic. The Ukrainian Exarchate and then the UOC initially used (and in

21 22

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published in 2004 as Aleksandr Nevskij: Heiliger-Fürst-Nationalheld: Eine Erinnerungsfigur im russischen kulturellen Gedächtnis (1263–2000) (Cologne: Boehlau, 2004). “Moli spastisia derzhavy tvoeia Rossiiskiia nachal’nikom, khristoliubivomu Imperatoru i mnozhestvu vladomykh,” Miniia. Miesiats iulii (St. Petersburg: sinodal’naia tip., 1895), 120–129. All emphases mine. Augustus III of Poland was king of Poland in 1761 and the term khristoliubimomu koroliu stayed. Mesiats iulii, ([Pochaev]: v sviatoi chudotvornoi lavrie Pochaevskoi tipom izdana, 1761), title page, 73–73ob. Note that the reigning hierarch is called “Silvestr, exarch of the Kiev, Galich, and all Russia; bishop of Lutsk and Ostrog” (title page). According to Daniel Galadza, the 1761 Pochaev menaion is still the official one used by the UGCC. “Ɉɛɜɟɬɲɚɜɲɭ ɠɟ ɜɢɞɹ ɫɬɪɚɧɭ Ɋɭɫɫɤɭɸ ɝɪ࣎ɯɨɦɴ, Ⱦɭɯɴ Ɍɜɨɣ ɩɨɫɥɚɥɴ ɟɫɢ ɜɴ ɤɪ࣎ɩɤɨɪɚɡɭɦɧɚɝɨ ɞɭɲɭ ɫɥɚɜɧɚɝɨ ȼɥɚɞɢɦɿɪɚ, ɩɨɡɧɚɬɢ Ɍɟɛɟ, ȿɞɢɧɚɝɨ ɨɬɴ Ɍɪɨɢɰɵ ɏɪɢɫɬɚ Ȼɨɝɚ, ɢ Ɍɜɨɢғɦɴ Ʉɪɟɳɟɧɿɟɦɴ ɩɪɨɫɜ࣎ɬɢɬɢ ɢɡɛɪɚғɧɧɵɹ Ɍɜɨɹ ɢ ɨɬɴ Ɍɟɛɟ ɩɨɪɭɱɟɧɧɵɹ ɟɦɭ ɥɸɞɢ, ɢ ɩɪɢɜɟɫɬɢ ɤɴ Ɍɟɛ࣎ ɜ࣎ɪɨɸ ɜɨɩɿɸɳɿɹ: ɢɡɛɚɜɢ ɨɬɴ ɫɨɩɪɨɬɢɜɧɵɯɴ ɩɨɝɚɧɴ Ɍɜɨɟ ɞɨɫɬɨɹɧɿɟ, ɯɪɢɫɬɨɥɸɛɢɜɚɝɨ ɂɦɩɟɪɚɬɨɪɚ ɢ ɦɧɨɠɟɫɬɜɨ ɜɥɚɞɨɦɵɯɴ.” Miniia, 125. For post-February 1917 changes in service books, see M. A. Babkin, Dukhovenstvo Russkoi pravoslavnoi tserkvi i sverzhenie monarkhii (nachalo XX v. – konets 1917 g.) (Moscow: izd. Gos. Publichnoi istoricheskoi biblioteki Rossii, 2007), 414–462.

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some cases still continue to use) the old menaia with inappropriate phrases crossed out and overwritten, as on the page from an 1895 edition (Figure 1).

Figure 1: 1895 Menaion, personal collection of Priest Georgii Taraban, Sumy, Ukraine.

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Some post-Soviet UOC service books used similarly neutral language (“our country” instead of the Christ-loving emperor, “Orthodox Christians” instead of “a multitude of subjects”). Indeed, the most recent Church Slavonic version of the troparion’s last line, used by both the UOC and the ROC in the dedicated service book to St. Vladimir, has been shortened to the highest and most democratic degree possible, to only the phrase “pray that our souls be saved.”25 But, if one does not have the dedicated service book, the “default” in both Russia and the UOC is to use the standard “green” menaia. They tell a different story. They contain entirely new variants of the troparion, sung in different tones than the original tone four. One (tone 1) ends with the words, “glory to Him who through you glorified the entire Rus land”; the other (tone 8) starts with the words “teacher of the true faith and enlightener of all Rus.” Thus while the troparion was initially neutralized and democratized, the new “supplementary” versions on offer restore St. Vladimir as the enlightener of the “entire Russian land.” More tellingly, where the pre-revolutionary version used the words russkikh and russtii for the word Russian, the green menaia version replaces them with the words rossiiskikh (another example of the tensions and implications of the terms russkii-rossiiskii issue discussed in footnote 5). Finally, the democratic variant of the troparion is gone, replaced with wording that restores the emphasis on the realm’s leaders and the multitude of subjects—a pattern duplicated in the kontakion and ikos. 26 The menaion also includes two alternate kontakia hymns. The first alternate, in tone 8, paraphrases the familiar “To thee, O Champion Leader” hymn, initially substituting “Vasilii” (Vladimir’s name after baptism) for the Mother of God and “all Rus” for “thy servants,” but somewhat confusingly restoring Vladimir’s pagan name in place of “bride unwedded.” However, the second alternate kontakion and ikos, both in tone four, do not mention Rus or Russia at all, concentrating on casting aside “ancestral idolatry” in favor of Christ, and refer to Vladimir by name only once.27 The UOC thus offers three different Vladimirs to suit three different ideas of his role in Christianity and in Rus history, and priests and singers can choose among them.

25 The UOC Cathedral in Sumy, for example, uses a book containing only the service to St. Vladimir and the baptism of Rus (Sluzhba Gospodu Bogu nashemu, v troitse slavimomu, v pamiat kreshcheniia Rusi, i sviatomu ravnoapostolu, velikomu kniaziu Vladimiru (Moscow: izd. Moskovskoi Patriarkhii Russkoi Pravoslavnoi Tserkvi, 2013), 15. GT interview, 19 February 2021. 26 Vsieia zemli russkiia and pravovieriia nastavniche i vseia rusi prosvietiteliu, respectively. Ibid, 15–16. 27 “ɢɡɪɹɞɧɨɦɭ ɜɨɟɜɨɞɟ ɢ ɩɪɚɜɨɜɟɪɧɨɦɭ, ɛɥɚɝɨɞɚɪɫɬɜɟɧɧɚɹ ɜɨɫɩɢɫɭɟɬ ɬɢ ɜɫɹ Ɋɭɫɶ, ȼɚɫɢɥɢɟ, ɢɦɭɳɢ ɬɹ ɧɚɱɚɥɶɧɢɤɚ ɢ ɡɚɫɬɭɩɧɢɤɚ, ɹɤɨ ɢɡɛɚɜɢɥ ɟɫɢ ɧɚɫ ɨɬ ɜɫɹɤɢɹ ɫɤɜɟɪɧɵ ɢ ɥɟɫɬɢ, ɬɟɦɠɟ ɬɢ ɜɨɩɢɟɦ, ɪɚɞɭɣɫɹ ɜɟɥɢɤɢɣ ɤɧɹɠɟ ȼɥɚɞɢɦɢɪɟ ɩɪɟɛɥɚɠɟɧɧɟ.” Minea. Iul’ (Moscow: izd. Moskovskoi Patriarkhii, 2014), 186, 191, 195.

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The OCU makes tellingly different textual choices.28 Small vespers is cut altogether (a pragmatic choice, as in practice it is almost never served outside monasteries). The litia hymns replace “the father of Rus” (otsa Russkago) with “our father of Rus” (otsa nashego Ruskogo): Rus is kept, but “our” is added and emphasized. The third sticheron in the aposticha implicitly acknowledges the ambiguous valence of the word “Ruskii,” replacing “Rejoice, glory of Rus,” with “Rejoice, glory of Kyiv.”29 The “Glory” verse on the aposticha replaces the “leader of leaders of Rus” (with the emphasis on national leadership), with the assembled Ukrainian faithful, with the Grand Prince of Kyiv at their head.30 The issue of national primacy and rulers vs. subjects is similarly democratically sidestepped in the troparion, which ends with “therefore we, your people, celebrate your dormition. Pray that our souls be saved” (a phrasing repeated in the kontakion). This democratic trend continues in the alternate canon, Ode 3, which replaces “As a divinely-sounding trumpet, raise your spiritual tongue, o blessed one, resounding to all the ends of the Russian land” (zemli Rossiiskiia) with “all the ends of our land” (zemli nashei). The theotokion for Ode 6 similarly replaces “the rightly-believing Russian Emperor and right-believing assemblies” with “the Orthodox assemblies” (pravoslavnykh sobory): it is not about the nationality of the land or its leader, but the Orthodoxy of its inhabitants. The first troparion in Ode 8 replaces “you have become a new Constantine in all the land of Rus” with “you, o holy Volodymyr, have become a new Constantine in all Kyivan Rus.”31 Thus a service which in the ROC emphasized empire, and which in the UOC still refers to both rulers and ruled, here emphasizes Vladimir’s spiritual unity with his heirs, who are all Orthodox Christians in Ukraine. A service using a nation’s Christianizer to support its current political leaders has been turned to the service of spiritual unity. St. Vladimir/Volodymyr highlights the opportunities and landmines of liturgically celebrating someone venerated across national boundaries.32 Someone like 28 All OCU texts cited here from a KP menaion, Mineia. Lypen. Chastyna persha (Kyiv: vyd. Viddil UPTs KP, 2019), 611–633. I am grateful to Lidiia Lozova and Hieromonk Sofronii (Tiutiunnyk) for their help with locating these texts. 29 For the contested nature of the word “Ruskii,” see note 5. 30 Kniazei russkikh verkhovnago, dnes’ Russtii sobori versus nachal’nyka blagochestia i propovidnika viry, velykoho kniazia Kyivskoho, nyni, ukrainski sobory virnykh (Iul, 191; Lypen, 616). 31 v usii Kyivskoi Rusi (Lypen’, 612, 629, 617–19, 623, 628). 32 Recasting Vladimir for its own national purposes, the Orthodox Church in America sings of Vladimir as a generic apostle-to-a-new-land, dropping all references to Kyiv and to Rus (“Holy Prince Vladimir, you were like a merchant in search of fine pearls. By sending servants to Constantinople for the Orthodox Faith, you found Christ, the priceless pearl. He appointed you to be another Paul, washing away in baptism your physical and spiritual blindness. We celebrate your memory, asking you to pray for all Orthodox Christians and for us, your spiritual children”), N.N., Holy Great Prince Vladimir (Basil in Baptism),

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St. Feodosii (Uhlytskyi) of Chernihiv (d. 1696, canonized 1896) is more subtle. Praised in his Russian-language vita for “fighting pernicious Uniate influence,” “fostering a sense of Russian nationhood,” and “quelling the occasional outbursts of fiery self-willed Ukrainians, thereby protecting the State from harmful disturbances,” one could just as easily—as his Ukrainian vita does—note his connection to local traditions and to Ivan Mazepa, and to substitute the word “Chernihiv” for “Rossiistei, Rossiiskoi” in his liturgical service. Although locally venerated saints might seem to be less problematic, here too there are nuances. In 2006, the UOC approved numerous individuals for local Ukrainian veneration, mostly monastics from the 19th century and new martyrs from the 20th.33 Some saints initially commemorated only by the KP—Iaroslav the Wise, Petro Mohyla—have been adopted by both the UOC and the OCU. Particularly telling was the eventual UOC canonization of Petro Kalnyshevskyi, the last Hetman who after Catherine II’s destruction of the Zaporozhian Sich spent the last twenty-seven years of his life incarcerated in Solovki. Coming as it did after the Euromaidan deaths of 2014 and the war’s start in Eastern Ukraine, this 2015 canonization seemed to hopeful patriots in the UOC to be an acknowledgment of the real violence wrought against independent Cossacks by the imperial state. Despite particular emphasis in Zaporizhia (he is listed as the “righteous warrior Petro Zaporozhskyi”), however, the canonization prompted neither popular veneration nor a shift in other UOC attitudes.34 In 2020, the UOC published a new full (twelve months in 21 volumes) Church Slavonic edition of the menaia.35 As well as saints from Ukraine approved for universal veneration—Luka of Crimea, Gavriil Urgebadze, Iona of Odesa, among others—unique to UOC is the inclusion of saints locally venerated in Ukraine, including those from Kyiv, Odesa, Galicia, Zhytomyr, Rusyn areas, Kherson, Vinnytsia, and Poltava. This seems a step towards adopting a Ukrainian Orthodox Equal of the Apostles, and Enlightener of Rus' - Troparion & Kontakion, https://www.oca. org/saints/troparia/1999/07/15/102031–holy-great-prince-vladimir-basil-in-baptism-equal -of-the-apostle. For Vladimir’s vicissitudes in earlier periods, see Francis Butler, Enlightener of Rus: The Image of Vladimir Sviatoslavich across the Centuries (Bloomington, IN: Slavica, 2002). 33 http://orthodox.org.ua/article/komissiya-po-kanonizatsii-svyatykh-pri-svyashchennomsinode-upts. 34 https://pravlife.org/ru/content/v-svyatyh-proslavlen-petr-kalnyshevskiy; http://kapelan.org.ua/ shanuvannya-pamyati-svyatoho-pravednoho-vojina-petra-zaporozhskoho/; GT 1 March 2021. Kalnyshevskyi was canonized in 2008 by the UOC-KP, who also dedicated a church in his memory in 2015. 35 For menaia revisions in the modern period, see A. G. Kravetsky and A. A. Pletneva, “Mineinye sluzhby novogo i noveishego vremeni: istoriia, poetika, semantika,” in Minei: obrazets gimnograficheskoi literatury i sredstvo formirovaniia mirovozzreniia pravoslavnykh, ed. Elena Potekhina and Aleksandr Kravetskii (Olsztyn: Centrum BadaĔ Europy Wschodniej Uniwersytetu WarmiĔsko-Mazurskiego v Olsztynie, 2013), 15–90.

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Christian identity distinct from that of Russia. While generic services to such categories as “one Caves saint,” “two or more Caves saints,” are appropriate, it might seem a bit awkward that generic services to all 20th-century confessors, martyrs, and hieromartyrs are invariably described here as Russian saints (prepodobnomuchenitse russkoi XX veka edinoi, prepodobnoispovednitse russkoi XX veka edinei, for example).36 Referring to Rus era saints as “rossiiskikh” represents a similar semantic and ideological choice: while it may be argued that rossiiskikh is meant to serve the same overarching function as “British” (as opposed to English, Scottish, Irish, or Welsh), the current identification of the word with the Russian nation prevents the word from being neutral and acceptable in contemporary Ukraine. It is arguably as anachronistic to refer to Rus-era saints with any contemporary national label. The OCU calendar has already quietly removed several saints who were either purely Russian and/or “bad for Ukraine.” Grand Prince Andrei Bogoliubskii exemplifies the latter. A son of Iurii Dolgorukii, he was, according to the Orthodox Encyclopedia, one of the key figures in the 12th century Rus, playing a decisive role not only in transforming the powerful Vladimir-Suzdal principality from the peripheral backwater it had been under his grandfather, Vladimir Monomakh, but also initiating an essentially new policy aimed at making Vladimir-on-the-Kliazma the chief political center of Rus, called to replace ancient Kiev in this role.37

“Called to replace” is putting it mildly. In 1169, Andrei Bogoliubskii joined Volyn Prince Mstislav Iziaslavich in a joint Rus expedition (princes from Smolensk, Chernihiv, and Dorogobuzh also took part) against Kyiv, seizing a revered Byzantine icon of the Mother of God and taking it for his own cathedral (after which point it would be known as the “Vladimir” icon of the Mother of God). A subsequent attack on Novgorod, a second attempted attack on Kyiv, and other aggressive moves finally prompted his murder at the hands of local boyars in 1174. Kyiv never fully recovered its role as the political center of Rus. It would be hard to justify Andrei Bogoliubskii as someone to be venerated in Ukraine. But he was not exactly embraced by the Russian Orthodox Church, either. Andrei appeared on lists of local Vladimir saints only the end of the 17th century and was approved only for local veneration in 1702; he never made it into the official menaia of the Russian Empire; the earliest extant service to him, published separately, dates only from 1914. The cult might have been quietly buried or localized in Vladimir if it had not been resurrected as an option in the Sovietera “green” menaia still found (though not necessarily used) in many UOC 36 https://foma.in.ua/news/v-upts-izdali-unikalnye-bogosluzhebnye-minei. Emphases are the author’s. 37 A. V. Nazarenko, “Andrei Iurevich Bogoliubskii,” Pravoslavnaia entsiklopediia, vol. 2 (Moscow: Pravoslavnaia entsiklopediia, 2001), 393–397.

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churches. Besides standard formulae for a martyr and comparisons to his martyrancestors Boris and Gleb, the service exhorts “all Russian tribes” and “Russian people” to glorify Andrei, nourisher of the Russian land” (zemli Rossiistei udobrenie) and “unwatering pillar of Russia” (Rossii stolpa nepokolebimago).38 Given that the service also lauds Andrei for his removing the celebrated noweponymous icon of the Mother of God to the Vladimir cathedral from Kyiv, it is more than a little ironic that the Vasnetsov fresco of Prince Andrei can still be seen in Kyiv’s Volodymyr Cathedral.39 Not surprisingly, rather than commemorating Bogoliubskii, both UOC and OCU clerics prefer to celebrate the universal saint of the same day—St. Andrew of Crete, who wrote the canon read in the first and fifth weeks of Lent.40 Other imperial associations impel other liturgical choices. Both the UOC and OCU continue to use service books incorporating an 18th century change—a service composed at the behest of Peter I to celebrate the birth of his daughter (the future Empress Elizabeth) to St. Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist, containing a discreet reference to the empress in the first troparion of the canon’s ninth ode.41 By contrast, the Akhtyrka/Okhtyrka icon of the Mother of God, as Christine Worobec has noted, represents the incorporation into the Russian Empire of Sloboda Ukraine (northeastern Ukrainian frontier lands populated by Cossack settlements defending the empire from Ottoman incursions). In this icon, Mary is shown as a maiden with loose hair foreseeing the Passion (juxtaposed against a miniature crucifixion), holding her hands in a traditionally Western gesture of prayer. Despite the Akhtyrka’s widespread enduring veneration in Kharkiv and Sumy, because of its associations with voluntary incorporation of part of Ukraine into the Russian Empire, the Ukrainian Wikipedia describes it coldly as 38 Bogoliubskii did not appear in the 1885 edition of the relevant minea (see Miniia mesiats iulii (Moscow: sinodal’naia tip., 1885). Sluzhba sviatomu blagoviernomu velikomu kniaziu Andrieiu Bogoliubskomu vladimirskomu chudotvortsu (Moscow: Sinodalnaia tip., 1914)). His acknowledgment for the icon transfer appears in the theotokion to the first ode of the canon and troparia in the third and fourth odes. See also A. V. Sirenov, “Zhitiie Andreia Bogoliubskogo,” Pamiati Andreia Bogoliubskogo: sbornik statei (Moscow-Vladimir: Moskovskie uchebniki, 2009), 207–240. Ⱥ new generic service in Church Slavonic to holy princes (or rulers) was composed on the basis of existing services to holy princes and published in 2012 (Sluzhba obshchaia blagoviernomu tsariu ili kniazi (St. Petersburg: Russkii sluzhitel, 2012)). The version currently in use is https://azbyka.ru/otechnik/ Pravoslavnoe_Bogosluzhenie/mineja-iyul/4_2 39 Olenka Pevny, “In Solntsev’s Footsteps: Adrian Prakhov and the Representation of Kievan Rus,” in Visualizing Russia: Fedor Solntsev and Crafting a National Past, ed. Cynthia Hyla Whittaker (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 85–108. 40 For OCU practice, AD; for UOC practice, GT. 41 Published first as a separate service (Sviatago proroka Zakharii, i sviatyia i pravednyia Elisaveti (Moscow: v Moskovskoi tipografii v 1723), then incorporated into ROC and “green” menaia from 1765 on. Byzantine menaia had no service to St. Elizabeth.

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being “venerated by the Russian Orthodox Church.”42 As with Nevsky, the issue is one of real or perceived associations with the Russian Empire. When one OCU priest started to read an akathist to the Iveron icon of the Mother of God in Church Slavonic and came across references to its defense of the “Russian dominion” (derzhava rossiiskaia), he changed them orally on the fly, eventually switching to a Ukrainian edition published by the KP. This is typical of the challenges faced by the OCU in its transition to full Ukrainness. Perhaps the most telling difference in liturgical veneration of saints comes in the second week after Pentecost, designated in Slavic Orthodox Churches for the commemoration of all the saints of any given nation (the first week after Pentecost is All Saints). In the OCU, it is clear: that week commemorates all saints of Ukraine. In 2021, Metropolitan Epifanii led a service and an “all-Ukrainian prayer” on the Cossack graves marking those fallen at Bohdan Khmelnytskyi’s 1651 Berestechko battle at the Georgiev Monastery in Rivne. By contrast, although the UOC had a thoughtful discussion in 2015 on commemorating all saints of Ukraine (noting that the first such service came in the 17th century at the initiative of Petro Mohya), stressing that the best such day would actually be the Sunday after July 15/28 marking St. Vladimir, nothing came of that initiative. There are, however, several UOC churches dedicated to “all saints of the Rus/sian land.”43

Holodomor Commemoration Recent political events pose the most challenges. The famine of 1932–1933 (Holodomor) has been a cornerstone of Ukrainian memory culture since independence in the early 1990s.44 It is reflected liturgically in different ways in the UOC

42 Christine Worobec, “The Akhtyrka Icon of the Mother of God: A Glimpse of EighteenthCentury Orthodox Piety on a Southwestern Frontier,” in Framing Mary. The Mother of God in Modern, Revolutionary, and Post-Soviet Russian Culture, ed. Amy Singleton Adams and Vera Shevzov (Ithaca: NIU, 2018) 58–81; http://artmuseum.sumy.ua/ galereya1/albom-2/ohtirska-ikona-bozhoi-materi.html. For commemoration in Sumy, see http://dancor.sumy.ua/news/newsline/241692 and interview with GT, 1 March 2021. 43 “Predlozhenie o vvedenii v UPTs prazdnovaniia sobornoi pamiati vsekh sviatykh v zemle Ukrainskoi prosiavshikh,” 14 October 2015, https://spzh.news/ru/zashhita-very/26369– predlozhenie-o-vvedenii-v-upts-prazdnovaniya-sobornoj-pamyati-vsekh-svyatykh-v-zem le-ukrainskoj-prosiyavshikh. “UOC churches dedicated to all saints in the Russian land include the Lutserna Church in Zaporizhia”, https://hramzp.ua/church/khram-v-chestvsekh-svyatykh-v-zemle-russko 44 Wiktoria Kudela-ĝwiątek, W labiryncie znaczeĔ: pomniki ukraiĔskiego Wielkiego Gáodu 1932–1933 (Kraków: KsiĊgarnia Akademicka, 2020) and Wiktoria Kudela-ĝwiątek, Eternal Memory. Monuments and Memorials of the Holodomor (Edmonton/Toronto/

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and the OCU. Both the UOC and the OCU commemorate the Holodomor on the official Remembrance Day (observed annually on the fourth Saturday of November since 2006) in civil state ceremonies and through such parish-level liturgical forms as litias, panikhidas, and augmented litanies. In general, UOC tendency is to follow what Church leadership officially prescribes regarding Holodomor commemoration.45 The OCU’s participation is more vocal, more diverse, and more enthusiastically engaged with secular memory culture—an approach they share with the Estonian Apostolic Orthodox Church (EAOC), the Orthodox Church in Estonia under the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Constantinople. The OCU is also more inclined to use forms of Holodomor commemoration developed in the North American diaspora in the 1950s-mid 1960s (for example, referring to Holodomor victims as martyrs—a problem discussed below in the context of the Euromaidan victims).46 Perhaps because of the OCU’s embrace of secular memory culture, and because of their willingness to take part in joint religious commemoration ceremonies (something some UOC clerics resist, as it implies recognition or concelebration), some in the UOC opine that the OCU “politicizes” the Holodomor, especially by using the contested word “genocide.” It might be worth noting (one OCU cleric told me he could neither forgive nor forget this) Metropolitan Onufrii’s 2008 referring to the Holodomor as a punishment sent by God for the sins of Ukrainians, using the colloquial phrase “katiuzi po zasluzi”— something prompting only private murmuring at the time but after 2014 negatively commented upon in the Ukrainian press.47 As regards other forms of liturgical commemoration, there is no official instruction in either the UOC or OCU on inserting as a separate category names of Orthodox famine victims on the Saturdays earmarked for commemoration of departed kin (roditelskie subboty).48

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Cracow: University of Alberta, Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies Press, KsiĊgarnia Akademicka, 2021). https://news.church.ua/2019/11/24/v-usix-jeparxiyax-upc-vshanuvali-pamyat-zhertvgolodomoru-ta-politichnix-represij-foto-video/; https://news.church.ua/2019/11/23/ predstoyatel-upc-vzyav-uchast-u-derzhavnij-ceremoniji-vshanuvannya-zhertv-golodomoru1932–1933–rokiv/. Frank Sysyn, “The Sacralization of the Holodomor: the Role of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in the USA and the Memorial Church in Bound Book,” https://em3byzx68tj. exactdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Sysyn_The-Ukrainian-Orthodox-Church.pdf. AD; https://ostannipodii.com/a/201408/mitropolit_onufriy_ranishe_zayavlyav_scho_ golodomor_ce_bozha_kara-100004002/; https://raskolam.net/ua/3473–ɤɚɬɸɡɿ-ɩɨ-ɡɚɫɥɭɡɿɭ-ɜɢɤɨɧɚɧɧɿ-ɭɩɰ-ɤɩ. DM, 4 March 2021; AD, 28 February 2021.

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“Heavenly Hundred” (Euromaidan) (Revolution of Dignity) Commemorations Everyone can agree that the deaths of millions from hunger were a tragedy, and that the death of Orthodox Christian believers ought to be marked. Commemoration of those who perished at the 2014 Maidan protests is more directly political and politicized. Greek and Roman Catholics, who together with KP clerics dominated the religious aspect of the protests, unabashedly refer to the “heavenly hundred” as “new martyrs,” acclaiming them in a Stations of the Cross prayer as “rebelling against the evil that dominated our state, against the aggressors from the East, from Moscow swamps.”49 Both the KP and the UGCC depict the “heavenly hundred” on icons with “The Mother of God, Protector of Ukrainian Warriors” (such icons may also include OUN-UPA banners and Stepan Bandera). The approaches of the UOC and the OCU are markedly different. The OCU, which commemorates those perished as “all warriors of the Maidan killed by Russian aggression,” takes part in joint processions with Greek Catholics starting at the UGCC Archangel Michael Cathedral to the UGCC “ecumenical” chapel to the “heavenly hundred,” described as “new martyrs.”50 Panikhidas commemorating “fallen ATO warriors” (soldiers fighting in Eastern Ukraine) are another part of OCU’s participating in secular memory culture. However, there is no Eucharistic concelebration for the “heavenly hundred” between the OCU and any non-Orthodox confession. Both UOC and OCU clerics dismiss such productions as Ioann Shvets’s akathist to the “heavenly hundred” as “amateurish at best” (OCU) or “political acts” (UOC).51

New Martyrs (Orthodox Christians Martyred in the Soviet Period) Although both the OCU and the UOC use the category “new martyrs,” they interpret it differently. For the UOC, as for the ROC, the phrase “new martyrs” 49 Stations of the Cross prayer cited by Andriy Fert, “Sacralization of Memory of Euromaidan Protests from a Post-secular Perspective,” forthcoming in Sacralization of History in (Contemporary) Eastern Europe: Actors – Networks – Topics, ed. Liliya Berezhnaya. 50 In the Greek Church, the term “neomartyr” also suggests a national hero. Greek scholars have recently begun to grapple with the term and its uses. See Yorgos Tzedopoulos, “Martyrdom and Confessionalization among the Greek-Orthodox of the Ottoman Empire, late 15th – mid 17th centuries,” paper delivered at “Entangled confessionalizations? Dialogic perspectives on community and confession-building initiatives in the Ottoman Empire,” Budapest, June 1–3, 2018. For the Ukrainian context, see Maria Grazia Bartolini, “The Discourse of Martyrdom in Late Seventeenth-Century Ukraine: The ‘PassionSufferers’ Boris and Gleb in the Homilies of Antonij Radylovs’kyj and Lazar Baranovyþ,” Zeitschrift für Slawistik 61 (2016), 499–527. 51 AD; GT; DM.

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means victims of communist persecution and includes the Romanovs. In effect the UOC reproduces the martyr category as defined by the ROC, with the primary villain being the atheistic regime and the martyrs being Orthodox Christians as such (but especially those who perished on the territory of Ukraine, at least in local veneration). For the OCU the situation is more problematic. They are not ready to declare all victims of the Holodomor martyrs, as did the Armenian Church with the victims of the genocidal Turkish policies of 1915–1923.52 Nor are they, like the UGCC, ready to canonize the victims of Euromaidan along with everyone killed post-1945. With time, we may see a process in the OCU similar to what Irina Paert has explored for the EAOC in Estonia. Although the EOC (the Estonian Orthodox Church in communion with the Moscow Patriarchate) commemorates the same new martyrs as does the ROC, it has grappled less successfully with incorporating such local victims of Stalinism as Ivan Lagovskii (killed in 1944 and canonized by the EAOC). This may, as Paert suggests, indicate a lack of deep engagement with the memory of communist repression—or it may indicate a fear of stoking an anti-Russian narrative. Like the UOC, the EOC prefers such overarching, all-embracing figures as the 15th century saint Isidor of Iuriev (a pre-national, pre-Muscovy symbol whose cult the late imperial Russian Orthodox Church revived in the early 20th century). But the EAOC, like the OCU, has little interest in anything that might strengthen the EOC’s (or the UOC’s) attempted supra-national imperial project. Instead, it emphasizes those local saints who suffered martyrdom in the Soviet period, canonizing many new Stalin-era martyrs in the years 2012–2019. By doing so, as Paert notes, they try to incorporate the local Orthodox story into the reigning national narrative of victimhood, injustice, and suffering.53 For the OCU, if the goal is similarly to differentiate from Russia and to claim exclusive rights to the nation, an equivalent process might mean more or continued focus on Holodomor, Soviet-era, and post-Soviet 52 For the 2015 canonization, see N.N. “The Armenian Genocide: 1915–1923,” https://armenianchurch.us/the-saints/holy-martyrs-of-the-armenian-genocide/; for the construction—and 2014 destruction by Islamic fundamentalists—, see Alexander Mikaberidze, “Deir ez-Zor,” Behind Barbed Wire: An Encyclopedia of Concentration and Prisoner-of-War Camps ed. Alexander Mikaberidze (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2019), 86–87. For the post-Soviet discourse, see Karin Hyldal Christensen, The Making of the New Martyrs of Russia: Soviet Repression in Orthodox Memory (New York: Routledge, 2018). 53 Irina Paert, “Novomucheniki Estonii 1919g. Vospriiatie sovremennikami i praktiki pamiati,” in Tserkva muchenykiv: honinnia na viru ta tserkvu u XX stolitti ed. S. V. Shumylo (Kyiv: vyd. viddil UPTs, 2020), 90–102; Irina Paert, “A family affair? Postimperial Estonian Orthodoxy and its relationship with the Russian Mother Church, 1917– 23,” Canadian Slavonic Papers, 26, no. 3–4 (2020), 315–40; Eadem, “Memory of socialism and the Russian Orthodox believers in Estonia,” Journal of Baltic Studies 47, no. 4 (2016), 497–512.

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Orthodox martyrs. If the goal is also to play up a “modern, liberal” approach to Orthodox Christianity in Ukraine (as in the EAOC), this might mean canonizing ecumenically minded or social engaged holy people broadly speaking (the OCU’s honoring such saints as Mother Maria Skobtsova of Paris and Ravensbrück would be one such example). It might also mean embracing the “ten theses” based in liturgical reform (rather than Ukrainian nationality) described by Lidiia Lozova and Tetiana Kalenychenko in this volume.

New and Revised Liturgical and Para-Liturgical Texts and Practices Both the UOC and the OCU maintain most of their pre-2014 liturgical and paraliturgical practices, which include akathists before specially venerated icons, delivering not one but two homilies—one after the Epistle, one after the Gospel— and cross processions. Both preserve liturgical customs more common in Ukraine than in Russia—for example, having parish choirs singing carols instead of prescribed communion hymns at Christmastide; strong traditions of communal liturgical singing. Some UOC parishes preserve the custom of singing the Marian hymn, Tsaritse moia preblagaia, before their local Marian icon (such as before the Korsun icon in Sumy). UOC Kherson maintains a post-1917 custom of serving a molieben after every liturgy. This practice is emblematic of the UOC’s approach to liturgy reflecting practices from the late 19th and 20th centuries. It acknowledges that some laypeople see the liturgy proper as the “official” part of the “program,” but the paraliturgical interpolations that may follow—akathist, molieben, waterblessing—as “ours,” or “for the people.” This is antithetical to the Eucharisticrevival approach, where the liturgy itself and especially the Eucharist are meant to be everything—something more visible in the OCU though not exclusive to it. But one should not exaggerate this tendency. At Matins, both UOC and OCU often substitute an akathist for the kathisma. After 2014, both the OCU and the UOC have seen revised liturgical and paraliturgical practices, both voluntary and involuntary. The UOC’s paraliturgical changes have been prompted by mostly external, involuntary phenomena, especially when attempting to carry out services outside of church. In Sumy, for the feast of the Protection of the Mother of God, a UOC parish used to serve in front of an administrative building that was formerly the regimental church of the Sumy hussars. After 2014, however, local hoodlums have disrupted the services, in “provocations reminiscent of the 1930s.” Attempts for local authorities’ support have had no success. Another liturgical victim of politics is the former tradition of joint Ukrainian-Russian revering of the Priazhenskoi icon of the Mother of God. The icon had been solemnly carried back and forth from the Russian side of

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the border to Ukrainian side in a procession. However, the ROC archbishop ended the procession in 2013.54 The OCU has been more explicitly creative (one might say proactive). In an example of voluntary initiatives, the OCU has borrowed a text and practice from the Constantinople Patriarchate: an “eco-molieben” served on the Church New Year. This has been translated from the English translation of the original Greek version into both Ukrainian and Church Slavonic, although in practice only the Ukrainian has been celebrated. But the OCU is, like the UOC, on the Julian Calendar. That meant that they could not serve the molieben on the same calendar date as it is served in (for example) Istanbul, Athens, or New York (September 1), but on the equivalent date on the Old Calendar (September 14).55 If the goal is consistency with the “mother” patriarchate, a calendar change may eventually follow. Specific to 2020–2021 has been grappling with Covid-19. By and large, masks and such alternate forms as receiving communion in one’s hand were more typical of the OCU, as was discussion of “virtual” communion. The UOC did not enforce mask-wearing and largely maintained the practice of distributing communion into the mouth from a common spoon.56

Naming the Nation (and the Church) In litanies, Orthodox services often implore God for protection from danger, pestilence, invasion, and so on. But they also (following 1 Pet. 2:13-21) pray for their land and for their rulers. Before 1917, as seen also in the troparia to St. Volodymyr and the Holy Cross, that meant “our sovereign EMPEROR x.” In the Soviet period, that meant referring only “this land, its authorities, and its armed forces”— a formula repeated in service books after the fall of communism. Pre-2018 service books, whether Church Slavonic (UOC-MP) or Ukrainian (UOC-KP), continued to avoid naming the nation, using the terms “land” or “country”—this is still the phrasing used in the UOC—sometimes inserting “God-preserved” (bogokhranimoi). OCU books, however, now consistently refer to “our state, Ukraine,” 54 GT, 1 March 2021. 55 For an English version of the molieben, see “The Order of a Service of Prayer for the Preservation of God’s Creation,” http://www.orth-transfiguration.org/wp-content/uploads /2016/05/Ecological-Moleben.pdf. For Bartholomew’s 2020 ecological address at the Vatican, see https://www.vaticannews.va/en/church/news/2020–09/bartholomew-i-messa ge-for-world-day-of-creation-full-text.html. 56 Interviews with LL, IT, AD; https://www.nta.ua/velykden-prychastya-ta-spovid-pid-chaspandemiyi-otecz-yustyn-bojko/. See the July 2021 publication of Fenomen onlainprichastia. Refleksii. Polemika. Perspektyvy http://www.mvfund.org/vidannya/933–feno men-onlain-prychastia-refleksii-polemika-perspektyvy.

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(derzhavu nashu Ukrainu) or “our God-preserved Ukrainian state.” The insertion of “Ukrainian” as a modifier has also crept into UOC practice, at both parish and monastery levels: a 28 February 2021 paraklesis service in the Sviatogorskaia Lavra for relief against “harmful contagion” (ie, Covid-19) used the wording “Ukrainian land” (in Church Slavonic). UOC clerics may sometimes emphasize the phrasing “our God-preserved land and its Orthodox authorities” to underscore how few of them are identified as Orthodox Christians. 57 A UOC bishop resents OCU claims that the lack of a modifier connotes loyalty instead to a northern neighbor, referring to this as “lunacy.” Even more resented are the recent secular attempts to force renaming the UOC as the ROC or the MP, or accusations of criminal responsibility for collaborating with a military aggressor. “What will fall into this category?” he asked me. “Perhaps commemorating Patriarch Kirill at Divine Liturgy?” Such legislation, he noted, belies the claim that Ukraine is a multi-confessional country.58

Conclusion Although many in both the UOC and the OCU share the desire for a canonical church in the local tradition, their liturgical approaches reflect different interpretations of what that means. The OCU is characterized by liturgical tolerance and experimentation. As long as one is loyal to Epifanii and the cause of Ukrainian liturgical autocephaly, there is a wide range of flexibility and room for individual variety. One might see this as innovation—or as a broad application of the old tradition of “as the priest in charge deems” (ashche izvolit nastoiatel). Most such changes seem to stem not so much from a desire to reform liturgy as such— despite the proposed “ten theses,” this is not a reprise of Vatican II—as from a political commitment to Ukraine as an entity distinct from Russia. Dropping the words “Russian,” dropping saints and icons associated with imperial Russia, and using Ukrainian in liturgy, are ways of doing this. The mere fact of a plurality of liturgical expression and an overall climate of flexibility, of a multiplicity of translations into Ukrainian (as opposed to one “canonical” one), and of a larger (though not exclusive) number of clerics and laity involved in ecumenical initiatives, may well result in more liturgical experimentation in the years to come. Their attitude to the past is selective, their attitude to the present is one of tolerant latitude, and their attitude to the future is expansive. Their overall tendency is to move away from such external forms as head-coverings for women and a less hierarchical clergy-laity relationship. In this sense the OCU seems to be evolving in the overall direction of the Paris Exarchate in the 1920s-1950s, the OCA in the 57 For UOC practice, GT and IT; for OCU, AD. 58 Private communication, 19 February 2020.

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1960s-1970s, or (in its emphasis on nation-building and secular memory culture) the contemporary EAOC. Although the UOC also contains clerics who identify with Afanasiev, Meyendorff, and Schmemann, the UOC’s overall liturgical practice may be described as conservative, emphasizing ceremony and hierarchy. UOC clerics and hierarchs may speak Ukrainian and describe themselves as Ukrainian patriots, but they do not see the liturgy as the primary place to display those allegiances. They are more likely to say that people do not want to hear priests talk about politics or “schismatics.” They see Church Slavonic as a link to their own liturgical tradition—not one imported or imposed upon them by outsiders—and indeed as something potentially connecting all Slavs, including those in Serbia and Bulgaria. Moreover, even as they may acknowledge heavy-handed historical attitudes on the part of either St. Petersburg or Moscow, they do not reject their role in Ukrainian Church history or evolving tradition of the Orthodox Church on their territory, whether of Rus, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union, or of independent Ukraine. They express more concern that they are losing “the kind of people who attend lectures and read books.” They are more likely to fear being “outed” for comments on social media. Their attitude to the past is inclusive, their attitude to the present is conservationist, and their attitude to the future is cautious. Clerics share the desire of their flocks for a “sacral” atmosphere and for conveying the sense that liturgy is a link to the past as well as to the living body of Christ. In this sense they may be compared to the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese in America (with its maintenance of liturgical Greek), the Estonian Orthodox Church in communion with the Moscow Patriarchate, or the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia. It is not clear if the liturgical trends outlined here will continue or if they will be replaced by others. With its continued emphasis on hierarchy, a sense of the sacral, and maintenance of popular paraliturgical devotions, the UOC may come to play the part of the “high Church”—while, with its overall democratization (which includes such things as a lack of concern in policing laity’s dress and comportment), the OCU may assume the role of the “low Church” in postReformation England.59 An important potential factor in the evolution of Ukrainian liturgy overall is monasticism. For centuries, monasticism has defined the Orthodox Church; bishops have been drawn mostly from male monks. Most monastics in Ukraine are UOC and loyal to their UOC abbots or abbesses. This applies especially to Eastern and Central Ukraine.60 Western Ukraine has a different profile, with some formerly KP monasteries now under the OCU (the Elevation of the Cross in Maniava, that of St. George in Rivne, and that of the 59 DM, 1 March 2021. 60 In July 2021, Metropolitan Arsenii told a conference of UOC that not a single monastic had gone over to the OCU Vystuplenie mitr. Arseniia na S’’ezde monashestvuiushikh UPTs v Pochaevskoi Lavre 15.7.21 g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6bfVaxOoGw.

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Transfiguration in Ivano-Frankivsk). If OCU monasticism develops in Eastern or Central Ukraine, it may come from a different profile of monastics displaying a different kind of piety—perhaps a more socially engaged one, as with some Western Christian monastic orders. This may affect liturgy at the parish level as well. But those are hypotheses. For the moment, the UOC and the OCU’s liturgical choices reflect with particular clarity some of the many other choices facing Ukrainian Orthodox clerics, monastics, and laypeople in other spheres.

Church and Exclusivism in Ukrainian Orthodoxy Sergii Bortnyk In this chapter I will consider various aspects of the topic of exclusivism. In so doing I will keep two issues in focus: the military-political conflict in eastern Ukraine, which began in 2014 and continues to this day, as well as the circumstances connected to the January 2019 granting of autocephalous status of the “Orthodox Church of Ukraine” (OCU). Accordingly, we will keep in mind various understandings of exclusivism—military-political, ethnical, church-political and canonical. To present these issues in a broader perspective, I will touch upon the development of three Ukrainian Churches of the “Byzantine tradition,” historically dating back to the Kyiv metropolitanate. Today they are usually called the “Ukrainian Orthodox Church” (UOC), “Orthodox Church of Ukraine” (OCU),1 and the “Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church” (UGCC). I will pay special attention to the events at the turn of the 1990s, that is, the time when Ukraine gained its political independence and the Church experienced active revival, as well as the events of the last five to seven years. The matter of exclusivism or inclusivism in the behavior of the mentioned churches largely depends on their identity, which we will try to outline clearly.

1. The Origins of the Church Conflict in Ukraine To understand the current situation of Orthodox churches in Ukraine, it is necessary to slightly recapitulate their history. For most of the 20th century, the Orthodox Church in Soviet Ukraine was tolerated, although not forbidden. After the revolutionary coup of 1917, and especially in the 1920s–30s, the Orthodox Church, like most other religious organizations in Soviet Ukraine, experienced significant persecution. Gradually, the situation tempered significantly, something especially noticeable after the end of World War II. Seminaries were opened, some church journals were revived. It is often supposed that the turning point in relations between the state and the Orthodox Church in the Soviet Union was September 1943, when 1

These titles are used in everyday life. However, the Ministry of Justice has dubbed the OCU the “Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Orthodox Church of Ukraine),” and in the last two years there have been attempts to legally force the “Ukrainian Orthodox Church” to change its title to “Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine” (see the discussion of Lozova and Kalenychenko in this volume).

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Joseph Stalin met with three metropolitans of the Russian Orthodox Church. In 1939–40, the main part of Ukraine—which for the previous 300 years had first been part of the Russian Empire and later part of the Soviet Union—was joined by the regions of present-day western Ukraine, including the regions of Galicia, Volyn, Transcarpathia and Chernivtsi. As these regions had been part of Poland, Hungary, or Romania in the interwar period (and before that in some cases part of the Habsburg Empire), they avoided the severe religious persecutions of the 1920–30s in the Soviet part of Ukraine. As a result, after the end of World War II, these western Ukrainian regions became a bulwark for the preservation of Orthodoxy not only in Ukraine, but also in the Soviet Union as a whole. It was here that a significant part of the open Orthodox parishes remained; it was from here, moreover, that most of the students who later became priests and bishops for the entire territory of the USSR2 entered the seminaries and academies of the Russian Orthodox Church (above all, the Moscow and Leningrad seminary and theological academy).3 The underlying factors of church-political exclusivism and inclusivism in the Ukrainian Orthodoxy are embedded in these events. The criterion here is the attitude to the tradition of the Russian Orthodoxy in the broadest sense. In a narrower sense, this is manifested in the readiness or unwillingness to maintain constructive communication with the Russian Church after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the emergence of newly independent states in its place, and later the military conflict in eastern Ukraine. More broadly, it concerns the extent to which state border changes automatically affect changes in the borders of a particular local church’s responsibility. On the one hand, the fact of joining to Ukraine its current western part testifies for support of political exclusivism. In cultural and linguistic terms, western Ukraine differs significantly from most other parts of Ukraine—that is, its central and southeastern parts. Especially worth noting here is the region of Galicia, historically more connected to being part of first the Austria-Hungarian Empire and then Poland. Before the accession of 1939, the Greek Catholic Church had predominant influence here. The population of Galicia remains noticeably more antiRussian than in other regions of Ukraine.4 2

3 4

In 1988, the Russian Orthodox Church had a total of 6893 parishes, of which 3791 (i.e., 55%) were located in Ukraine ௅ Cf. Faktchek: skolko khramov v sutki stroit RPTs (May 29, 2019), https://www.currenttime.tv/a/russian-orthodox-churches-amount/29968770. html. The author of this chapter can bring memories from the stories of the period of his studies at the St. Petersburg (former Leningrad) Theological Seminary: in the Soviet period, at times up to 90% of students were from Ukraine, mostly from its western part. Seminarians’ everyday communication was not in Russian, but mostly in Ukrainian. Under Nikita Khrushchev, around 1960, many seminaries were closed again—in Ukraine only the seminary in Odessa remained. This can be confirmed by the last presidential election in Ukraine in 2018. Petro Poroshenko, a contender with clearly expressed anti-Russian rhetoric, won more than half of

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On the other hand, potential exclusivism is tempered by an element of churchpolitical inclusiveness consisting in readiness to adapt to the circumstances of the Soviet era. Hundreds of priests and bishops originating from western Ukraine, often from families of former Greek Catholics, received opportunities to serve in the Russian Orthodox Church. Many of them moved not only to other regions of Ukraine, but also to Russia. An outstanding example of such an “inclusive” church career is Metropolitan Volodymyr (Sabodan). Originally from the Khmelnitsky region on the border with western Ukraine, during his church ministry he was rector of the Moscow Theological Academy, exarch of the Russian Orthodox Church in Western Europe, and Chancellor of the entire Russian Orthodox Church. In 1992 it was he who became the head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church—something that will be described in detail below.

2. Changes at the Turn of the 1990s: Rejection of Atheistic Ideology, a New Patriarch in Moscow, and a New Status of the Ukrainian Church Let us recall the events at the dawn of Ukrainian independence. In 1989–91, at the end of the existence of the Soviet Union, significant changes in the situation of the churches took place after the 1988 celebration of the 1000th anniversary of the baptism of Rus. These changes came about as the result of perestroika, and of the democratization of Soviet society as a whole. Another important event even before the collapse of the Soviet Union was the passing in October 1990 of the new USSR law “On Freedom of Conscience and Religious Organizations,” which radically changed the nature of relationships between the state and churches. Article 5 of this law terminated state support for atheism, establishing that “the state does not finance the activities of religious organizations and activities to promote atheism.”5 In April 1991, a similar law was passed separately for Ukraine. According to Article 1, one of its tasks is “overcoming the negative consequences of the state policy on religion and the church.”6 Article 3 equates religious and atheistic beliefs: “Every citizen in Ukraine is guaranteed the right to freedom of conscience. This right includes […] to express and freely spread one’s religious or atheistic

5 6

the votes only in the Lviv region, the historical center of Galicia, while on average in Ukraine he won only 24.45%. Cf. Interactive map of the election results (April 21, 2019), https://www.bbc.com/ukrainian/features-47988162. See Zakon o svobode sovesti i religioznykh organizatsiakh (October 1, 1990), http://www. economics.kiev.ua/download/ZakonySSSR/data01/tex10709.htm. The law is available online in Ukrainian. See Zakon Ukrainy Pro svobodu sovisti ta relihiinikh orhanizatsii (April 23, 1991), https://zakon.rada.gov.ua/laws/show/987– 12#Text.

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beliefs.” This 1991 law is still in force in Ukraine. In general, Ukrainian legislation in the religious sphere is considered quite liberal ௅ it does not limit the activities of the most exotic religious cults. Neither does it give any privileges to certain faiths and confessions in the form of concordats or in other forms of special church-state cooperation.7 Along with the collapse of the USSR and changes in religious legislation, there were changes in the leadership of the Russian Orthodox Church. After the death of Patriarch Pimen (Izvekov) in June 1990, the Local Council of the Russian Orthodox Church was held, with its primary goal being the election of a new patriarch. The Metropolitan of Kyiv, Filaret (Denysenko), became the locum tenens in the interim. It is supposed that it was his candidacy that was supported by the Soviet state bodies. Because of general democratization and some confusion, however, the state refused to interfere in the process of church elections. As a result, on June 7, 1990, Alexi (Ridiger) was elected new patriarch of Moscow and all Russia, serving in that position for the fairly long period of 1990 –2008. In these eighteen years, he visited Kyiv only three times, twice in 1990 and once shortly before his death in 2008. Such a significant pause in visits stemmed from the circumstances of the second visit in October 1990. On that occasion, the patriarch came to personally present a charter (gramota) declaring a new status for the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. This visit, however, coincided with the congress of the Ukrainian nationalist movement, Rukh. Its participants, learning of Alexi’s arrival, came to the walls of Kyiv’s Sophia Cathedral not to greet the distinguished guest, but instead, during the service in the cathedral, to chant, “Go away, Moscow priest!” This made such an impression on Patriarch Alexi that he refused to visit Kyiv for the next eighteen years. Indirectly, that hands-off policy also indicates Alexi’s readiness not to interfere in the independent development of Ukrainian Orthodoxy. During his patriarchate, there was practically no influence on the part of the central governing bodies of the Russian Orthodox Church on Ukrainian developments.8 Alexi’s gramota9 proved very important for the canonical-legal status of the Church in Ukraine. Instead of the “Ukrainian Exarchate,” it now officially proclaimed the “Ukrainian Orthodox Church” within the borders of Ukraine. As the gramota stated: “We bless through this Charter, through the power of the All7 8

9

That is why too-close relations between the state and a concrete church structure (the OCU) were perceived by many observers with caution or even with fear. The situation has changed significantly after the election of the new Patriarch Kirill (Gundiaev) in 2009. In the first year of his ruling, he visited Ukraine several times, visiting its various regions, and in February 2010 he even personally attended the inauguration of President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych. Cf. Blagoslovennaia Gramota Patriarkha Aleksiia II (October 28, 1990), http://orthodox. org.ua/article/blagoslovennaya-gramota-patriarkha-aleksiya-ɿɿ-provozglashena-v-sofiiskomsobore-kieva-28–ok. In a sense, this letter is an analogue of the tomos given to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine in 2019.

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Holy and Life-Giving Spirit, for the Ukrainian Orthodox Church to henceforth be independent and self-ruling in its management.”10 This formulation was not the personal decision of Patriarch Alexi, but that of the entire Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church, who formally accepted it on October 27, 1990.11 The UOC significantly expanded its rights: from now on, its primate was to be “elected by the Ukrainian episcopate” and only blessed by the Moscow Patriarch. In addition, the Synod of the UOC received wide freedom of action: it “elects and confirms the ruling and vicar bishops, establishes and abolishes dioceses within Ukraine.” Later it was repeatedly stated that this “independence” did not denote a universally recognized status, but only a right granted within the Russian Orthodox Church, which could again be withdrawn. This dependence is indirectly confirmed by the text of the gramota itself: “The Ukrainian Orthodox Church is connected through our Russian Orthodox Church with the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.” However, strictly speaking, there is no hidden meaning: in its internal management the UOC became independent, i.e. self-administering, though without an official status of “autonomous” or “autocephalous;” it was supposed to carry out its official external relations—with other churches abroad— through its center in Moscow. It is worth noting that the two main competitors of Patriarch Alexi in the patriarchal elections were both of Ukrainian origin. Soon they turned out to be competitors among themselves in Ukraine. This suggests two things. First, it confirms the real importance of the Ukrainian factor in the general church context of the Soviet period. The second shows how this Ukrainian factor concretely played out in determining future developments in Ukraine. The subsequent turbulent events in Ukrainian Orthodoxy, and in particular the schism, were not caused by an external factor (the “hand of Moscow”), but rather stemmed from two different internal visions of further church development in Ukraine by two Ukrainian hierarchs. These two hierarchs who entered the 1990 in patriarchal elections in the second round were Metropolitan of Kyiv, Filaret, and Metropolitan of Rostov, Volodymyr. From 1966, Metropolitan Filaret (*1929) had held the Kyiv metropolitan’s throne. For a quarter of a century, he was loyal to the state authorities of the Soviet Union and pursued in Ukraine a completely pro-Russian centralized policy, fighting against elements of Ukrainian nationalism. Even after all the 10 In Russian: “ɛɥɚɝɨɫɥɨɜɥɹɟɦ ɱɟɪɟɡ ɧɚɫɬɨɹɳɭɸ Ƚɪɚɦɨɬɭ ɧɚɲɭ ɫɢɥɨɸ ȼɫɟɫɜɹɬɨɝɨ ɢ ɀɢɜɨɬɜɨɪɹɳɟɝɨ Ⱦɭɯɚ ɛɵɬɶ ɨɬɧɵɧɟ ɍɤɪɚɢɧɫɤɨɣ ɉɪɚɜɨɫɥɚɜɧɨɣ ɐɟɪɤɜɢ ɧɟɡɚɜɢɫɢɦɨɣ ɢ ɫɚɦɨɫɬɨɹɬɟɥɶɧɨɣ ɜ ɫɜɨɺɦ ɭɩɪɚɜɥɟɧɢɢ.” 11 Cf. the text of the Council: Opredelenie Arkhiereiskogo Sobora Russkoi Pravoslavoi Tserkvi 25–27 oktiabria 1990 goda ob Ukrainskoi Pravoslavnoi Tserkvi (October 25–27, 1990), http://orthodox.org.ua/article/opredelenie-arkhiereiskogo-sobora-russkoi-pravosla vnoi-tserkvi-25–27–oktyabrya-1990–goda-ob-.

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turbulence of the last five years, to a certain extent he still determines politics in Ukrainian Orthodoxy. The second was Metropolitan Volodymyr (1935–2014), a native of Ukraine and an ethnic Ukrainian who in 1992, after a long ministry in Russia and Western Europe, returned to Ukraine to head the UOC for more than twenty years until his death in 2014. The relationship between both hierarchs was determined by the 1992 Kharkiv Council, which will be discussed below.

3. Revival of UGCC: “Defeat of Three Orthodox Dioceses” or “Exit the Catacombs”? In connection with changes in the 1990s in the religious landscape of Ukraine, it is appropriate to recall the revival of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC). This is justified, even despite the use of “Catholic” in its title. Today, the leadership of the UGCC places special emphasis on the period of persecution and catacomb existence from 1946 till 1989. A particular role here is played by the critics of the Lviv Pseudo-Council of 1946.12 As a result of that council, the UGCC officially ceased to exist on the territory of the Soviet Union. In March 2021, a conference was held dedicated to the 75th anniversary of the Lviv Council. Citing a number of statistics and examples of post-war persecution of the UGCC, it raised the issue of restitution.13 The conference claimed, for example, that, as of 1947, “1,106 of the 1,267 Greek Catholic priests in Galicia (87%) were ‘reunited’ with the Russian Orthodox Church.”14 There is an alternative point of view, however—one held by the Moscow Patriarchate. As head of the Department for external church relations from 1989 to 2009, Kirill (the current Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church), repeatedly insisted on it, as does his successor in that position, Metropolitan Hilarion (Alfeiev) of Volokolamsk. According to this position, at the turn of the 1990s Galicia saw a “destruction of three Orthodox dioceses” (razgrom trekh eparkhii). To assess how fair the concept of the “destruction” or the “defeat” is, some statistics are helpful. Until 1989, on the territory of Ukraine officially there was 12 A new collection about this Council is forthcoming in The ‘Lviv Sobor’ of 1946 and Its Aftermath: Towards Truth and Reconciliation, ed. Peter Galadza and Adam A. J. DeVille, Pro Oriente Conference Proceedings, Vienna, 2–4 June 2016 (Leuven: Peeters, 2022). 13 This idea was received with concern by a number of observers, since a number of UGCC parishes in Galicia remained in the ownership of KP communities, which have now transferred to the OCU. The implementation of restitution may thus threaten a new church redistribution primarily between the UGCC and the OCU. 14 Sviatoslav Shevchuk, ‘Pravda, iaku my pochuemo, mozhe buty boliuchoiu, ale vona vyzvoliaie’: Tezy na mizhnarodnii konferentsii pro L’vivskyi psevdosobor (March 4, 2021), https://ucu.edu.ua/news/pravda-yaku-pochuyemo-mozhe-buty-bolyuchoyu-ale-vona-vyz volyaye-blazhennishyj-svyatoslav-shevchuk-na-mizhnarodnij-konferentsiyi-pro-lvivskyjpsevdosobor/.

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only the Ukrainian Exarchate, structurally belonging to the Russian Orthodox Church. In 1995, six years after the beginning of the church revival and at a time when community transitions had stabilized, the situation in Ukraine as a whole looked like this:15 1) 2) 3) 4)

UOC (in union with Moscow Patriarchate) ௅ 6132 parishes; UOC Kyiv Patriarchate ௅ 1753 parishes; Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church ௅ 616 parishes; Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church ௅ 3032 parishes.

Clearly, based on the number of officially registered communities at the time of stabilization of 1995 in Ukraine as a whole, the UGCC became the second largest denomination that came out of the Ukrainian Exarchate. If in the first six years of its legal existence the UGCC in Ukraine grew from zero communities to 3032. However, over the next 24 years the rate slowed to only 3470 communities total.16 These figures confirm a sharp increase in the number of UGCC communities in the first years after its legalization in 1989 and a significant slowdown after 1995. A similar rapid growth in the first years of legalization can be seen by “alternative Orthodoxy,” that is, two other emerging Orthodox denominations that dissociated themselves from “Russian Orthodoxy.” Together, the UOC௅KP and the Autocephalous Church grew from zero communities in 1989 to 2369 communities in 1995; by the year 2019, at the time of their unification into the “Orthodox Church of Ukraine” recognized by Constantinople, they amounted to 6534 communities.17 The sharp increase in the number of UGCC communities until 1995 and the rather weak increase in their number in subsequent years (unlike the communities of the “alternative Orthodoxy”) does testify in favor of the version of the “destruction of the three dioceses.” The question here is only how much that was a natural process connected with the return of the positions of the UGCC before the Lviv Pseudo-Council. Oleh Turiy, Director of the Institute of Church History of the Ukrainian Catholic University, argues: The crisis of the Russian Orthodox Church and the loss of the Moscow Patriarchate’s influence in western Ukraine are explained primarily by the fact that this influence was obtained in a dubious way, through the Soviet authorities’ violence against the 15 Data are given according to Mykhailo Kosiv, “Ukrainska religiina panorama u dzerkali statystyky,” Patriiarkhat 302, no. 2 (1996), http://www.patriyarkhat.org.ua/statti-zhurnalu /ukrajinska-relihijna-panorama-u-dzerkali-statystyky/. Taken together, these four confessions exceed by three times the number of parishes in 1988 (that is why many of them emerged from zero), but I know of no statistics indicating relative proportion. 16 Here I use the official data of the Department on religions and nationalities of the Ukrainian Ministry of culture in January, 2019 – cf. https://risu.ua/religiyni-organizaciji-v-ukrajinistanom-na-1–sichnya-2019–r_n97463. 17 In these calculations, I use the same data as in the calculation of UGCC communities.

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Sergii Bortnyk conscience of the faithful. What Moscow stubbornly calls the ‘destruction of the three Orthodox dioceses’ was first and foremost the restoration of historical justice and the realization by the Greek Catholics of their rights […] ‘The destruction of the three Orthodox dioceses’ after 1989 does not mean that Orthodoxy disappeared in Galicia. On the contrary, it means that the Ukrainian Orthodox no longer wanted to identify themselves with a church which for various reasons they could not consider for their own.18

It is also important to note, however, that so rapid a revival of the UGCC in Galicia left wounds in the perception of the Orthodox remaining faithful to the Moscow Patriarchate, as personal communication with some priests of the UOC confirm.19 These wounds are far from healed. Despite repeated attempts to organize a private audience with Onufrii (Berezovksy), UOC Metropolitan of Kyiv, upon his 2014 enthronement, UGCC Primate Sviatoslav Shevchuk, has not been able to do so. This reflects the general skepticism of the Ukrainian Orthodox towards the Greek Catholics. Supporters of unity with the Russian Church also believe that “autocephaly is a step towards union with Rome.”20 Such a position reflects the geopolitical thinking which sees Ukraine between Orthodox Moscow and Catholic Rome. This kind of thinking, formed by the deep historical wounds from the events of 1990s, has an exclusivist character on the side of some UOC faithful.

4. Revival and Development of the “Autocephalous” Ukrainian Orthodoxy The Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (UAOC) was revived at the end of 1989. The impetus for this was the withdrawal of priest Volodymyr Iarema from the Russian Orthodox Church in October of that year.21 Only six months later, even before the collapse of the Soviet Union, in the renewed UAOC there were already up to 200 parishes. The rapid growth of this church structure at first 18 Oleh Turiy, Te, shcho u Moskvi vperto nazyvaiut’ ‘rozgromom tr’iokh pravoslavnykh eparkhi’, ࣓ bulo nasampered vidnovlenniam istorychnoï spravedlyvosti ta realizatsieiu greko-katolykamy svoho prava (September 24, 2009), https://risu.ua/quot-te-shcho-umoskvi-vperto-nazivayut-quot-rozgromom-troh-pravoslavnih-yeparhiy-quot-bulo-nasam pered-vidnovlennyam-istorichnoji-spravedlivosti-ta-realizaciyeyu-greko-katolikami-svo go-prava-quot-dumka-eksperta_n32045. 19 For a detailed study, see Oleksii Dobosh, Uniia v Ukraini XX stolittya (Pochaiv: SviatoUspens’ka Pochaivs’ka Lavra, 2012). 20 See, for example, Ukrainskaia avtokefaliia – shag k kanonicheskomu edinstvu ili k unii s Rimom? (June 7, 2018), https://spzh.news/ru/zashhita-very/53876–ukrainskaja-avtokefalija-shag-k-kanonicheskomu-jedinstvu-ili-k-unii-s-rimom. 21 After a split within the UAOC because of unification of its part with the Kyiv Patriarchate from 1993 until his death in 2000, Iarema, under his church name Dymytryi, was the primate of the UAOC with the title “patriarch.”

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time was explained by the attractiveness of the idea of an independent Ukrainian Church and historical precedents: as Nicholas Denysenko describes in this volume, a church with this title arose as early as 1921, and in 1942 there was an attempt of its revival. One important reason for such a rapid revival of the UAOC at the initial stage was the desire to find a “third way” between the massive defection of Orthodox Galicia to Greek Catholicism and the preservation of loyalty to the Russian Church. Metropolitan Mefodii (Kudriakov), primate of the UAOC 2000–2015, expressed this idea in the following way: “The faithful left the ROC because they considered it an instrument of political influence of the Russian imperial circles. If the UAOC had not been revived at that time, most of the believers disillusioned with the ‘Soviet Church’ would probably have joined the nationally oriented UGCC.”22 To gain legitimacy, the revived UAOC initially focused on the contacts with emigrant circles, that is, those having left Ukraine in the first half of the 20th century. Mstyslav (Skrypnyk), who headed the UOC in the United States from 1971 until his death in 1993, agreed to become the first primate of this Church. He was a native of Ukraine, who had emigrated during World War II through Germany to the United States and, after his election, led the UAOC in Ukraine mainly from overseas. The noble idea of the Ukrainian national church was not properly formalized, however. Both in 1921 and in 1990, the autocephaly of this church was selfproclaimed only; it has never received recognition from the side of the existing local churches of “world Orthodoxy,” in particular from the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew.23 Such self-initiated activity was recognized as a fault line by some figures who were at the origins of the revival of the UAOC. Some of the first bishops of UAOC—Antonii (Fialko), Nikolai (Grokha), Ioann (Siopko) and Panteleimon (Romanovskii)—soon regretted having creating a split and returned to serving as clergy of the UOC (in unity with Moscow Patriarchate), with one, Antonii (Masendych), actually in the clergy of ROC, as bishop of Barnaul in western Siberia.24 Their return was prompted partly by a 1992 UAOC attempt to unite into the same structure with Metropolitan Filaret (as a result of these efforts, the Kyiv patriarchate was founded). Despite several such attempts at uniting and later division with the mentioned “Kyiv Patriarchate,” the UAOC 22 Mytropolyt Mefodii, Proholoshennya Kyïvskoho patriarchatu: zdobutky, pomylky ta shlyakhy ih podolannia, http://mefodiy.org.ua/progoloshennya-kyivskogo/. 23 Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople agreed to include the UOC in the United States into the structure of the Ecumenical Patriarchate only in 1995, after the death of Metropolitan Mstyslav. From this time on, this church became “canonical,” i.e. recognized by world Orthodoxy, but without claims to have an autocephalous status. 24 On his subsequent activity, see V. I. Petrushko, “Antonii (Masendych),” in Pravoslavnaia entsiklopediia, vol. 2 (Moscow: Pravoslavnaia entsiklopediia, 2001), 631–632.

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lasted until 2018. Then it officially ceased its existence, having joined the newly created OCU. At the time of the unification council of 2018, the UAOC was a fairly marginal structure, with parishes primarily in Galicia. According to the official statistics, in January 2018, there were 1167 parishes with only 693 clergymen.25 This was several times less than the “Kyiv Patriarchate,” which formed the backbone of the new church structure.26 There are also statistics on the proportion of UAOC distribution in the regions: over 41% of its parishes were in the three contested regions of Galicia, while the share of its parishes in the southeastern regions ranged from 0.3% to 1.3%.27 To understand the identity of this church, Metropolitan Mefodii’s “Spiritual Testament” is useful. Mefodii recommended the UAOC “continue a long-term course of establishing communion with the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople by including our church as a whole structure into this Patriarchate.” At UAOC liturgies, the name of the Patriarch of Constantinople was commemorated as “visible sign of canonical communion with the Ecumenical Throne of Constantinople” (for the importance of liturgical commemoration, see the essay by Vera Tchentsova in this volume). The “Testament” describes this tradition as a “well-established practice in our church.” 28 Before the entry of this church in 2018 into the newly created OCU, however, the Patriarchate of Constantinople did not recognize this church, neither in its “autocephalous” status nor in general as a canonical structure belonging to any of the recognized local churches.29 This means that the UAOC’s aspirations and the commemoration of the Patriarch of Constantinople in the liturgy were unilateral acts.

25 See Relihiini orhanizatsii v Ukraiini (March 31, 2018), https://risu.ua/religiyni-organi zaciji-v-ukrajini-stanom-na-1–sichnya-2018–r_n89734. 26 According to the same statistics, in the UOC-KP there were 5167 parishes and 3640 clergymen. 27 Data for 2010 are given are from the UAOC entry in Ukrainian Wikipedia https://uk. wikipedia.org/wiki/. Although I acknowledge the limitations of this source, I could not find a more reliable source of information. 28 See Dukhovnyi zapovit Blazhennoho Mefodiia (February 1, 2015), http://mefodiy.org.ua/ zapovit-duxovnij-blazhennishogo-mefodiya-mitropolita-kiivskogo-i-vsiyei-ukrainipredst oyatelya-uapc/. 29 The sole exception being the dioceses in North America: although officially they did not belong to the UAOC but to the EP, they nonetheless regarded themselves as one church. Between 1995 and 2018, North America UAOC members were officially in communion with Constantinople and with the ROC, but not with the UAOC itself (though in fact there was communion).

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5. “Kyiv Patriarchate” and Filaret Denysenko The church structure called the “Ukrainian Orthodox Church ௅ Kyiv Patriarchate”30 was founded in June 1992 after the Kharkiv Council where the schism within the UOC became open (as discussed above in section 2, the UOC became the successor to the Ukrainian Exarchate, the Soviet-era structural unit of the ROC in Ukraine). Filaret had headed the exarchate since 1966; in 1990 it was he who received from the newly elected Moscow Patriarch Alexi the gramota conferring the UOC’s new status and expanded rights. Filaret is the most remarkable figure in Ukrainian Orthodoxy in the last fifty years. However, the events of 2018–2019 confirm the opinion of those who credit him with a rather sinister, negative role. If for a quarter of a century national-minded forces had seen Filaret as a key figure in the struggle for the “national Church” of Ukraine, from mid-2019 onwards, he both discredited himself and damaged the image of the OCU. From my perspective, Filaret’s destructive role had manifested itself already in the events of the early 1990s, when a schism arose in Ukrainian Orthodoxy— a schism which has not yet been eliminated. This can be seen in the example of the Kharkiv Council, where the vast majority of UOC bishops removed Filaret and chose Metropolitan Volodymyr in his place. This council is evaluated in diametrically opposite ways by the two leading Orthodox groups, the UOC and the UOC-KP, headed by Filaret officially since 1995, and really from its very foundation. The difference between the accounts of the Kharkiv Council in the Ukrainian and Russian versions of Wikipedia is telling. To be sure, this electronic encyclopedia is not generally regarded as being an authoritative source, in part because biased authors have direct access to it. The entries about the Kharkiv council are useful, however, precisely because they reflect the two biases and the two diametrically opposite views of the situation: in support of Filaret’s behavior and against it. The Ukrainian version declares: “Contrary to Orthodox canons and the UOC Statute, Metropolitan Filaret was illegally sentenced to dismissal and banned from the clergy by an illegal meeting of bishops in Kharkiv […] The UOC of the Moscow Patriarchate is a part of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which broke away from its head, violated the decision of the Local Council on autocephaly and came under the authority of the ROC.”31The Russian version is essentially the opposite: “According to the decision of the [Kharkiv] Council, the former Metropolitan of Kyiv and All Ukraine Filaret (Denysenko) was deposed, with a ban in his church service, and Volodymyr (Sabodan) was elected as the new metropolitan […] Filaret, who was removed from power in the Ukrainian Orthodox 30 Current information on this church structure can be found on its website, https://www. cerkva.info/. 31 https://uk.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ɏɿɥɚɪɟɬ_(Ⱦɟɧɢɫɟɧɤɨ).

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Church, created with support of Ukrainian state authorities the non-canonical UOC of the Kyiv Patriarchate that started its formal existence through the Constituent Council on June 25-26, 1992 in Kyiv, which de facto led to a split in the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.”32 Both versions describe the schism that occurred in 1992, but each either justifies or condemns Filaret and, accordingly, condemns or justifies the vast majority of bishops who opposed him. Each side is exclusive in its opinion: “We are right, and they are not.” It is worth noting that seventeen bishops (out of twenty total) who were then in Ukraine took part in the Kharkiv Council, and only two bishops went to the newly created Kyiv patriarchate with Filaret. More authoritative sources for understanding the church situation on both sides are similarly polarized. The Historical and Canonical Declaration of the Council of Bishops of the UOC-KP presents a defense of Filaret’s position.33 Oleksandr Drabynko argues the opposite in Orthodoxy in Post-Totalitarian Ukraine (Milestones of History).34

6. Attitude to the Anathema of Filaret The arguments of both sources regarding the anathema imposed on Filaret in 1997 further illustrate the difference in estimations of the schism. The Historical and Canonical Declaration gives examples of anathemas in the history of the formation of autocephalous churches in Southeastern Europe, focusing on the healing of the schism and the removal of anathemas in 1945 in Bulgaria (§V.3 of the Declaration) and in 1374 in Serbia (§V.4). It emphasizes that, “[…] in the case of the Serbian and Bulgarian Churches, anathemas were imposed on the hierarchy and even on the people for proclamation of autocephaly, which did not prevent the future restoration of Eucharistic unity, when all anathemas and prohibitions were forgotten” (§V.9). Also interesting are the examples (§VII.5) it cites of the Church’s reception of council decisions when anathemas were later canceled: that concerning the Old Believers; those who passed into union with Rome (Brest Union of 1596); the dispute of the “Karlovtsy” and “Sergians” in the 20th century in the Russian Church itself. In all these cases, anathemas were

32 https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ɏɢɥɚɪɟɬ (Ⱦɟɧɢɫɟɧɤɨ). 33 Istoryko-kanonichna deklaratsiia Arkhiiereiskoho soboru UPTs-KP (April 19, 2007), https://www.scribd.com/fullscreen/28003730?access_key=key-2efhj23t9d8xvo54tq4q. 34 Oleksandr Drabynko, Pravoslavie v posttotalitarnoi Ukraine (vekhi istorii) (Kyiv: izd. Sviato-Uspenskoi Kievo-Pecherskoi Lavry, 2002) was published on the tenth anniversary of the Kharkiv Council. The author, until 2018 also metropolitan of PereiaslavKhmel’nyts’kyi of the UOC, was consultant and personal secretary of Metropolitan Volodymyr. In December 2018, he became a member of the OCU, and is now in charge as metropolitan of the same eparchy of the OCU.

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imposed on significant groups of Christians. The Declaration sees the situation with Filaret in a similar light: Unable to achieve their goal through an illegal trial of the Primate of the UOC, the leaders of the Moscow Patriarchate decided to destroy the Kyiv Patriarchate by ‘imposing anathema’ on His Holiness Patriarch of Kyiv and All Rus’-Ukraine Filaret, which took place in February 1997 […] The Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate, which includes ten million Orthodox Ukrainians, does not recognize the decisions of the Moscow Council of Bishops (§X).35

Filaret’s activity is depicted very differently in the book of Oleksandr Drabynko. The primary reason for the excommunication and the imposed anathema is that Filaret “did not heed the call to repentance addressed to him on behalf of the Mother-Church and continued […] schismatic activity, which was stretched beyond the borders of the ROC, contributing to the deepening of the schism in the fraternal Bulgarian Orthodox Church and accepting into communion schismatics from other local Orthodox Churches.”36 Establishing of a national Church is not criticized, however, and no anathema is imposed on vast groups of people. The two bishops who left the UOC and Filaret, Iakiv (Panchuk) and Andrii (Gorak), are only called to repentance and warned of the possibility of their church excommunication. Anathema here does not concern all the people and not the entire hierarchy, but only those bishops who have moved away from unity with the Russian Orthodox Church, and even here it concerns two of them only potentially. Drabynko criticizes Filaret’s desire to “unite around the Kyiv Patriarchate headed by him other non-canonical Orthodox jurisdictions” and the attempt to “create two self-sufficient families of Orthodox churches,” as well as the “predominance of the political motives over the church ones” and “clear course towards formation of the state Church on the basis of the UOC-KP.”37 The issue of Filaret’s anathema is a convenient example to see the difference in perspectives between the two sides. Where the UOC-KP sees itself as a fighter for national autocephaly, its critics highlight schismatic activities, in particular in other local churches, and the politicization of church life in Ukraine.

7. The Position of the State in the Self-understanding of the “Kyiv Patriarchate” The Historical and Canonical Declaration issued by the KP is a document important not only for understanding certain aspects of the schism in Ukraine. It 35 https://www.scribd.com/fullscreen/28003730?access_key=key-2efhj23t9d8xvo54tq4q. 36 Oleksandr Drabynko, Pravoslavie v posttotalitarnoi Ukraine (Kyiv: Izdanie SviatoUspenskoi Kyievo-Pecherskoi Lavry, 2002), 153. 37 Ibid., 154–156.

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is also important as evidence of an identity that largely lives today in the clergy and laity who moved from the UOC-KP to the newly created OCU. This position is also reflected in some legislative initiatives of the Ukrainian parliament of 2018–2020, which will be mentioned below. Several places of this Declaration therefore merit particularly careful reading. First, the emphasis is placed here that administrative unity is unnecessary and the “mystical unity of the Church” is sufficient (“In the realities of the Ukrainian church life, there is a desire to replace the concept of the mystical unity of the Church with administrative unity with the Moscow Patriarchate. It is proclaimed that administrative subordination to the Moscow Patriarchate is a necessary condition for belonging to the World Church of Christ”) (§I). This emphasis on the self-sufficiency of the structure without necessity for any recognition from outside reflects a Protestant understanding of the Church: “The affiliation of the Kyivan Patriarchate to the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church is determined by the correct and orthodox confession of the truth transmitted by the Lord Jesus Christ through his apostles to all who believe in Him, and not by administrative unity with the Moscow or other Patriarchate” (§I). The italicized words turned out to be prophetic when, after recognizing the newly created structure of the OCU from the side of Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, Filaret refused to resign his power as the head of the KP, which clearly damages the image of the entire autocephalous movement in Ukraine.38 In the Declaration, the existence of the KP is related directly to the existence of the independent Ukrainian state: “By the will of God, peacefully, without bloodshed and violence, the Ukrainian people proclaimed its state independence through self-determination. Therefore […] the Ukrainian Orthodox Church proclaimed its autocephaly—complete administrative independence—while preserving the full unity in doctrine, worship and church order with all Local Orthodox Churches” (§I). This automatic connection between the changes of state borders and new status of the local church seems to be nurtured by phyletist motives. For this kind of independence, recognition by other local churches is not necessary and “autocephaly” becomes synonymous with absolute independence and lack of control in its activity. The principle of “local church” is also important and in the Declaration is attributed to the KP itself: “The Kyiv Patriarchate is the Local Orthodox Church that performs its ministry in Ukraine for believers of all nationalities, not just for 38 Cf. the meeting of Filaret with representatives of the State service, where the main demand was renewed registration of the KP. Filaret’s key words were: “The Kyiv Patriarchate is and will be, it has a future, because it is an independent Ukrainian Church. An independent state should have an independent Church.” See Patriarkh Filaret zustrivsia z holovoiu Derzhavnoi sluzhby Ukrainy z pytan etnopolitiki ta svobody sovisti Olenoiu Bohdan (March 13, 2021), https://www.cerkva.info/news/patriarkh-filaret-zustrivsia-z-holovoiuderzhavnoi-sluzhby-ukrainy-z-pytan-etnopolityky-ta-svobody-sovisti-olenoiu-bohdan/

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[ethnic] Ukrainians […] Therefore, the Kyiv Patriarchate rejects any accusations that it is a ‘nationalist church’ in a sense that it is built exclusively on the national principle” (§I). This “local Church” status takes into account the lack of procedure for recognizing autocephaly on the pan-Orthodox level. This is quite clearly stated in §IV of the Declaration, entitled “Conditions for proclamation of the Church’s autocephaly.” On the one hand, it is emphasized that “it is generally accepted that the canons of the Orthodox Church do not give a direct procedure for how the autocephaly of a church can be proclaimed.” On the other hand, a special reference is made to statehood: “The factor for proclaiming autocephaly is the political independence of the nation where the relevant church carries out its ministry. When deciding on autocephaly, the opinion of the state authorities of the respective country is taken into account. The last condition has an important place in the proclamation of autocephaly” (§IV.1). It is further clarified that there is no need for “granting” autocephaly—its “recognition” is enough: “Based on the canonical rules and the historical experience of the Church of Christ, autocephaly is not granted, but recognized by other Local Churches” (§IV.1). The last important aspect of the Declaration concerns its attitude to the status of the competing structure of the UOC, which is in unity with the Moscow Patriarchate.39 It categorically states: “The UOC-MP that has been created at the so-called Kharkiv Council, is a part of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which broke away from its primate, violated the decision of the Local Council on autocephaly and came under the authority of the Moscow Patriarchate” (§XI.1). Because of the lack of norms for autocephalous existence which would be developed and generally accepted in world Orthodoxy, it continues: “No church structure with the status of ‘independent and self-governing’40 is provided by the canons and is recognized by the world Orthodoxy. Therefore, the so-called ‘Ukrainian Orthodox Church’ within the Moscow Patriarchate cannot be called the Ukrainian Church. It is only a part of the Russian Orthodox Church” (§XI.2). This repeated insistence that the UOC is the “ROC in Ukraine” became the basis for legislative initiatives of the Ukrainian parliament in 2018 aimed at renaming the UOC. Thus, the position of the KP became the position of the Ukrainian state in the time of Petro Poroshenko and has remained so until now. If during the years of peaceful political and military coexistence between Ukraine and Russia such a position had only declarative role, then in the recent years, due to the events of the military-political conflict in eastern Ukraine since 2014, it has acquired quite tangible consequences related to the status of the church with a “center in the aggressor-state.”41 39 It is explained in §XI: “Attitude of the KP to the UOCMP and UAOC.” 40 This formulation was used in Patriarch Alexi’s gramota of 1990. 41 It is this formulation that concludes law no. 2662–VIII, adopted by the Parliament of Ukraine on December 20, 2018. According to this law, the UOC must officially mention its formal canonical dependence on the Moscow Patriarchate. In context of the military

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8. The Self-understanding of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church The Ukrainian Orthodox Church, headed from 1992 to 2014 by Metropolitan Volodymyr, does not have such a comprehensive document as the Declaration of the KP. For its self-understanding we can use the landmark speech of Metropolitan Volodymyr in 2009, on the eve of the departure of the Ukrainian delegates to the local council of the Russian Orthodox Church for election of a new patriarch.42 What is emphasized here is the real scope of the UOC’s rights: “Today in the scope of its rights the Ukrainian Orthodox Church intends to match not only the autonomous but also some autocephalous local Churches.” Even more important is the recognition of the canonical status of the UOC by world Orthodoxy. The speech of Metropolitan Volodymyr mentions the then-recently celebrated anniversary of the baptism of Rus: “The best evidence of the potential and spiritual strength of our Church were the jubilee celebrations on the occasion of the 1020th anniversary of the Baptism of Kyivan Rus, which took place in Kyiv last [2008] year.” The celebrations in Kyiv were attended by the primates of five local Orthodox Churches and bishops from all other local Churches. The speech emphasizes participation of Metropolitan Volodymyr at inter-Orthodox meetings at a similar level with the primates of other local Churches, which to a certain extent equated him with these primates: “In October 2008, representatives of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, led by its primate, took part at the meeting of the primates of the local Orthodox churches in the Phanar. All these events have demonstrated the unity of our church with all world Orthodoxy.” At that time, such unity distinguished the UOC from other church structures in Ukraine. In fact, these words mean that “only our Church has exclusive recognition from world Orthodoxy.” Metropolitan Volodymyr added: “Overcoming the schism in Ukraine is one of our priorities today.” However, such a possible union with other (non-canonical) church groups should not be hasty, so as not to provoke a split within the UOC structure itself. On the part of the UOC-KP, the condition for union was to break with the Russian Church and acknowledge its struggle for recognition of the proclaimed autocephaly. However, the priority for the UOC in any union was to maintain the already achieved integrity within its own structure: “Changing the canonical status of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church is possible only if there is unanimity on this issue among the episcopate, the clergy and the laity. Instead, in our Church conflict in Eastern Ukraine, this means potential loss of support on the side of politically motivated believers. 42 At this council in Moscow, Metropolitan of Kyiv Volodymyr refused to advance his candidacy for the post of Patriarch of Moscow. The speech of January 2009 is available at https://risu.ua/promova-blazhennishogo-mitropolita-kijivskogo-i-vsiyeji-ukrajini-volodi mira-do-uchasnikiv-zibrannya-delegativ-ukrajinskoji-pravoslavnoji-cerkvi-na-pomisniysobor-rpc_n35584.

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today exist different views on its future.” This cautious attitude of the UOC leadership to the issue of autocephaly was explained by the political coloring of this issue. The traditional position of the UOC was to unite two identities— Eastern Ukrainian and Western Ukrainian—thus becoming the basis for the unity of all Ukrainian Orthodoxy.43 This approach in the field of Ukrainian church policy can be considered as inclusive and based on the preferences of faithful from different regions of Ukraine. The most important moment in this document is the attitude to possible politicization of church life or the path to the status of a state church. Unlike the position of the “KP”, the report of Metropolitan Volodymyr emphasizes: “In calling for a church-wide discussion of the problems of Ukrainian Orthodoxy, we must avoid the dangers that often haunt us along the way. The main one is the politicization of church life.” He insists upon the principle of separation of the Church from the state: “The Church in Ukraine is separated from the state, and therefore the state aid should not turn into interference in internal church affairs. Just as the Church does not take part in the political process, so the state should not consider itself as a factor influencing the internal church life.” It should be noted that these accents in the UOC position remained the same after the change of its primate in 2014. Among these accents was recognition that the status quo is enough, which means rejection of the “struggle for autocephaly,” as well as its emphasis on its exclusive canonicity and rejection of politicization, which would threaten to split the structure of the UOC itself. We can add to this that on the part of the UOC in fact there was a refusal to recognize any sacraments coming out of “schismatic structures,” including baptism: if a KP believer wanted to move to the UOC, for example, his or her baptism had to be performed again. By and large, this meant that the UOC did not perceive the faithful from the unrecognized groups of Ukrainian Orthodoxy to have the status of Christians. This stiff rejection of schismatics seems to have been a theological mistake—one which led to intervention of the Constantinople Patriarchate in Ukraine.

9. Church for the State or the Principle of Separation of the Church from the State? Our comparison of the approaches of the UOC “Kyiv Patriarchate” and the UOC in unity with the Moscow Patriarchate testifies to their difference in the attitude to the state. For the UOC-KP, the fact of state independence entails the automatic proclamation of church autocephaly, even if there is no procedure for recognizing 43 For further details, see Sergii Bortnyk, “Podviina identychnist ukrainskoho pravoslavia,” in Stratehii prymyrennia. Rol Tserkov v Ukraini, ed. Sergii Bortnyk (Kyiv: Ridzhi, 2021), 154–161.

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it at the pan-Orthodox level and no such procedure has passed. Such a connection logically leads to the necessity of the status of the state Church. In this case, recognition by the state is more important than recognition by the fullness of Orthodoxy, i.e. by other local Orthodox Churches. If an observer from outside thinks in such a “statehood” perspective, then he is confronted with one out of two possible options: the Church in Ukraine may be in conjunction with its own— Ukrainian—state, or with a foreign—Russian—state. This was the case when the political situation escalated in eastern Ukraine, where the Donbass region has common borders with Russia. It is this scheme that is often used to criticize the UOC in connection with the military-political conflict in eastern Ukraine, which began in 2014 and continues to the present. In the last two or three years, close to the end of the presidential term of Petro Poroshenko and, by inertia, after him, we could observe an active struggle for autocephaly for the Ukrainian Church. It was at this time that the image of the “Russian Church in Ukraine” was often imposed on the UOC. The reason for this was its formal belonging to the Moscow Patriarchate. At the legislative level, the term “religious organization with a center in the aggressor-state” was formulated in this regard in 2013.44 The origins of this logic have their roots in the Historical and Canonical Declaration. Already in 2007, the “Kyiv Patriarchate” assigned itself the exclusive place of the “local church” in Ukraine, and the UOC the role of being a branch of the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine. It is quite possible to agree that for some groups of UOC faithful, a connection to the Church in Russia may perform a certain function of connection to the Russian statehood: for ethnic Russians who in Soviet times by the will of fate came into Ukraine; for those who linguistically and culturally identify themselves more with Russia, considering Ukraine’s independence a kind of accident; or for people with nostalgia for the greatness of the Soviet state who see in the UOC a certain connection with an important civilizational center and the stronghold of the fight against the West. In my opinion, however, for the older generation of the UOC hierarchy significantly more important is the autonomy of church life from state dictates. This is especially the position of UOC primate, Metropolitan Onufrii. This is a protective reaction against the harsh realities of their youth: in the Soviet past, the life of the Church was tightly controlled by the bodies of the atheist state. Such a fear of possible rapprochement with state policy is quite understandable also because many individuals who worked in the religious field in the Soviet period have also seen a relapse of the pragmatic use of the Church for new political purposes. If at that time these figures tried to use the Church in the interests of the atheist state, then in recent years they have done so in the interests of building and strengthening the national state. 44 Cf. law no. 5309, adopted by the Parliament of Ukraine in December 2018, https:// orthochristian.com/118360.html.

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In this context the figure of Oleksandr Sagan, one of the most ardent critics of the UOC, is especially indicative. One can find many YouTube videos where he speaks quite radically against the Moscow Patriarchate and the UOC as being its integral part (see in particular his “Moscow stole the Kyiv metropolitanate” 45 and “The term ‘canonicity’ was coined by the Moscow propaganda to scare away the UOC-KP” 46). Sagan has posted other texts with radical titles directed against the UOC as well.47 This might be dismissed as someone’s private opinion if it were not for the official positions Sagan has occupied. In 2007௅2010, he headed the State Committee of Ukraine for Nationalities and Religions; at the beginning of 2021 he was chosen as director of Department for Religious Studies of the Institute for Philosophy of the National Academy of Sciences—the key structure supervising the religious sphere in state interests. The aforementioned materials of Sagan were all created since 2018 in the context of the struggle for establishing the OCU and proved no obstacle for him to be elected to his new state institute position. It is such “pragmatic” use of the Church in the interests of state-building that the UOC opposes. Recently, its documents have often mentioned article 35 of the Constitution of Ukraine with its principle of separation of the Church from the state. It defends this principle as opposed to the principle of understanding the Church as a “factor of national security,” subordinate to the interests of strengthening Ukrainian statehood.

10. The Canonical Exclusivism of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church For many years, the UOC considered itself and was considered by others to be the only canonical Orthodox structure in Ukraine. This was especially confirmed by its official contacts with other local churches. In April 2018, during preparations for the tomos for Ukraine, the Department for External Church Relations of the UOC issued an official document clearly describing the position of this church. This document stated that “previously, Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople has repeatedly and publicly called His Beatitude Metropolitan of Kyiv and All Ukraine Onufrii the sole canonical head of Ukrainian Orthodoxy.” It described the “alternative” groups of Ukrainian Orthodoxy (at that time, the UOC45 Oleksandr Sagan, Kyiv’sku metropoliiu Moskva vkrala (May 8, 2018), https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=FGmhfIbH8is. 46 Oleksandr Sagan, Termin ‘kanonichnist’ buv prydumanyi moskovs’koiu propagandoiu aby vidliakuvaty vid UPTs KP (July 30, 2018), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1evrms WU0Y. 47 For example, Oleksandr Sagan, Sviashchenniki RPTsvU maly b pytaty dozvolu shchob sluzhyty na nashi zemli (December 15, 2020), https://df.news/2020/12/15/sviashchennykyrptsvu-maly-b-pytaty-dozvolu-shchob-sluzhyty-na-nashii-zemli-relihiieznavets/.

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KP and the UAOC) as “parts of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church that have relatively recently departed from unity with the Church.” It once again clearly drew the line of division between the Church and the state: “The issue of granting church autocephaly belongs to the competence of canon law, not to the competence of state laws. Autocephaly is given to the Church, not to the state, and therefore it is the Church, not the state, that initiates or asks for this status.” These formulations concluded with (as had also been the case in previous documents) a refusal to politicize the issue: “It is worrying that granting autocephaly to the Orthodox Church in Ukraine is seen as a matter not only of religion but also of geopolitics. We are convinced that the sphere of religious life should not be the subject of political manipulations. Church and political issues, let alone geopolitical issues, should not be confused.” 48

11. Competition for Sympathies of Believers in Sociological Surveys It has already been noted that the two main structures of Ukrainian Orthodoxy— the UOC-KP, which in 2018–19 largely became the basis of the new “Orthodox Church of Ukraine,” and the UOC—have based their self-identification and identity on different key patterns. For a quarter of a century, the first consistently insisted on its “local status” and “national consciousness,” necessary to support an independent Ukrainian state, and the second emphasized its “canonical status,” i.e. recognition by world Orthodoxy, denying the validity of the sacraments of the rival “Kyiv Patriarchate.” Is it possible to say that today one of the mythologies won? Whom of them did most of the Ukrainian Orthodox believers follow? Each of the parties is here convinced of its superiority, but bases its arguments on different approaches. The speakers of the KP and the OCU that replaced it emphasize the support of wide public groups in Ukraine. This approach is followed in sociological surveys in the field of religious preferences. I have repeatedly attended presentations by the Razumkov Center with the support of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation. Such annual presentations have become a landmark event in expert circles, to which leading representatives of the main religious denominations of Ukraine are usually invited. The brochure State and Church in Ukraine 2019: yearly results and prospects for development of relations, for example, gives data on the

48 Zaiava viddilu zovnishnih tserkovnykh zviazkiv Ukrainskoi Pravoslavnoi Tserkvy z pryvodu zvernennia Prezydenta Ukrainy do Vselenskoho patriarkha Varfolomiia shchodo nadannia Tomosu pro avtokefaliiu Pravoslavnii Tserkvi v Ukraini (April 21, 2018), https:// vzcz.church.ua/2018/04/21/zayava-viddilu-zovnishnix-cerkovnix-zvyazkiv-ukrajins kojipravoslavnoji-cerkvi-z-privodu-zvernennya-prezidenta-ukrajini-do-vselenskogo-patriarxa -varfolomiya-shhodo-nadannya-tomosu-pro-avtokefaliyu/.

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religiosity of the Ukrainian population. 49 For 2019, 64.9% of the respondents considered themselves “Orthodox.”50 Such an essential part of the “Orthodox” naturally determines the struggle for their preferences. The appropriate diagram shows that from 2010 to 2018 the number of supporters of the Kyiv Patriarchate steadily grew—from 15.1% in 2010 till 28.7% in 2018. The opposite trend was observed among supporters of the UOC (Moscow Patriarchate): it decreased from 23.6% in 2010 to 12% in 2018.51 The stable trend of growing popularity of the KP and the decline in popularity of the UOC over the past ten years gives one grounds to consider the struggle for the legalization of the former through its recognition by the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople as legitimate. This happened in 2018–2019, when the KP became the basis of the newly created OCU. However, in such a competition of two jurisdictions, it is important not to forget about the third component—the “just Orthodox” or “simply Orthodox.” Their share has almost always been higher than either of the aforementioned jurisdictions, fluctuating over the same period (2010–2019) on average in Ukraine between 21.2% and 30.3%. It is important to note that the indicators of the group of “just Orthodox” are especially high in the south and the east of Ukraine, where the number of parishes and clergy of the KP was several times lower than the same numbers of the UOC.52 The data for 2019, i.e. after an active information campaign in support of the tomos on autocephaly, are especially striking. The number of “just Orthodox” amounted to 46.1% in central Ukraine, 52.7% in the south, and 57.3% in eastern Ukraine.53 In my opinion, these data indicate the refusal of a significant part of Orthodox citizens of Ukraine to be involved in politicization of their church affiliation. Mostly they visit the parishes of the UOC, but do not perceive this as an act of political loyalty to Russian state policy.

12. The Geography of Orthodox Parishes in Ukraine and the Status of the “National Church” In January 2021, my book, Strategies of Reconciliation. The role of the Churches in Ukraine54 was published. It contains a number of my speeches and texts on the 49 Razumkov Centre, Derzhava i Tserkva v Ukraini- 2019: pidsumky roku i perspektyvy vidnosyn (informatsiini materialy) (Kyiv: Razumkov Centre, 2019), https://razumkov.org. ua/uploads/article/2019_Religiya.pdf. 50 The other significant groups are Greek Catholicism (9.5%) and “just Christian” (8%), “I do not relate to any religious confession” (12.8%): Ibid., 14. 51 Razumkov Centre, Derzhava i Tserkva v Ukraini (see n. 49), 15. 52 Approximately the same situation remains today in the ratio of parishes of the OCU and the UOC. Cf. the next section of this chapter. 53 Razumkov Centre, Derzhava i Tserkva v Ukraini (see n. 49), 16. 54 Stratehii prymyrennia, ed. Sergii Bortnyk (see n. 43).

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issues of confrontation and the search for reconciliation between the UOC and the OCU. In her review of this book, Kateryna Shchotkina55 noted the incorrect, in her opinion, use of the term “nationalist idea” on my part instead of “national idea” as an explanation of the main motive for the activities of the Kyiv Patriarchate and establishing of the OCU. This prompted the following reflections, as well as for searching for criteria, which of the two jurisdictions— UOC or OCU— more corresponds to the status of the “national Church.” Above, I cited data from sociological surveys on the preferences of Orthodox Ukrainians. Here I want to briefly analyze the statistics of the number of parishes of both church structures in Ukraine because it brings us to significantly different results.56 To do this, I used the official data of the State Service for Ethnopolitics and Freedom of Conscience for January 2020. I compared the number of parishes of three denominations—UOC, OCU and UGCC—by region, i.e. in their relationship with each other, so that in total their parishes make up 100%. As it turned out, the maximum number of the OCU’s parishes, about 40-43%, are in the Volyn, Ivano-Frankivsk and Rivne regions. It has a little less parishes— 30-40%—in the Lviv and Ternopil regions, as well as in the city of Kyiv and the Kyiv and Cherkassy regions. Except for the last three, all other mentioned regions belong to western Ukraine. In the remaining 17 of the total 25 regions (this is central, and especially southeastern Ukraine), the OCU has from 3.5% to 29% of the parishes of the three confessions. The UOC is extremely poorly represented in the three regions of Galicia— Ivano-Frankivsk, Lviv and Ternopil. However, it noticeably prevails over the OCU already in the neighboring Rivne and Volyn regions. The most important thing is that in 14 of the 25 regions of Ukraine the UOC has 60-80% of the total number of parishes of the three denominations, and in other six regions ௅ over 80%. Thus, in most of Ukraine, in terms of the number of parishes, the UOC exceeds the OCU by 2-3 times, sometimes by 5-7 times. The record holder is the Transcarpathian region, where the proportion is 3.5% in the OCU to 61.7% in the UOC, i.e. a difference of more than 17 times. If the “national Church” is understood as a jurisdiction more consistent with the political nation of Ukraine, that is, the totality of Ukrainian citizens who consider themselves Orthodox, then the UOC should undoubtedly be given the palm. If the “national Church” should rather be associated with support of an 55 Kateryna Shchotkina, Kryza tserkovnoi polemiky: bez shansu dlia maibutn’oho (March 31, 2021), https://risu.ua/kriza-cerkovnoyi-polemiki-bez-shansu-dlya-majbutnogo_n117242. The polemical title of this detailed review was given not by the author, but by the editors of the site to attract attention of readers. 56 I did this in more details in the text posted on the website of the “Academic Initiative” Foundation. See Sergii Bortnyk, “Analiz zvedenykh danykh po providnykh konfesiiakh ‘Kyivskoi tradytsii’,” https://www.academic-initiative.org.ua/wp-content/uploads/2021/ 04/zvedeni-dani-konfesiy-ukrainy.pdf.

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independent state and with confrontation against the Russian military expansion, then the OCU is certainly better suited for this role. This comparison of the proportions of the presence of parishes of the OCU and the UOC testifies primarily to the rather serious “Ukrainian” identity of most parishes of the UOC. Often, UOC clerics refuse to be the mouthpiece of the struggle to assert Ukrainian statehood and confront the Russian aggressor. However, in general, the mood in the parishes of the UOC in most settlements generally corresponds to the mood of the population in the respective regions. We can also assume a banal fact: being fully on the side of affirming and preserving Ukrainian independence in the political sphere, many Orthodox attend services at the parishes of the UOC and do not find sufficient grounds for themselves to transit to the ostensibly “more patriotic” OCU. The aforementioned number of “just Orthodox,” moreover, indicates that this significant group of Orthodox separates for themselves two spheres of life ௅ the military-political conflict in eastern Ukraine and their own confessional affiliation. This is a well-known distribution of functions in situation of an Orthodox “symphony” between the state and the church: the state is responsible for the bodily, and the church is responsible for the spiritual.

13. Mutual Aggressive Rhetoric on Information Resources Above, various elements of the confrontation between two jurisdictions were considered ௅ the UOC and the UOC of the Kyiv Patriarchate. In the past few years, this confrontation has only intensified. Several examples of informational attacks by each of the parties are appropriate here as evidence. One example of systemic criticism of the UOC from supporters of the OCU was Tatyana Derkach’s book, The Moscow Patriarchate in Ukraine: the anatomy of a betrayal.57 The book, published in Russian in 2018, cites a number of examples of the involvement of UOC clergy in the military conflict on the side of the Donbass separatists and the supporting forces of the “aggressor state,” i.e. Russia. Other examples of informational attacks are the activities of Dmytro Horevoi, who together with Derkach established the “Tsentr relihiinoi bezpeki” (“Center for Religious Security”).58 Since 2021, he has been posting videos that are most critical of the UOC on the website Detector.ua. Such broadcasts include, “For whom do they really pray in the churches of the UOC-MP?,”59 “The main 57 Tatiana Derkach, Moskovskii Patriarkhat v Ukraine: anatomiia predatelstva (Kyiv: Oleg Filiuk, 2018). 58 https://clarity-project.info/edr/41946561. 59 “Za koho, naspravdi, moliatsia v khramakh UPTs MP?” (January 14, 2021), https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRkr-zOaokY.

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devil of the Moscow Patriarchate is Metropolitan Luka of Zaporizhzhia,”60 “The church schizophrenia of the UOC-MP: in search of persecution,”61 and others. A number of other information resources aggressively criticize the UOC and the Moscow Patriarchate, arguing/demonstrating/hinting at their involvement in the military conflict in eastern Ukraine and in the annexation of Crimea. On the other hand, a number of information resources are related to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and support its activities. A significant part of this support criticizes the competitor, formerly the Kyiv Patriarchate, and now the OCU. One of the significant resources is the “Union of Orthodox Journalists.” (UOJ) This union has a website in seven languages, including English.62 One can cite a number of their videos criticizing the OCU adherents: “9 examples of the lie of a tomos functionary,”63 “Recognition of the OCU and the Church of Cyprus: the story of one betrayal,”64 “The triumph of the UOC and the shame of the schismatics: whose prayers does God hear.”65 Another example of systematic criticism of the OCU, of the tomos on autocephaly, and in general of the activities of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Ukraine, is a YouTube channel called “Vitrazhy: vera v kraskakh” (Stained Glass: faith in colors).66 Despite substantial positive-oriented content, it also includes a category called “analytics,” which specializes in this kind of criticism.67 Among its topics are: “Empty churches and the anger of Ukrainian schismatics. UOC believers cannot be broken,”68 “The OCU as a transition point on the way to a new [Church] union. The date of Easter opened the schismatics’ secret plan,”69

60 “Golovnyi chort Moskovskoho Patriarkhatu – mytropolyt Zaporizkyi Luka,” (March 4, 2021) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04b2P0Z3RU4. 61 “Tserkovna shizofrenia UPTs MP: u poshukakh honin,” (September 30, 2020), https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8_WdNZQBlo. 62 For the English-language site, see https://spzh.news/en/news. 63 UOJ, “9 primerov lzhi tomosnogo funktsionera,” (March 31, 2021), https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=JwZvEvUgME0. 64 UOJ, “Priznanie PTsU i Kiprskaia Tserkov: istoria odnogo predatelstva,” (October 28, 2020), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0–6WlDR-_g. 65 UOJ, “Torzhestvo UPTs i pozor raskolnikov: chi molitvy slyshit Bog,” (July 1, 2019), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kb-NEUuAJp0. 66 Vitrazhy: Vera v kraskakh, https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCju5tmBe0zLUhl65E1– mM-Q. 67 Vitrazhi: Analitika, https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcinwVz2rjCDxCpFmsv8q GJF76oJVc3Vp. 68 Cf. https://youtu.be/vhaDhx5FmhQ. 69 “PTsU kak perevalochnyi punkt na puti k novoi unii. Data Paskhi otkryla tainyi plan Raskolnikov,” Vitrazhy: Vera v kraskakh, (April 3, 2021), https://youtu.be/R8KMCmKKLHQ.

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and “In the schismatics’ service: how the promiscuous and the hypocrites brought telegrams to the head of the Phanar.”70

14. Conclusion: Search for Reconciliation of the Ukrainian Orthodoxy Previous sections of this chapter noted many examples that describe different aspects of the problem of exclusivism in Ukrainian Orthodoxy. I have tried to present this issue over the past thirty years, from the beginning of the church revival (which began shortly before Ukraine gained its political independence). Such an expanded perspective helps understand the roots of the current problems. However, it is not enough to state the problems. It is more fruitful to outline the prospects for solving them, as well as to indicate false attempts at “simple solutions.” The most important problem remains the identity of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. In recent years, two things coincided: the military-political conflict in eastern Ukraine which began in 2014 and the primacy of Metropolitan Onufrii, known for his monastic character and dissociation from political issues. During this period, some support was shown by UOC clergy and faithful for maintaining unity not only with Russian Orthodoxy, but also with Russian statehood. This was expected to cause significant criticism of the UOC, especially from those who consider the religious factor as a factor of national security of the Ukrainian state. Another important problem remains the tendency to create a kind of “state church.”71 Through several examples, this chapter has shown that this is a fairly entrenched trend that for many years has determined the identity of the “Kyiv Patriarchate.” Today, we can observe the conflicted retreat of Filaret, its longterm leader, from the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, soon after it received its autocephaly. His departure gives the newly created OCU a chance to weaken aspirations for the status of the “state church” and to fully enter the family of local churches, while weakening its anti-Russian rhetoric, which seems to be close to nationalist.72 70 “Na sluzhbe u raskolnikov. Kak rasputniki i litsemery glave Fanara depeshi privezli,” Vitrazhy: Vera v kraskakh (March 12, 2021), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDL3 HsD2dio&list=PLcinVz2rjCDxCpFmsv8qGJF76oJVc3Vp&index=13. 71 A fresh example of this trend is the active support by the state bodies of Ukraine of the visit to Kyiv of Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the independence of Ukraine in August 2021, see Patriarkh Varfolomii pidverdiv vizyt v Ukrainu na 30–richchia Nezalezhnosti – deputatka (March 6, 2021), https://www. ukrinform.ua/rubric-society/3203707–patriarh-varfolomij-pidtverdiv-vizit-v-ukrainu-na30ricca-nezaleznosti-deputatka.html. 72 A good example is the reaction of Evstratiy Zorya, the speaker of the OCU, to my “Russia is different” Facebook post of February 26, 2021, concerning the dispute in Russia about who should get a monument in Moscow—Alexander Nevsky or Felix Dzerzhinsky.

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It is also important to point out that the search for simple solutions has not resulted in the desired outcome. This was the attempt of President Petro Poroshenko in 2018–2019 to create a “United Orthodox Church of Ukraine,” combining it with the political agenda on the eve of the coming presidential election. In my recent report, I systematically highlighted this problem, pointing out that the issue of granting autocephaly to the Ukrainian Church and the issue of healing the Ukrainian schism are two different issues.73 Their merging into one problem led to the fact that the UOC, being the largest jurisdiction of Ukraine, mostly ignored the idea of possible autocephaly and even began to deny its need. An important problem remains the mixing of church and geopolitical issues. On the one hand, today in the Ukrainian society there is a stable opinion that the UOC is tightly connected not only to its church center in Moscow, but also to the political leadership of Russia. On the other hand, obvious are the equally political motives of fighters for autocephaly, who see it as a factor for the Europeanization of Ukraine and, accordingly, for mental and cultural alienation from Russia. In such a situation, the church sphere becomes dependent on the political agenda. In such a difficult situation, it is no coincidence that I mentioned the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in several places. On the one hand, as noted above, it remains today mostly the regional church of Galicia. But on the other hand, in the behavior of its leadership, it tends to think in the paradigms of a national Church, supporting the Ukrainian state, but not seeking to merge with it. It is more inclusive due to the search for its special place in the Catholic Church and at the same time quite “Ukrainian” due to the fact that throughout the history of the UGCC its identity was formed in opposition to both Polish and Russian influences. It is the UGCC that sometimes offers constructive models of interconfessional cooperation (something explored in greater detail by Pavlo Smytsnyuk in this volume). The key to our theme is, in my opinion, the model of “uniting without unification” or “cooperation without merging.” It consists not of creating common structures and subordinating one church to another, but in common service for the benefit of Ukrainian Christians. As major archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk noted, “Union is one thing; cooperation is quite another. In many cases, we can already cooperate.”74 Evstratiy Zorya, one of the ideologists first of the Kyiv Patriarchate, and today (as Deputy Head of the OCU’s Department for External Church Relations) the OCU, reacted to my post with the following: “Prison is a prison—it is not freedom. In Russia, then [under Stalin], and now—it is a prison. Only the regime is different […] I am happy that I have not spent a single full day in Russia in my whole life.” 73 See Sergii Bortnyk took part at the conference dedicated to the unity of the Church, https://www.academic-initiative.org.ua/en/2021/03/31/webinar-unity-of-the-church/. 74 Patriarkh Sviatoslav: “Iednannia mizh UGKTs ta Pravoisalvnoiu Tserkoiu Ukrainy tsilkom realne,” Religious Information Service of Ukraine (January 8, 2019), https://risu. ua/patriarh-svyatoslav-yednannya-mizh-ugkc-ta-pravoslavnoyu-cerkvoyu-ukrajini-cil kom-realne_n95640.

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Similar voices of public reconciliation can be heard from the UOC as well. In this regard, especially notable is a text of UOC Archpriest Mykola Danylevych called, “To make catholicity a reality.” Recalling the words of the current President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyi (“We all are Ukrainians, no matter what language we speak and what church we visit”), Danylevych concludes: “In building our Ukrainian political nation, we must not make enemies and stigmatize a significant part of our fellow citizens, the same Ukrainians.”75 One can also see such a conciliatory tendency in the rhetoric of the OCU. Most notably, its Facebook page has the hashtag “#Open Church”, whose supporters have prepared videos with the slogan “The Orthodox Church of Ukraine, open to everyone.”76 Such examples of inclusiveness on all sides lead us to hope that such a model of “unity without unification,” or, in other words, “cooperation without mergence”, can become a model of reconciliation between the two main branches of Ukrainian Orthodoxy.

75 Fr. Mykola Danylevych, “Shchob sobornist stala realnistiu.” The text was dedicated to the celebration of the Sobornost Day of Ukraine on January 22, 2021. Published in public access on the Facebook page of Rev. Danylevych from 23.01.2021. 76 Cf. video on the Facebook page of Metropolitan Epiphanius (head of the OCU) from March 25, 2021.

The Role of the Laity: Some Observations from Inside Lidiya Lozova and Tetiana Kalenychenko

Context The year 2018 and the emergence of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (hereinafter OCU) divided the history of Orthodoxy in the country into two epochs. As one of our respondents described the situation of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (hereinafter UOC) in unity with the Moscow Patriarchate after the OCU received the tomos of autocephaly: “The dragon lost its teeth of canonicity.” Instead of focusing on the canonical and legal aspects of contemporary Ukrainian church life, however, in this article we would like to focus on the situation of the laity and on how laity sees the future prospects of the Ukrainian church. Our key questions are: how do laypeople of different jurisdictions see the church situation? How do they assess the role of the clergy and their own capabilities? Where do they find space to realize their dreams and plans for church renewal? To prepare this study, the authors relied on their own—involved and uninvolved—observations of church processes with participation of clergy and laity in the two jurisdictions over the past three years. Since the granting of OCU autocephaly, one of the authors, Lidiya Lozova, who was previously in the MP, has been mostly attending several OCU parishes and the EP stauropegion in Kyiv. Meanwhile, Tetiana Kalenychenko has both observed the processes ‘from the outside’ (i.e. without affiliating herself with any jurisdiction or parish) and participated in several research projects on the role of churches and religious organizations in the Ukrainian conflict.1 Moreover, in April 2021, we conducted six in-depth (online) interviews with theologians, scholars, and active church members. We were mostly interested in laypeople with a proactive position, with a high level of education, who could share their vision of how2 to develop a lay 1

2

See Tetiana Kalenychenko, “Orthodoxy on the ground: how to deal with religion in conditions of armed conflict,” Canadian Slavonic Papers 62, no. 3–4 (2020), 497–507; Olena Bogdan, Denys Brylov, and Tetiana Kalenychenko, “In Times of Crisis: FaithBased Social Engagement and Religious Contestations in Ukraine Since Maidan 2013– 2014,” in Faith-Based Organizations and Social Welfare: Associational Life and Religion in Contemporary Western Europe, ed. Paul Christopher Manuel and Miguel Glatzer (Basingstoke: Springer Nature, 2020), 81–103. This composite picture of the interviewees will serve as a collective source: the quotations will not specify who said what.

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movement for changes in the church. Four of them were from the city of Kyiv, one from Kharkiv in the East, and the other from Lutsk in the West of Ukraine. Four of them clearly stated that they belonged to one of the two Orthodox jurisdictions (the OCU in three cases and the UOC in one), while two others identified themselves more flexibly/broadly (“I am in the UOC, but I also recognize the OCU and take communion there,” or “I don’t want to define myself in those terms”). In this article, we will first consider the assessments that these laypeople make of the OCU and the UOC today, then analyze their vision of opportunities for inter-jurisdictional dialogue and touch upon the phenomenon of the “just Orthodox” (also discussed by Sergii Bortnyk in this volume). Finally, we will consider lay initiatives in the contemporary Ukrainian church and public sphere, in which we have either participated personally or about which we know firsthand.

New and Autocephalous OCU Some people in Ukraine anticipated the events of December 2018 as a national salvation, while others feared a possible apocalypse. Even if receiving the tomos of autocephaly were indeed to be a salvation for the Ukrainian church, that could not come about instantaneously. Immediately after the establishment of the OCU, the attention of both the Ukrainian and the external ecclesial world was focused on the OCU’s episcopate formed out of the former UOC KP, the UAOC, and a small part of the UOC. This episcopate, headed by Metropolitan Epifanii (Dumenko) of Kyiv, is still going through a difficult stage of internal adaptation of its various parts to each other. Among the external challenges facing the OCU are the conflict between Constantinople and Moscow, which complicates its perception by other local churches, the turbulent time of the pandemic and lockdowns, and the protracted war in the east of Ukraine, which deepens the church divide between Kyiv and Moscow. “And yet they were able to live together, in spite of everything,” one respondent commented on the consequences of the Unification Council of the OCU. The church has existed for three years and has continuously defended its position both within the state and on the international level. The withdrawal of the “honorary patriarch” Filaret (Denysenko), the former head of the UOC KP, can be seen as only contributing to this development because “it helped the church to distance itself from him [Filaret] […] Epifanii had to build a new structure, and it even affected changes in liturgical practice.” Unlike the UOC, which is increasingly closing in on its own rather conservative “ghetto” consisting of the people who find ecclesial authority only in the ROC, the OCU leadership is more oriented toward the Orthodoxy of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. This gives hopes for this church’s larger openness towards

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democratic transformations of this institution in the future in the sphere of its inner governance, clergy-laity relations, interreligious and ecumenical dialogue, and theological education. A special challenge for the new church is the simultaneous presence of the different realities and mentalities that were inherited from the preexisting churches after the unification of the dioceses of the UOC-KP, the UAOC and the UOC-MP in the OCU. New property problems have arisen; priests who previously lived in understandable structures have had to adapt to their new colleagues both in liturgical and everyday life, as well as in the social and political life of the country. According to one respondent from the former Kyiv Patriarchate, it was an unfortunate fact that the OCU rejected the Greek format of the statute for the church, which protects priests from the arbitrary decisions of the episcopate.3 In the legal sphere, this has reinforced the very strong position of the episcopate compared to socially vulnerable priests, who often remain the “serfs” of their bishops. “Now in the OCU every bishop knows that he will sit in his place until his death—and therefore feels absolute impunity and innocence,” adds the respondent. This situation disappoints some believers who have high hopes for a more democratic church structure and seek to renew the church through its focus on Christ and not through the stronger position of the hierarchy. Meanwhile, very different groups coexist within the OCU itself—from radical nationalist priests who are “ready to send all UOC clerics to Russia in railway carriages,” according to one respondent, to unique cases of conservatives who use only the Church Slavonic language in worship. If we also consider differences in the systems of theological education, training, and support of priests and laity on the ground who now depend solely on the local eparchial leadership, the OCU appears to be decentralized, different from eparchy to eparchy, and rather chaotic. “Spring is coming too late, as if there were constant frosts and the harvest may be lost,” one of the respondents commented on his own observations of the development of the OCU over the past three years. According to him, there is an

3

In the version of the statute proposed by the Ecumenical Patriarchate, the judicial bodies that were to administer justice in the eparchy and their composition were carefully identified and described in four detailed subparagraphs (Archbishop; Episcopal Courts; Synodal Courts of the First and Second Instances for Presbyters and Deacons; Synodal Courts of the First and Second Instances of Hierarchs). The election of members of the ecclesial court did not depend directly on the bishop. See Proiekt Statutu Pravoslavnoi Tserkvy v Ukraini (December 15, 2018), https://orthodoxia.info/news/wp-content/up loads/2018/12/Statut-Proekt.pdf. However, in the statute of the OCU those subparagraphs are missing. See Statut Pravoslavnoi Tserkvy Ukrainy, Par. 9 (December 15, 2018), https://www.pomisna.info/uk/document-post/statut-ptsu/. In practice, this leads to an abuse of episcopal authority. This issue remains unresolved, although the OCU is preparing a new version of the statute.

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underlying perception among the episcopate that “a church focused on the laity will not lead us to a ‘bright future’.” Such ambiguous tendencies affect the perception of the OCU Primate, Metropolitan Epifanii, who has been followed especially closely. On the one hand, in public—along with a clear recognition and condemnation of Russian aggression in the east—he declares a position of openness and dialogue both within his own church and towards other denominations and jurisdictions and society as a whole. This position attracts people and makes him a popular religious leader in Ukraine. On the other hand, according to some laypeople in the OCU, in reality his voice is not strong enough to tame the autocratic tendencies of bishops within the new OCU, and the clergy of the OCU on the ground often lack a truly democratic position. The unsystematic character of changes in the OCU, rather slow reactions to immediate challenges, and local authoritarianism in the dioceses often cause a feeling of dispersion in the church, in which quite progressive Kyiv parishes can be radically different from quite rigid ones in small towns and villages. It is thus too early to talk about a stable unity or democracy in the OCU itself, especially considering the fact that some parishes left the OCU to join the reestablished in June 2019 “Kyiv Patriarchate” of “Patriarch” Filaret. The crisis of the OCU’s relations with the UOC has also deepened, as the UOC’s public discourse has not changed: according to the UOC, there is only one “correct” church in Ukraine, the UOC-MP, which stays away from Constantinople’s “nationalism.”

In a Voluntary Isolation Zone—The UOC “There was a time when I was a choir leader at a UOC parish and could even pray for the clergy of the OCU. However, later, when they found out about my publicly expressed sympathies for the OCU, I was asked not to come or take communion there anymore,” said one of the respondents. This is what stories of UOC lay people who after the creation of the OCU tried to find dialogue platforms and points of contact sound like. The UOC’s official response to such attempts has usually been unequivocal: the other church is schismatic, and, if you recognize it, there is no place for you here any longer. However, the inner world of the UOC is not as unambiguous as it is often presented by the pro-Ukrainian media. Lay people from the OCU add that “there are wonderful ordinary people there [in the UOC] who love and support each other, and this does not allow them to leave their church because they feel at home there.” Although the UOC is mostly perceived in the OCU as “one of the agents of the Russian propaganda, very strongly influenced by the ROC,” which “in fact turns people against the [Ukrainian] state,” respondents who were formerly in the UOC and then joined the OCU witness that within the UOC there are people both

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for and against the “Russian dominance over neighboring countries,” for and against autocephaly as such, and for and against dialogue with the OCU, even though such positions are not advertised and, therefore, not subject to sociological consideration. Laypeople of the UOC who remain in it often emphasize that their choice is conscious while society simply does not understand it. According to some of them, we cannot “chose” a church; belonging to a church is not formed as a result of ideological preferences, but through encounters with concrete people—clergy, mentors, friends, who influence a person and his/her spiritual life. To them, joining a church for “political reasons” seems to be a non-Christian act because of its impersonal character. And since for many years most members of the UOC have had basically no contact with the “other side,” even if they sympathize the OCU now, joining it often seems unreasonable. In addition, “a significant part of the shortcomings of the UOC is also characteristic of the episcopate and the internal structure of the OCU, because the hierarchical structure of the Kyiv Patriarchate was copied from the Moscow Patriarchate,” says one of the UOC respondents. Too many fundamental mechanisms remain the same, so why move? Interestingly, the hierarchy of the UOC does not officially forbid its faithful to participate in joint projects with Catholics and Protestants, but it forbids it with the “schismatics” [the OCU]. Therefore, contacts on the ground level are not very frequent. According to one of the participants in the study, “the artificial gap between Constantinople and Moscow is a drama for Kyiv. This is another way [for the UOC] to return to the ideology of a fortress that must be defended.” Official or public opportunities for inter-Orthodox dialogue in the UOC are blocked strictly and punished immediately; according to one respondent, “they [the clergy] have been trying to change people and deprive them of the habit of being critical of church leadership decisions; my pessimism is that people are too dependent on their superiors.” Being in voluntary isolation and maintaining the image of being the canonical Ukrainian church persecuted by the state for its identity (its unity with the Moscow Patriarchate),4 the UOC still needs to sustain public activity and keep its influence throughout the country. However, its work with the laity often takes form of “home groups” of individual parishes, in which lay people are often focused solely on the priest, who becomes the only proven source of information 4

In the past two years, for example, the UOC has organized protests and prayers against its forcible “renaming” as “the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine.” The December 2018 laws ordered the renaming of religious organizations in Ukraine whose centers were in the “aggressor-state.” See Pro vnesennia zminy do statti 12 Zakonu Ukrainy (December 26, 2018), https://zakon.rada.gov.ua/laws/show/2662–19#n2. The leadership of the church considers such laws illegal over-reach. Although the laws were adopted, they have not been implemented so far. For an analysis, see Pereimenuvannia UOTs (March 30, 2021), https://www.radiosvoboda.org/a/tserkva-moskovskoho-patriarkhatu-pereymenuvannia/ 31175863.html.

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and assessment of events in the “outside” world. On the other hand, the UOC also runs strong youth projects, such as at Holy Trinity-St Jonah Monastery or at the “Demiivsky” parish in Kyiv, which unite young people and give them a sense of spiritual foundation.

Points of Contact? “The ‘Ukrainianness’ [of the OCU] versus the ‘Russianness’ [of the UOC] carries a lot of weight,” said one respondent referring to dividing markers in the public discourse around the OCU and the UOC; while the former perceives itself as “patriotic,” the latter considers it “nationalistic.” However, there are parallels between them that may not always be positive for the churches themselves, as well as points of contact that are not very visible at first glance. For example, both churches show a low level of practical work with people and a lack of readiness for transformation. “The hierarchs of both churches are increasingly disappointing, as is the level of teaching at the seminaries. Both the education of the clergy and the structure itself drive one into depression,” said a respondent who has experience of teaching at the Theological Academy of the Kyiv Patriarchate (now the OCU). If in the first months after the tomos there were mass transitions of parishes from the UOC to the OCU (and sometimes to the UGCC, a phenomenon which was advertised less),5 this “transfusion” of parishioners now rather takes place on an individual level. In the capital, practicing laypeople who came to the OCU from the UOC together with their priest mostly continue to attend the same parish, although they gradually discover other parishes of the former KP with which they were previously unfamiliar because of their “non-canonical” character. In “mixed” OCU parishes, where communities from the former Kyiv Patriarchate and Moscow Patriarchate coexist,6 contacts between believers from the former Kyiv and Moscow Patriarchates develop rather slowly; differences in perception of the church, spiritual and parish life are not so easy to overcome or synthesize. In general, OCU believers are usually suspicious of UOC believers who remain in the UOC; they do not interact much with them as they demonstrate negative attitudes towards the OCU. However, those believers who have come to 5

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For instance, two parishes of the liquidated Kharkiv diocese of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church joined the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in June 2020. See Kharkiv: Parafiia z pravoslavnoi cerkvi pereishla do UHKTs (June 14, 2020), https://glavcom.ua/news/harkiv-parafiya-z-pravoslavnoji-cerkvi-pereyshla-do-ugkc686909.html. For example, the parish of St. Yaroslav the Wise on the territory of the National Reserve “Sophia of Kyiv,” formerly KP and now OCU, welcomed Fr. Georgii Kovalenko and the part of his community that joined the OCU from the UOC.

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the OCU from the UOC tend to maintain their ties to the UOC—through family, friends, and even jobs—and thus leave the door open for contacts with the socalled “Russian Church.” Some of them visit parishes “on both sides” and sometimes can even sing in the parish choirs both here and there, without advertizing their position among those whom it may upset. Meanwhile, according to our respondents, a typical position of the faithful in the UOC (which follows the position of its hierarchy) is total non-recognition of the OCU. This standpoint can manifest itself as either aggressive denial or passive disregard for the very existence of the other. However, there are also those in the UOC who are interested in the life of the OCU and establish contacts there. According to our respondents, among the parishioners of the UOC there are people who personally recognize the OCU, but are not ready for such a serious step as “leaving their own group, their spiritual family.” On the other hand, there are those who even receive communion in both the UOC and the OCU while identifying themselves as UOC members and even having their spiritual fathers in the UOC. If such a position is not widely publicized, it becomes possible with the consent of a concrete priest (spiritual father). Of course, this remains the position of a minority. It is possible only when a person can choose where to go for liturgy; above all, it concerns the realities of the capital of Ukraine and not of small towns and villages. For example, in many small towns and villages, parishes are predominantly stable, people are connected through strong social ties and often spend their entire lives in contact with the priest. As a result, believers rarely have the opportunity to change their views without social consequences. For residents of large cities, this problem is not critical due to weaker social connections and the existence of a wide network of religious communities. When asked about the difference between the OCU and the UOC, respondents who moved from the UOC to the OCU often speak about different levels of rigidity of the hierarchy in the two jurisdictions. The interaction of the UOC episcopate with the laity is often reduced to an attempt to fully govern the people and, with their help, to advance their own course;7 a refusal to participate in that is often considered as a betrayal of the mother church and cooperation with Satan. Therefore, the psychological pressure on the faithful can be extremely strong. The OCU, on the other hand, seeks to demonstrate a more democratic openness, emphasizing its solidarity with the laity (the slogan of the OCU in social networks sounds as “The Church Is with You”).8 However, church law, statutes, and the 7

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When it is necessary to defend or protest certain state-level actions concerning the UOC, such as the attempted renaming, priests are instructed to gather people and bring them to a designated public place (such as a square in front of a governmental building) for prayer. Such gatherings are also meant to demonstrate the power of the UOC and support the demands of its hierarchy. See public messages of the OCU and Metropolitan Epifaniy tagged with “The Church Is With You” on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/ɰɟɪɤɜɚ_ɡ_ɬɨɛɨɸ.

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habits in the OCU often differ very little from the UOC (ROC) practices, especially in the provinces. While it is generally easier for the OCU representatives to enter into dialogue with the UOC members, such a dialogue is hampered by both strict bans and intimidation in the UOC and general anti-Moscow sentiments within the OCU. However, grassroots inter-jurisdictional dialogue has been slowly smoldering in various formats. For example, in the social media Viber or Telegram groups of UOC believers there are people who support the OCU (or even people who have joined the OCU); they can at least raise the question of recognizing the existence of the other and interacting with it. “If we can't approach the communion cup together, we will discuss the issue over a cup of tea,” commented a respondent from the UOC who also attends the OCU; in 2020, she started an initiative of individual interjurisdictional meetings to discuss ecclesial and theological questions of mutual interest. Again, according to our observations, informal platforms of communication between representatives of the OCU and the UOC involve those who actively participate in the church life, not the majority; they are more likely found in Kyiv than in the provinces.

“Simply Orthodox” or “Just Orthodox” The category of believers who define themselves as “simply Orthodox” is quite significant in Ukraine (see Sergii Bortnyk’s essay in this volume). Among all Ukrainians in 2000, the category of “simply Orthodox” comprised 39% of the population. After a period of confessional self-determination, the number again grew. In 2018, 23% of all Ukrainians considered themselves “simply Orthodox,” and in 2019—already 30%. Among the Orthodox, this number grew from 35% in 2018 to 47% in 2019.9 According to nine surveys of Kyiv International Institute of Sociology in 2020 and 2021,10 we observe a drop in the percentage of such respondents to 12%, but also the change of the term from “simply Orthodox” to “simply Orthodox, without defining of a patriarchate” in the surveys. Because quantitative research does not provide a deep understanding of the causes for such a drop, we can only appeal to the personal information and observations of the laity that we have.11 9

See Razumkov Centre, Derzhava i Tserkva v Ukraini-2019, https://razumkov.org.ua/ uploads/article/2019_Religiya.pdf. 10 See KIIS, Religiina samoidentyfikatsiia naselennia i stavlennia do osnovnykh tserkov v Ukraini (July 6, 2021), http://kiis.com.ua/?lang=ukr&cat=reports&id=1052&page=1. 11 We do not think it possible to adequately compare the Ukrainian situation with the situation in other countries where people prefer to identify themselves with certain denominations or call themselves “non-religious” or “simply believers.” The presence of several jurisdictions in the Ukrainian context, as well as the fact that Orthodoxy is a part of the cultural

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There are different versions of who these “simply Orthodox” are: those who are tired of jurisdictional divisions; those who want to be in a single Orthodox church; ordinary “audience members” who are not experts in church politics and have a purely cultural rather than spiritual identity. According to our respondents, the answer to the question “Who are ‘simply Orthodox’? Do you consider yourself ‘simply Orthodox’?” may also depend on personal factors, as well as on who asks the question. For some, the “simply Orthodox” are those who “seem to reject their obligations [to the church] and have a simplistic view of identity. […] It can also be those people who are in the UOC (or, in Russia, the ROC) and at the same time feel that they have nothing to do with a church that comes close to commemorating Stalin—and this is an example of our friends from Russia and Belarus.” They may be those for whom the history of the church does not equal to the history of faith: “The church cannot be chosen because it is like your character that you do not choose. Faith is where we are chosen, and not where we choose. Choosing a church from certain positions is not about faith at all and not about awareness in faith.” The leitmotif of hope for this stratum of the conscious “simply Orthodox” runs through all the interviews; according to some respondents, the “simply Orthodox” could become a “living nucleus for the church” and increase the number of “freaks like us who go to all churches.” For some the concept of “simply Orthodox” can even be correlated with “just Christians,” i.e. that “frequency at which we all simply belong to Christ.”

The Role of the Laity: The Prospects of Grassroots “Orthodox Democracy” Due to the paternalistic nature of the church structure (both in the UOC and the OCU), initiative in the church is usually expected from the priest (or bishop), while the laos passively awaits instructions. “The fathers should bless the laity to live,” said one respondent, ironically alluding to a typical role model of the relationships with the clergy. At present, priests of both the OCU and the UOC all too often act as “gurus” who have (or should have) answers to all the questions and inquiries of their flock. Because they have many duties—and little support from their bishops, whether moral or financial—it is very difficult for them to bear such a burden. However, “when they [priests] try to move away from this image [of the guru], they are immediately reprimanded (from below).” As a result, priests are often on the verge of emotional and spiritual burnout, and the laity are unable to take responsibility for parish life. A distorted identity of the Ukrainian citizens, may influence the emergence of the “simply Orthodox” phenomenon.

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responsibility is created, which reflects general social trends: representatives of the “power” (clergy) are a priori considered responsible for everything, while the “flock,” when trying to “command,” is not actually ready to distribute responsibilities and successfully interact vertically or horizontally. The small stratum of mature lay people who are ready and able, even willing, to take responsibility, usually does not receive support from the church leadership and can act only with a very high level of motivation and free time. However, since the authors believe that the church is not walls, but people, then it is precisely grassroots initiatives that acquire the greatest significance. “Now we are facing a great paradox—now is the time of the laity. If changes come, they will only come through laypeople. But following the Soviet example, we are still awaiting instructions from above or a blessing […] As soon as the bishops understand that it is necessary to ‘unleash’ the flock, miracles will begin,” said one of the OCU respondents. Unfortunately, not many bishops understand this. One of our respondents described an unsuccessful experience of a lay initiative seeking to follow the example of the movement of Orthodox youth “brotherhoods” in the former KP. In the 2000s, groups of Orthodox youth organized themselves gathered in Kyiv, Lviv, Rivne, Kherson, Kharkiv, and the Crimea. “At that time, few people really supported us [out of the hierarchs], they didn’t care whether we existed. Formally, the brotherhoods had clergy (priests, monks), but their work was neither appreciated nor properly supported by the church.” Regular meetings of young people for leisure, social service, and discussion of theological and ecclesial issues, helped participants feel themselves as members of the church no less—if not more —than participation in traditional rituals alone. The system of Orthodox brotherhoods relied entirely on self-organization and allowed the creation of support networks throughout the country, which later resulted in the All-Ukrainian Orthodox Youth Camps. Sometimes members of one group could meet up to six times a week. There were even contacts with the youth groups of the UOC. These, however, did not develop due to the confrontation of the jurisdictions. Nevertheless, the process of self-organization of the youth, uncontrolled by the Church, caused concern among some members of the episcopate of the KP. As the respondent recalls, “when our structure began to take shape, the church did everything to completely subordinate it—constantly demanding reports, taking control of every action […] we were accused of various sins, as if we wanted to take over the church and overthrow the bishops.” Some brotherhoods were even closed and their members excommunicated. At present, what has been left of this movement nominally exists in the new church structure (the OCU), but does not properly function due to the lack of interest on the side of the clergymen appointed to lead it. Our respondents imagine a renewed church with a strong lay movement as a “hub” where bishops serve the unity of all and create space for communication

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and not the image of a “despot.” This is primarily the desire of the active laity of the OCU, who find it easier to talk about their position (at least in Kyiv). Some lay people in the UOC whose voice is not always heard actually want the same, however. In our opinion, to fulfill this vision, it is necessary to create joint projects and interact with the hierarchy without fear of disagreements and even resistance on their side. This will gradually result in the reformatting of the paradigm of relations between laity, priests, and hierarchs, allowing the latter to delegate part of responsibility without losing their own authority and status.

“Ten Theses for the OCU” At the very beginnings of the OCU, active Orthodox believers who already knew each other in person or on Facebook drafted a document entitled “Ten Theses for the OCU.”12 It was signed by many people, and a community was formed around it. This project became a manifestation of the lay demand for the renewal and democratization of the church. Laypeople including scholars and theologians, along with some clergy, appealed to the hierarchs, proposing to the OCU a number of steps to make the new church qualitatively different from the churches it had been formed from. The suggested steps were the following: (1) church decentralization, implying that part of the decisions about church life should be made by the community itself; (2) renewal of parish life, encouragement of inter-parish communication and Eucharistic revival; (3) catechetical education leading to fully conscious instead of nominal membership in the church; (4) high-quality translation of liturgical texts into Ukrainian, so that the liturgy could speak to the person of the 21st century; (5) strengthened Christocentrism and restoration of the biblical consciousness of the church as opposed to ritualism and exaggerated ethnographic, patriotic, or cultural components; (6) the renunciation of any “symphony” of church and state of the Byzantine or Western type; (7) rethinking the role of bishops as loving pastors who stay in the midst of the church people and ensure their unity (and not as those who provide and distribute grace “from above”); (8) an active social position of the Church, active social service; (9) reforms of church education towards more openness to the modern world; (10) dialogue and openness towards other Orthodox, other Christian, and other religious communities. Although the document was never signed by any Ukrainian 12 See Sign Petition: Ten Theses for the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (February 12, 2019), https://risu.ua/en/sign-petition-ten-theses-for-the-orthodox-church-of-ukraine_n96394. It was first published on Facebook, which is an important social media factor in the church life of Ukraine. Later a Facebook group was created entitled “Ten Theses,” which was described as a community of clergy and laity who strive for the renaissance of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine in the spirit of the Gospel.

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bishop, it testified to the lay demand for broad reforms and a new language of communication in the church. The initiators of the appeal received support from priests from different sides, as well as a letter of approval from Patriarch Bartholomew; there was also a meeting with Metropolitan Epifanii, who informally supported the initiative. The very emergence of such a document has become a symbol of the maturation of Orthodox laity in Ukraine to the level at which they are ready to influence the renewal of the church. However, the real fruits of this appeal are not yet obvious. For example, there is much room in the Orthodox legal field for changes in parish statutes towards greater democracy, but so far these opportunities have not been used and a rigid systemic hierarchy has dominated. “Subjectively, the hierarchs are very afraid of losing the halo of being ‘despots.’ They see everything, but objectively it is not profitable for them,” said one of the respondents. According to one of the initiators of the “Ten Theses,” Ukraine “needs a ‘de-guru-ization’ without desecration and profanation of the clergy.” Admittedly, hierarchs of both jurisdictions often benefit from focusing only on the discourse of the outside “enemies” who hinder the well-being of their church (either in the form of another state or another jurisdiction), but they also need to recognize and address issues which do not allow the church to fully develop from within. In the future it will be necessary to form a new language of communication and cooperation for both vertical and horizontal relations within the church.

Examples of Lay Initiatives in Ukraine How can lay people who are interested in the renewal of the church life influence the situation and make the church more democratic and open already today—in the spirit of the “Ten Theses”? The easiest way is to promote initiatives that do not come directly from church structures and, therefore, have more freedom. At the same time, those initiatives should be hospitable to people at all levels of the official church, both Orthodox and others. Important in this context are the activities of the Open Orthodox University of St. Sophia the Wisdom (OOU), an NGO which is not a church structure of the OCU but a public organization sponsored by grants and donations operating since 2016. Although the overall leader of OOU is a priest (Archpriest Georgii Kovalenko, who joined the OCU from the UOC), the project is fundamentally open not only to active participation but also to guidance and administration by the laity; this reflects the position of the OOU in general. Currently, the OOU’s main initiative is the project, “Understanding: Religious Communities and the

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Overcoming of the Polarization of Ukrainian Society,”13 which began in the spring of 2021. The project includes online lectures, seminars and offline trainings on peace and reconciliation, involving representatives of different jurisdictions and denominations (some UOC representatives participate without publicity). Before the Understanding (Porozuminnia) project, the OOU organized or coorganized a number of important public events aimed at dialogue between the church and society in Ukraine with the participation of theologians, scholars, social workers, educators, public activists and clergy of various denominations and jurisdictions.14 Despite the fact that the OOU is not an administrative part of the OCU, the official church does not hinder its educational activities and does not try to control it, which is a good sign in the context of Ukraine. OOU events, both live and recorded, have already contributed to the democratic image of the OCU, both in Ukrainian society and beyond. A good example of a purely lay initiative in Ukrainian Orthodoxy is the “ETHOS online school” organized by several Orthodox lay people in the summer of 2020; it aims to overcome not only geographical but also jurisdictional and religious borders. Announcements of its courses and materials for them are posted on the ETHOS website and lectures take place via Zoom.15 The ETHOS school project got its name and inspiration from the document “For the life of the world. On the way to the social ethos of the Orthodox Church” of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, which was previously discussed at several OOU webinars. The courses grew out of the Kyiv Summer Theological Institutes and the International Theological Conference “Dormition Readings,” which have been held for almost twenty years by the Kyiv-based Research and Publishing Association “Spirit and Letter” (Dukh i litera) at the St. Clement Center, “Communion and Dialogue of Cultures.” ETHOS coordinators are OCU Orthodox Christians from those two organizations. At the same time, ETHOS is fundamentally open to people from different jurisdictions and denominations. Participants of the courses are mainly believers who understand Ukrainian or Russian, from the OCU, the UOC, the ROC and the EP, from Ukraine, uncontrolled territories in the east, Belarus, Russia, and other countries around the world. ETHOS courses usually raise theological and anthropological questions that encourage sincere expression and discussion (for example, about the dignity and vocation of man in Christianity) and, therefore, promote dialogue and understanding. Although ETHOS is not a largescale project so far, one of our respondents called it a manifestation of the “movement” in the Orthodox Church today (similar to lay movements in the Catholic Church). Another way of democratizing the church and its contacts with society is publishing and promoting books that can become a platform for reflection and 13 https://oou.org.ua/peacebuilding/. 14 See the list of those events on their website: https://oou.org.ua/events/. 15 ethos.org.ua.

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mutual exchange of ideas. Again, we are not talking about projects of church structures here, but of NGOs whose members are interested in the dialogue between church and society. Here we should mention the Christian publications from “Spirit and Letter”16; these publications are known in the UOC, the OCU, and among a wide circle of Ukrainian and foreign intellectuals. Translations of works by theologians and Christian figures of the 20th and 21st centuries—Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant—as well as original works by Ukrainian authors are distributed by “Spirit and Letter” through church channels (both in the OCU and UOC) and secular bookstores, creating a common intellectual space for people on different sides of various barricades. In the future, such lay initiatives as ETHOS could help to renew spiritual education in the Ukrainian church as a whole, as the idea of an online spiritual academy has long matured among believers interested in theology (a series of thematic podcasts, streams, online sermons). Another noteworthy initiative in which the laity play a prominent role is “Dialogue in Action.”17 This is not a church or even a Christian but a public project, run by the two authors of this article. “Dialogue in Action” involves believers and clergy of different religious communities in dialogue with secular society for the development of small communities in Ukraine. Its main components are trainings and facilitated dialogues involving local government, community, business, education, and parishes. The fact that the project focuses on the development of a community (a town, a village)—and on the development of a specific church— makes it easier for representatives of competing Orthodox jurisdictions to participate in it. During the project, lay people, as well as people who sometimes do not identify with a church at all—for example, representatives of secular NGOs who comprise the majority of the project—have the opportunity to communicate informally with participating clergymen and see them primarily as ordinary human beings and not as officials of a religious organization. Thus, the project promotes the establishment of contacts between the clerical, lay and even secular worlds. However, participation of Orthodox laity in the renewal of the church does not have to happen only in the form of “projects.” It can be manifested in informal gatherings of friends who do not fit into one parish and who attend different parishes, sometimes of different jurisdictions, testifying to the fact that no walls reach God. One respondent notes that such an informal community of about 15 people exists in Kyiv; during 2020–2021, its members would regularly attend 57 different parishes of the OCU and the UOC, although the number of parishes gradually shrank to 2-3 OCU parishes. Lay people may also have some influence on the church situation through social networks on the Internet. For example, they may post in the Network of Open Orthodoxy on Facebook (a network that emerged partly thanks to the 16 https://duh-i-litera.com/bookstore/mfp/3f-kategoriya,xristijanstvo. 17 https://www.ethos.org.ua/dialog-u-diyi/.

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activities of the OOU)18 or suggest discussions in various groups in Messenger apps. “At first I expected much more devastating criticism, but now a lot of people support me,” recalls one of the respondents who identifies more with the UOC but is not afraid to openly speak about her pro-OCU position. “However, not everything is so smooth, especially when you ask the representatives of the OCU to refrain from lobbying for the new name of the UOC [Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine].” “Everyone has a great responsibility to be a man of God and to sanctify this world,” said one respondent. The situation in the Ukrainian Orthodoxy is difficult, but lay people seeking to renew the church have been taking concrete steps to do so. And although these steps may seem insignificant against the background of inflexible church structures, their hope is that a little leaven is enough for the whole dough.

18 https://www.facebook.com/groups/mereza.

The New Orthodox Church in Ukraine: Ecumenical Aspects and Problems1 Pavlo Smytsnyuk

Introduction The establishment of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) has produced a series of profound effects both in Ukraine and internationally. This chapter reflects upon OCU’s creation and recognition in the context of a wider confessional conflict between Constantinople and Moscow. With the granting of autocephaly to the OCU, other Christian denominations and ecumenical institutions—both within and outside Ukraine—have been drawn into the conflict, and forced to choose sides. Here, I will highlight how the OCU was received by other Ukrainian churches, and will explain why this reaction was so largely positive (with the exception of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in unity with the Moscow Patriarchate)—and what concerns it raised. Particular attention will be dedicated to the relationship between the OCU and the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC), since the latter is the biggest non-Orthodox church in Ukraine, with an important global presence. I will then move on to the international level, where the autocephaly of the OCU, and the subsequent break of communion between Moscow and Constantinople, jeopardizes ecumenical cooperation, and, in particular, the official theological dialogue between the Orthodox and Catholic churches. The Ukrainian crisis might have repercussions for multilateral ecumenical relations as well, especially if the OCU, supported by Constantinople, decides to seek membership within such international bodies as the World Council of Churches (WCC) and the Conference of European Churches (CEC). I will conclude by arguing that the

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I am grateful to those who agreed to speak with me about the ecumenical reception of the OCU: Pavlo Shvarts from the German Evangelical-Lutheran Church of Ukraine; Ihor Shaban from the UGCC Commission for Interreligious Dialogue and Ecumenical Affairs in Kyiv; Roman Soloviy from the Eastern European Institute of Theology in Lviv; Ivan Rusyn from the Ukrainian Evangelical Theological Seminary in Kyiv; Benjamin Simon and Vasile-Octavian Mihoc from the World Council of Churches in Geneva; Katerina Pekridou from the Conference of European Churches in Brussels; Natallia Vasilevich from the Centre “Ecumena” in Minsk, and Dmytro Horyevoy from the Department of Religions and Nationalities of the Lviv Regional State Administration, and others who preferred to remain anonymous.

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crisis provoked by the emergence of the OCU can either become an opportunity for ecumenical dialogue, or, on the contrary, a source of further tension.

Context To understand the context, one should keep in mind two key elements in the religious and political background of Ukraine: religious pluralism and the choices imposed on the Orthodox by the hybrid war between Ukraine and Russia. Ukraine is a majority Orthodox country, with an important Catholic presence (both Latin and Greek rite), and vibrant Protestant communities.2 From the early 1990’s until 2019 there were three major Orthodox jurisdictions in Ukraine (in mutual tension): the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), with a self-governing status within the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC); and two churches unrecognized by world Orthodoxy: the Ukrainian Orthodox Church – Kyiv Patriarchate (KP), and the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (UAOC). The OCU was formed in 2018 out of the KP and UAOC, along with two bishops and several hundred parishes from the UOC. One of the central criticisms of the Ukrainian autocephaly is that the process failed to bring on board the UOC. Domestically, there has been growing mistrust between the Orthodox in communion with Moscow on the one hand, and large segments of the other churches, civil society, and political elites on the other.3 This mistrust became particularly visible during the war. As Serhii Bortnyk points out, the military conflict “has led to the intensification of the process of unity within Ukrainian society, and […] to a distancing from Russian influence.”4 The war has imposed a radical dilemma upon the UOC—“to choose between a Ukrainian identity of the churches of the Kyivan tradition, and […] the preservation of deep-rooted ties with the Russian church.”5 Each choice, Bortnyk suggests, would imply a political risk: the former would entail embracing a 2

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For a general introduction to the religious situation, see Thomas Bremer, “Religion in Ukraine: Historical Background and the Present Situation,” in Churches in the Ukrainian Crisis, ed. Andrii Krawchuk and Thomas Bremer (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), 3–20. Cf. Thomas Bremer and Sophia Senyk, “La situation ecclésiale orthodoxe actuelle en Ukraine: Quelques remarques critiques,” Istina 64, no. 1 (2019), 25–50 (the French translation of “The Current Ecclesial Situation in Ukraine: Critical Remarks,” St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 63 (2019), 27–58); Dmytro Vovk, “Dynamics of Church-State Relations in Ukraine and the Military Conflict with Russia,” in Religion During the Russian Ukrainian Conflict, ed. Elizabeth A. Clark and Dmytro Vovk (London and New York: Routledge, 2020), 32–53; Serhii Bortnyk, Stratehii prymyrennia. Rol Tserkov v Ukraini (Kyiv: Ridzhi, 2021). Bortnyk, Stratehii prymyrennia (see n. 43), 182. Ibid., 196.

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Ukrainian nation-building project, while the latter might make the UOC an element in the Russian imperialist endeavor. Thomas Bremer and Sophia Senyk rightly state that the UOC is Ukrainian in its character, and conceives of itself as a church primarily of and for Ukrainians.6 One might wonder, however, whether the UOC has been successful enough in assuring Ukrainian civil society and the government that it is absolutely independent of Russian influence in the hybrid war between two countries. Cyril Hovorun claims that the ROC and UOC—unlike other Ukrainian Orthodox—“refused to acknowledge Russian aggression and instead systematically used euphemisms to avoid calling it such. This policy contrasted dramatically with the policies of other Ukrainian Orthodox churches.”7 UOC hierarchs have become, like Donoso Cortés’ bourgeois liberals, a “discussing class” (una clasa discutidora), wanting to evade decisions8 at a moment when Ukrainian society demands a choice.9

The Orthodox Church of Ukraine and Ecumenical Dialogue in Ukraine The (All-)Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations (UCCRO) The OCU has appeared as a successor to the pre-existing ecclesiastical structures which already had a history of inter-denominational relations and tensions. While the KP and UAOC lacked almost any contact with foreign Catholics and Protestants, the situation was very different domestically. Of great importance in this regard was their participation in the UCCRO, which unites 16 major religious organizations, including Orthodox, Catholics, and Protestants, as well as Jews and Muslims.10 According to Hovorun, the Council is “one of the most successful examples of inter-Christian and inter-faith cooperation in Europe.”11 The UCCRO has been a privileged forum for inter-confessional and inter-religious discussion, 6 7

Bremer and Senyk, “La situation ecclésiale” (see n. 3), 44–45. Cyril Hovorun, “War and Autocephaly in Ukraine,” Kyiv-Mohyla Humanities Journal 7 (2020), 6. The UOC’s position contrasted also with documents coming from the UCCRO, which bear the UOC’s signature. On cases, where the UOC’s bishops took an openly proRussian position, see Bortnyk, Stratehii prymyrennia (see n. 3), 149. 8 Carl Schmitt, Political Theology: Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty, (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2005), 59. See also https://trivent-publishing.eu/ img/cms/6–%20Juan%20Donoso%20Cortés_OA.pdf. 9 Cf. Bortnyk, Stratehii prymyrennia (see n. 3), 138–39. 10 UCCRO, Information about UCCRO, https://vrciro.org.ua/en/council/info. On the UCCRO, see Andrii Krawchuk, “Constructing Interreligious Consensus in the Post-Soviet Space: The Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations,” in Eastern Orthodox Encounters of Identity and Otherness: Values, Self-reflection, Dialogue, ed. Andrii Krawchuk and Thomas Bremer (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 273–300. 11 Hovorun, “War and Autocephaly in Ukraine” (see n. 7), 4.

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dialogue with civil authorities, and an opportunity for religions to speak with one voice on various issues. The UCCRO played an important reconciliatory role during both the Orange and Euromaidan revolutions,12 and a rotating presidency allowed less numerically-populated communities to acquire recognition and visibility. One might wonder whether the UCCRO should be considered an ecumenical or inter-religious organization properly speaking. While many of its declarations are the result of inter-religious dialogue on issues of social doctrine (especially on matters concerning human reproduction and sexuality), the Council’s activities are dedicated primarily to the promotion of religious interests vis-à-vis the state. In other words, the UCCRO constitutes an instrument of religious lobbying in the domain of law-making, rather than a platform for theological exchange. As Andrii Krawchuk rightly observes, although the Council “possesses some core elements of dialogue,” it would benefit from a “full-fledged interreligious dialogue, [which would] require a shift of focus from social policy and religion-state relations to core beliefs and values.”13 Although the UCCRO, strictly speaking, is not an ecumenical body (since it also has non-Christian members), there is no other permanent national forum inclusive of the representatives of major Ukrainian churches. Therefore, the UCCRO constitutes both an iconic example of, and a model for, ecumenical relations within the Ukrainian context. First, it is a sign of the religiously pluralistic environment, in which no church can legitimately speak for all Ukrainian believers. Second, the Council shows that the dominant framework of inter-confessional and inter-religious relations is dialogue with the state and civil society. Third, the usually positive relations between different churches lack a robust theological dimension.14 These conclusions apply, to a certain extent, at the regional level. Regions and cities have regular meetings of senior clergy, usually at the initiative of the governor or mayor, rather than the churches themselves. One could conclude that, paradoxically, the biggest promotor of inter-confessional dialogue in Ukraine is the government, and that cooperation between churches is more often than not aimed at influencing state policies, or highlighting their social contribution. Participation in the UCCRO has allowed the KP and UAOC to engage in serious dialogue with all the major players in the religious field of Ukraine, on 12 On the Euromaidan’s effect on the development of ecumenical relations in Ukraine, see Mykhailo Dymyd, Bogoslovia svobody: Ukrainska versiia (L’viv: UKU, 2020), 181–196. 13 Krawchuk, “Constructing Interreligious Consensus” (see n. 10), 294. A similar observation is made by Mykhailo Cherenkov, “Protestantski tserkvy i demokratiia po-ukrains’ku: sotsialno-relihiini naslidky politychnykh protsesiv,” Ukrainske relihieznavstvo 60 (2011), 149. 14 On the absence of a systematic theological dialogue between Christians in Ukraine, see Bortnyk, Stratehii prymyrennia (see n. 3), 184–85.

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which the OCU can now build. As of 2019, both the KP and UAOC have ceased their membership in the Council, and the OCU has taken their place. The UOC has continued its membership in the Council, including the period when the UCCRO was chaired by the OCU’s Metropolitan Epiphanii (Dumenko). It remains to be seen to what extent the OCU’s participation in the Council will be qualitatively different from that of its predecessors, but clearly for the new church the other denominations do not constitute a terra incognita. The OCU’s Ecumenical Vision In his 2019 enthronement address, Epiphanii declared the OCU’s openness to “cooperation and dialogue with other Christian churches […] in Ukraine and abroad.”15 He explicitly mentioned the UCCRO as a successful platform for such dialogue. Ever since, the importance of dialogue has been mentioned by the new Primate in many speeches and interviews, with emphasis on dialogue with the UGCC.16 In October of 2019, the OCU’s Holy Synod created the Commission for interChristian relations.17 This commission is chaired by one of the OCU’s most senior hierarchs, Dymytrii (Rudiuk), the Metropolitan of Lviv and Sokal. Curiously, seven out of twelve of the members of the Commission have previously belonged to the UOC, which is rather disproportionate given that the number of the UOC’s clergy and laymen who joined the OCU remains very small. This fact is of considerable interest. The UOC has never been very active ecumenically. However, if compared with the isolation of the KP and the UAOC, the UOC has managed to provide exposure for those of its members who were interested in inter-Christian dialogue.18 Moreover, it shows that there is an understanding within the OCU that the isolation of its predecessors should be addressed and rectified. Several members of the Commission were signatories of the Ten Theses for the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (discussed by Lozova, Bortnyk, and others in this volume), which called for an “all-embracing dialogue with other Orthodox 15 Epifanii (Dumenko), Slovo pislia intronizatsii u Sviatiy Sofii Kyivskiy (February 5, 2019), https://www.pomisna.info/uk/vsi-novyny/slovo-mytropolyta-kyyivskogo-i-vsiyeyi-ukrayi ny-epifaniya-pislya-intronizatsiyi/. 16 Epifaniii (Dumenko), Dopovid na Arkhiereiskomu Sobori 15 hrudnia 2020 (December 15, 2020), https://www.pomisna.info/uk/document-post/dopovid-predstoyatelya-na-arhiyerej skomu-sobori-15–grudnya-2020–roku/. 17 Sviashchennyi Synod PTsU, Zhurnaly zasidannia vid 20 zhovtnia 2019 (October 29, 2019), https://www.pomisna.info/uk/document-post/zhurnaly-zasidannya-svyashhennogo -synodu-vid-29–zhovtnya-2019–r/. 18 UOC’s representatives, usually as part of ROC delegations, participated in the work of the WCC, CEC and other ecumenical bodies, and attended inter-confessional meetings. The UOC participates in scholarship programs and cultural exchanges with both Catholics and Protestants.

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Churches and Christian communities, to restore our unity in the Eucharist, first of all with Churches of Apostolic tradition, but not neglecting other Christian communities.”19 Time will tell whether those clergy and laity who are in favor of robust ecumenical relations (in particular the former UOC members who had ecumenical exposure), will be able to convince the church at large to be more proactive in relations with other Christians. The OCU and the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church Context The relationship between Ukrainian Orthodoxy and the UGCC—the biggest Catholic body in the country—is a complex question. If one wishes to understand the background of the UGCC’s attitude towards the OCU, one should consider three major factors: the conflicts with the Orthodox during the decade following 1989, the UGCC’s ecumenical vision, and the history of the UGCC’s relations with Constantinople and Moscow. Ukraine was the epicentre of conflicts between Greek Catholics and Orthodox in 1989 and subsequent years. After the legal ban on Ukrainian Greek Catholics in 1946, an important part of UGCC property was given to the ROC. However, after the legalization of the UGCC in 1989, hundreds of parishes started their return to UGCC jurisdiction. This process sometimes included inter-denominational clashes.20 Although these clashes are usually depicted as a conflict between the UGCC and ROC, the reality on the ground was more complex, and sometimes involved tensions between the UGCC and other Orthodox jurisdictions—the UAOC, and, later, the KP.21 In fact, one could argue that the conflict with the latter two was more acute and enduring. As Anatolii Babynskyi puts it, in this conflict “each church sought to play the role of leader in Ukraine’s ‘spiritual liberation’ from the colonial centre.”22 The second factor to consider is the UGCC’s ecumenical conception. Ukrainian Greek Catholics are often seen as a major ecumenical problem, or, in

19 RISU, Ten Theses for the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (February 12, 2019), https:// risu.ua/en/sign-petition-ten-theses-for-the-orthodox-church-of-ukraine_n96394. 20 Cf. Yury P. Avvakumov, “Ukrainian Greek Catholics, Past and Present,” in Churches in the Ukrainian Crisis, ed. Andrii Krawchuk and Thomas Bremer (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), 27–28. 21 Viktor Elenskii, Pravoslavno-greko-katolicheskii konflikt v Ukraine: posledniaia faza (January 24, 2003), https://risu.ua/ru/pravoslavno-greko-katolicheskiy-konflikt-v-ukraineposlednyaya-faza_n34453. 22 Anatolii Babynskyi, “The Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) and the Ukrainian GreekCatholic Church (UGCC): A Meeting after the Tomos,” Canadian Slavonic Papers 62, no. 3–4 (2020), 489.

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Yury Avvakumov’s words, “a stumbling-block in East-West relations.”23 However, the UGCC has traditionally insisted that dialogue with Orthodoxy is a key component of its mission.24 It is only recently that the Orthodox of various jurisdictions have started to recognize the possibility that the UGCC might play a positive role in ecumenical dialogue.25 The UGCC is the only major Ukrainian church that has been systematically reflecting on Christian unity. With respect to its relationship with the Orthodox, the 2015 Ecumenical Position stated that the UGCC “does not see herself as qualified to assess the claims of individual Orthodox Churches [in Ukraine] regarding who represents Orthodoxy in Ukraine today” and that it “will attempt to maintain contacts and carry on dialogue with all jurisdictions, holding to a position of non-interference in internal Orthodox misunderstandings.”26 The UGCC’s attitude of equidistance to both canonical and uncanonical jurisdictions was in contrast not only to the inter-Orthodox consensus, but also to the policy of the Holy See. It is reasonable to expect that the new version of the Position, due to appear in 2021–22, will keep this neutral approach with regard to the OCU and UOC. Over the past decades, the UGCC has articulated its vision of unity through dialogue within the framework of the so-called Kyivan church, or Kyivan tradition.27 In the UGCC’s narrative, the Kyivan church refers not only to the ancient Metropolia of Kyiv, but, more importantly, to those churches which share the latter’s heritage, in particular the UOC, KP, UAOC, and the UGCC itself. They all constitute “denominational branches of the Kyivan Church,” the latter being

23 Avvakumov, “Ukrainian Greek Catholics” (see n. 20), 37. 24 UGCC commitment to ecumenical dialogue has been recently reiterated by the current Major Archbishop Sviatoslav (Sviatoslav Shevchuk and Krysztof Tomasik, Dialoh likue rany (Lviv: Svichado, 2019)). 25 See Vassiliadis, who claimed that “[UGCC] has suddenly emerged as one [of] the main players in fostering ecumenical relations” (Petros Vassiliadis, “Orthodox-Catholic and Greek Catholic Relations After the Ukrainian Crisis,” in Stolen Churches or Bridges to Orthodoxy? Ecumenical and Practical Perspectives on the Orthodox and Eastern Catholic Dialogue, ed. Vladimir Latinovic and Anastacia K. Wooden (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2021), 263); Bortnyk, Stratehii prymyrennia (see n. 3), 196–97. 26 The Synod of Bishops of UGCC, The Ecumenical Position of the Ukrainian GreekCatholic Church (Lviv: Koleso, 2016), §59.a and 59.e [p. 68]. For a recent assessment of the Position, see Dietmar Schon, “An Ecumenical Revolution in Ukraine? Perspectives for a Regional Greek-Catholic/Orthodox Dialogue,” in Stolen Churches or Bridges to Orthodoxy? (see n. 25), 235–252. 27 See Lubomyr Husar, “The Unique People of God: Discourse on the occasion of the beginning of the return of the Metropolitan See to Kyiv,” in Antoine Arjakovsky, Conversations with Lubomyr Cardinal Husar: Towards a Post-Confessional Christianity (Lviv: UCU, 2007). UGCC, The Ecumenical Position (see n. 26). On the “Kyivan Church,” see Alfons Brüning’s chapter in this volume.

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an imagined community, as it were.28 The idea of a “Kyivan church” has been widely discussed, and sometimes criticized, by both churchmen and scholars. For example, Thomas Bremer and Sophia Senyk claim that this concept aims to exclude the UOC and to challenge the latter’s legitimacy as genuinely Ukrainian.29 Yet such a reading is not an inevitable interpretation of the Kyivan church concept, and certainly not the one that has been officially proposed by the UGCC. If one were to make the accusation that this concept excludes, it would be more accurate to claim that it is less inclusive of Latin-rite Catholics or Protestants than of the UOC.30 However, the Kyivan church’s idea is not unproblematic. Andriy Mykhaleyko rightly observes that this concept “is used as an ideological argument to justify not only a religious, but also a political, national, and cultural otherness of Ukrainians when it comes to Russia.”31 Similarly, Ihor Rantsia claims that the concept can be instrumentalized for geopolitical aims.32 On the other hand, however, Rantsia highlights the potential inclusivity of the Kyivan church idea: by its reference to the ancient Metropolia, this concept is broad enough to embrace not only the UOC, but also churches such as the ROC, the Polish Orthodox Autocephalous Church and the Old Believers. Although officially the UGCC did not opt for dialogue with one jurisdiction to the detriment of the other “Kyivan churches,” in practice it has been less clear cut. The UGCC’s relations with the KP and UAOC were better than those with the UOC.33 This is not devoid of irony given that the UOC, as part of the ROC, has been in official contact with the Catholic Church as a whole, while the other two jurisdictions were never recognized by the Holy See, and the UCGC’s relationship with them was not viewed positively by Rome. Babynskyi suggests that the two non-canonical churches used the dialogue with the Greek Catholics as a means of gaining acceptance in a situation of ecclesial isolation. One of the results of such an acceptance was the recognition, by the UGCC, of the validity of baptism within the KP34—something that had been denied by the UOC, who 28 UGCC, The Ecumenical Position (see n. 26), n. 38, 55–59, pp. 59, 65–68. I do not use the term “imagined” pejoratively, or suggest that the Kyivan church is not real. I rather mean that right now it does not exist as a canonically unified community. 29 Bremer and Senyk, “La situation ecclésiale” (see n. 3), 44–46. 30 Cf. Viktoria Liubashchenko, Reformatsiia i protestantyzm: ukrainskiy kontekst (Kyiv: Samit-Knyha, 2017), 465. 31 Andriy Mykhaleyko, “The New Independent Orthodox Church in Ukraine,” Südosteuropa 67, no. 4 (2019), 487. 32 Ihor Rantsia, “Poniattia Kyivskoi Tserkvi v istoriohrafii ta ekleziialniy svidomosti,” Naukovi zapysky UKU 8 (2016), 172, 192. 33 Cf. Bremer and Senyk, “La situation ecclésiale” (see n. 3), 45. 34 RISU, Rep of UGCC Explains Why It Recognized Baptisms in Kyiv Patriarchate (February 5, 2013), https://risu.ua/en/rep-of-ugcc-explains-why-it-recognized-baptisms-in-kyiv-pat riarchate_n61375.

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considered the KP as “deprived of [sacramental] grace.”35 However, even if the UGCC’s relations with the KP and UAOC were good, they led neither to serious theological dialogue, nor to lasting common social initiatives.36 The UGCC’s relationship with the UOC has remained generally rather tense. A short period of improvement occurred briefly before Euromaidan, as the churches were leaving behind the property disputes of the 1990’s, while the tone of the Primates of both churches sounded more conciliatory.37 Relations have degraded since the beginning of the war in the East, which coincided with the 2014 election of Onufrii (Berezovskyi) as the new Metropolitan of Kyiv.38 The third important moment which conditioned the UGCC’s approach to the creation of the OCU was the former’s relationship with Constantinople and Moscow. From the second half of the 20th century, Ukrainian Catholics in the diaspora have been in touch with the Orthodox in the West. These contacts helped establish a successful dialogue with the Patriarchate of Constantinople. The theological segment of this dialogue was carried out by the Kyivan Church Study Group, an ecumenical cohort of theologians active from 1992–1996. The Group (also discussed by Alfons Brüning in this volume) explored the possibility of simultaneous communion of Ukrainian Christians with Rome and Constantinople.39 The dialogue between the UGCC and Constantinople has intensified during the past decade: Patriarch Bartholomew (Archondonis) and the Major Archbishop Sviatoslav (Shevchuk) discussed their bilateral relations during meetings in 2013 in the Phanar, and in 2019, in the Vatican. Dialogue between the UGCC and ROC has never reached such a level. Between 2011–2013, relations between the two churches seemed to have improved, perhaps for the first time in modern history. The Patriarch of Moscow, Kirill (Gundiaev), declared in 2011 that “while the conflict [with the UGCC] remains unresolved, […] there has been a recent improvement in relations between the Orthodox and Greek Catholics in Ukraine.”40 In several meetings around that time 35 Antonii Pakanych, Korotko i iasno pro tomos i ‘PTsU’ (January 2, 2020), https://news. church.ua/2020/01/02/keruyuchij-spravami-upc-korotko-i-yasno-pro-tomos-i-pcu-video/. 36 Cf. Babynskyi, “The Orthodox Church of Ukraine” (see n. 22), 490. 37 Vladimir (Sabodan), Doklad na Arkhiereiskom Sobore RPTs (February 3, 2013), http://www.patriarchia.ru/db/text/2772214.html. A sign of this improvement was the presence of a bishop representing the UOC at the enthronization of the UGCC’s Major Archbishop Sviatoslav in 2011. 38 Cf. Bortnyk’s explanation of the ecumenical reluctance of Metropolitan Onufrii (Bortnyk, Stratehii prymyrennia (see n. 3), 143–144). 39 The results of this dialogue were made public by Logos: A Journal of Eastern Christian Studies, published by the Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky Institute in Ottawa (now in Toronto). 40 Kirill (Gundiaev), Vystuplenie Sviateishego Patriarkha Kirilla na vstreche s gruppoi sluzhatelei Vyshikh diplomaticheskikh kursov Diplomaticheskoi akademii MID RF (November 10, 2011), https://www.mospat.ru/ru/news/54955/.

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in Rome, Major Archbishop Sviatoslav and Metropolitan Ilarion (Alfeiev), the Head of ROC’s Department for External Church Relations (DECR), discussed bilateral relations.41 However, the conflict in Eastern Ukraine radically changed the situation. At the 2014 Synod in Rome, Ilarion claimed that the conflict in Ukraine “has acquired a religious dimension” and accused the UGCC of playing “a significant role in its conception and development.”42 Ilarion called on the UGCC “to renounce any statements on political topics and any visible forms of support of the schism as well as calls to create ‘one Local Church of Ukraine.’”43 The Spring 2016 Havana meeting between Francis and Kirill, which arguably brought the Roman Catholic Church and ROC closer, did not have the same effect on relations between the ROC and UGCC. The exact opposite occurred: the UGCC sharply criticized The Joint Declaration, signed in Havana.44 OCU’s Reception by UGCC While the UGCC has verbally expressed its support for attempts by Ukrainian Orthodox to gain independence, before 2019 it also considered the issue of autocephaly “to be the exclusive competence of the Orthodox Churches.”45 When it became clear that Constantinople would intervene to solve the situation of the KP and UAOC, however, Sviatoslav (Shevchuk) spoke favorably of the process. This endorsement was backed by the laity. A 2018 sociological survey demonstrated that the absolute majority of UGCC members welcomed the idea of the creation of “one local church of Ukraine.”46 Curiously, supporters of the creation of “one local church of Ukraine” among UGCC believers have outnumbered supporters in any other Ukrainian church, including the KP. 41 The meetings, which have not been publicized, were mentioned in an interview by UGCC Head Sviatoslav (Sviatoslav Shevchuk i Ievgenii Kyseliov, Pro Veliku skhyzmu, pro vidstalist MP vid chasu, ta pro te, chogo chekaty vid Moskvy u zviasku z otrymanniam Ukrainoiu Tomosu (January 13, 2019), https://prm.ua/pro-veliku-shizmu-pro-vidstalistmp-vid-chasu-ta-pro-te-chogo-chekati-vid-moskvi-u-zv-yazku-z-otrimannyamukrayinoyu-tomosu-katolikos-ugkts-svyatoslav-shevchuk-v-eksklyuzivnomu-interv-yu-prya/). 42 Hilarion Alfeyev, Greeting Address to the Third Extraordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Catholic Bishops on Pastoral Challenges to the Family in the Context of Evangelization (October 16, 2014), https://mospat.ru/en/news/51006/. 43 Ibid. 44 Sviatoslav Shevchuk and Ihor Yatsiv, Two Parallel Worlds, http://news.ugcc.ua/en/ interview/two_parallel_worlds__an_interview_with_his_beatitude_sviatoslav_75970.html. Cf. Shevchuk and Tomasik, Dialoh likue rany (see n. 24), 123–132. Curiously, many points of this critique have been echoed by the KP (UP, Kyivskyi patriarkhat vidpoviv Papi Rymskomu i patriarkhu Kyrylu (February 16, 2016), https://pda.pravda.com.ua/news/id_ 7099158/). 45 UGCC, The Ecumenical Position (see n. 26), n. 59e, p. 68. 46 SHR, Stavlennia ukraintsiv do stvorennia Iedinoi Pomisnoi Tserkvy (October 17, 2018), http://ratinggroup.ua/research/ukraine/6541e0064f0288673205fbd06795b94c.html.

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What explains this support? First, while the 1990s conflict between the Greek Catholics and Orthodox “ruined” the UGCC’s ecumenical reputation in the eyes of both Orthodox and Catholics,47 the prospect of relations with the new Orthodox church might allow the UGCC to reverse this. Second, the priority given to domestic dialogue with Ukrainian Orthodox emphasized in the UGCC’s ecumenical documents did not have much success. A change in the situation of Ukrainian Orthodoxy brought hopes that dialogue among Eastern Christians in Ukraine would advance. Third, cordial relations with Constantinople, as well as with the KP and UAOC, which contrasted with the tensions the UGCC had with Moscow and the UOC, contributed to the fact that the Greek Catholics were more receptive to arguments coming from the former. An important question to consider regarding the welcoming of the OCU by the UGCC is to what extent this process was conditioned on a certain understanding of national interests. While Babynskyi claims that the reasons for the UGCC’s endorsement of the OCU’s creation were “primarily pastoral and ecumenical,”48 Bremer and Senyk seem to suggest that this endorsement was rather due to raison d’état.49 Perhaps the truth lies somewhere in between. Right after the creation of the OCU, Major Archbishop Sviatoslav declared: “I support autocephaly, because these processes are important for state sovereignty, they are important for our Orthodox brethren, and we evaluate them positively.”50 Here the UGCC’s Primate explains his support for the OCU based upon both national and pastoral reasons. Some months later, during a meeting with Bartholomew in Rome, Sviatoslav declared: “with the granting of autocephaly, the ecumenical dialogue with the Orthodox Church of Ukraine will rise to a qualitatively higher level. From this historic moment […], the main interlocutor in the ecumenical dialogue for the UGCC is not so much the Russian Orthodox Church, but the local Orthodox Church in Ukraine.”51 What we can see behind Sviatoslav’s words is both the difficulty in engaging ecumenically with the ROC, and a desire for a more fruitful conversation with Orthodoxy. On the other hand, however, the questions of identity, aggravated during the years of war, played a role as well. 47 The conflict made “uniatism” the primary concern for Orthodox-Catholic ecumenical dialogue. On the Balamand document, see Comité mixte catholique-orthodoxe en France, Catholiques et orthodoxes: Les enjeux de l’uniatisme. Dans le sillage de Balamand (Paris: Bayard; Mame; Cerf, 2004). 48 Babynskyi, “The Orthodox Church of Ukraine” (see n. 22), 490. 49 Bremer and Senyk, “La situation ecclésiale” (see n. 3), 45–46. 50 Sviatoslav Shevchuk and Yaroslav Kotsuba, Unity of Catholics and Orthodox is not Utopian Thinking (January 10, 2019), http://news.ugcc.ua/en/interview/his_beatitude_ sviatoslav_unity_of_catholics_and_orthodox_is_not_utopian_thinking_85020.html. 51 Sekretariat Glavy UHKTs v Rymi, U Vatykani vidbulasia zustrich Blazhennishogo Sviatoslava z Sviatishym Patriarkhom Varfolomiem (September 18, 2019), https://ugcc. church/blog/u-vatykani-vidbulasia-zustrich-blazhennishoho-sviatoslava-z-sviatishympatriarkhom-varfolomiiem/.

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Babynskyi seems to imply that while the UGCC hierarchy welcomed the OCU’s autocephaly “primarily” for pastoral and ecumenical reasons, support among UGCC clergy and laity was motivated by political and national reasons. Babynskyi argues that “the majority of Greek Catholics perceived the autocephaly of Ukrainian Orthodoxy from a secular perspective […] [and treated it] as primarily a state security issue. Since Russian state authorities have been weaponizing religion as an active component of Russia’s hybrid warfare against Ukraine, the Ukrainian president’s attempt to construct adequate defence in this sector was evaluated positively.”52 This sentiment was grasped by the UGCC and surely influenced its decision to welcome the OCU.53 The ROC, however, felt that the UGCC, moved by political and national reasons, had gone beyond its policy of non-intervention in intra-Orthodox matters. Indeed, the ROC went so far as to claim that the UGCC was behind the OCU’s creation. For example, Ilarion has suggested that the OCU’s autocephaly is a step towards conversion of the Ukrainian Orthodox into Catholicism.54 Since no proof of such engagement has emerged, the ROC’s declarations could be read as intending to discredit the OCU among the Orthodox, many of whom hold a negative stance towards “uniates.” A possible side-effect of such claims could be not only the deepening of distrust between the UGCC and ROC, but also difficulties in the rapprochement between UGCC and OCU. The OCU has made some steps towards the UGCC. One of them, the Declaration on the 75th anniversary of the Lviv Council of 1946 (described as a “pseudo-synod”), invites Christian believers “to work together to help the Ukrainian people defend state independence, bring back just peace, and promote civil understanding,” and “in the future,” to “achieve results through dialogue.”55 Although the Declaration falls short of proposing a full-fledged ecumenical interchange, it is an important step forward. Both the Declaration and enthusiastic welcome of the OCU’s creation by the UGCC were very promising in terms of ecumenical dialogue. However, though the Primates of both churches agreed in

52 Babynskyi, “The Orthodox Church of Ukraine” (see n. 22), 490–491. Cf. Mykhaleyko, “The New Independent Orthodox Church” (see n. 31), 488. 53 See, for example the following from Sviatoslav’s declaration: “this event really struck a chord with Ukrainian society. […] its importance is recognized not only by Orthodox, but also by Christians of other denominations” (Shevchuk and Kotsuba, Unity of Catholics and Orthodox (see n. 50)) 54 Ilarion (Alfeiev), Legitimizatsiia raskola na Ukraine rassechet na chasti vse telo mirovogo pravoslaviia (June 16, 2018), http://www.interfax-religion.ru/?act=interview&div=499. 55 Synodalna Komisiia z mizhkhrystianskykh vidnosyn UPTs, Zaiava z nahodi 75–littia vid chasu provedenia tak zvanoho Lviskoho soboru 1946 r. (March 13, 2021), https://www. pomisna.info/uk/vsi-novyny/zayava-z-nagody-75–littya-vid-chasu-provedennya-takzvanogo-lvivskogo-soboru-1946–roku/.

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December of 2018 to work on a “roadmap for cooperation,” it does not seem that they have advanced very far.56 St. Sophia and the State Church The first significant misunderstanding between the UGCC and OCU happened around the issue of liturgical celebration in St. Sophia—the ancient cathedral of Kyiv, now a museum.57 The church was used on several occasions by the OCU: the celebration of the Council of reunion of the KP and UAOC, and Epiphany’s enthronement. In February of 2019, the UGCC announced its plans to celebrate a pilgrimage to the site, which provoked a sharp rebuke by the former KP Primate, Filaret (Denysenko), and then a more balanced, yet equally negative reaction from the OCU Synod.58 The incident ended with the government’s sudden decision to declare the cathedral closed for restoration, which made its liturgical use by any church impossible for the time being. Around the time when the UGCC pilgrimage was announced, Major Archbishop Sviatoslav published a document entitled “Our Saint Sophia. Letter on the Occasion of the Centenary of the Renewal of Unity of the Ukrainian Nation and State.”59 The document proposes an original reflection on Ukrainian history beginning from the Kyivan Rus’ period, in which Divine wisdom is presented as a foundation for the political culture of the country. Sviatoslav argues that since St. Sophia is a symbol of the unity of the ancient Kyivan Church, until this unity is restored “none of the Churches that are heirs of this Church can alone take up the ancient Cathedral […] of Kyiv.”60 According to Mykhaleyko, “by writing the pastoral letter, [Sviatoslav] intended to make clear that the UGCC was against any claim that only the OCU may use this historically significant church.”61 But, given the symbolic importance of St. Sophia in Sviatoslav’s letter, Mykhaleyko’s argument can be pushed further. Since St. Sophia is a figurative representation of Kyivan Christianity— which is the “foundation” of Ukrainian and proto-Ukrainian statehood—by contesting what he perceived as the OCU’s aspiration to exclusive use of the 56 RISU, Primates of OCU and UGCC agree to develop a roadmap for cooperation (December 30, 2018), https://risu.ua/en/primates-of-ocu-and-ugcc-agree-to-develop-aroadmap-for-cooperation_n95477. 57 For a detailed account of the incident, see Mykhaleyko, “The New Independent Orthodox Church” (see n. 31), 489. 58 Sviashchennyi Synod PtsU, Zhurnaly zasidannia vid 4 bereznia 2019 r. (March 4, 2019), https://www.pomisna.info/uk/document-post/zhurnaly-zasidannya-svyashhennogo-syno du-vid-4–bereznya-2019–r-2/. 59 Sviatoslav Shevchuk, Our Saint Sophia (January 17, 2019), http://news.ugcc.ua/en/ documents/our_saint_sophia_letter_of_his_beatitude_sviatoslav_on_the_occasion_of_the_ centenary_of_the_renewal_of_unity_of_the_ukrainian_nation_and_state_85081.html. 60 Shevchuk, Our Saint Sophia (see n. 59), n. 12. 61 Mykhaleyko, “The New Independent Orthodox Church” (see n. 31), 489.

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cathedral, Sviatoslav seems to challenge the OCU’s claim to represent the totality of Ukrainian Christianity and, consequently, to have an exclusive relationship with the government. One could even speculate whether the insistence on a particular Kyivan ecclesial approach to civil authorities does not implicitly suggest that the Ukrainian model of church-state relations should be different than the Russian one.62 Such an interpretation is supported by Babynskyi’s assertion that the UGCC “feared that the new autocephalous church […] would want to copy the Russian model of church-state relations, in which the local Russian Orthodox Church occupies a privileged position compared to other religious communities.”63 Concerns about the establishment of a state church in Ukraine have been voiced on various occasions by the UGCC. Although these have been directed mainly towards the government, it is clear that the expectation was that the Orthodox church itself should be more cautious vis-à-vis the state.64 At the same time, Sviatoslav has suggested that the different approaches of the UGCC and OCU to its relationship with civil authorities ɚre due to the fact that “the Orthodox Church […] has a different paradigm of relations with the state than in the Catholic world.”65 If the latter is the case, rather than a result of political convenience, then the disagreement between the UGCC and OCU concerning the modus vivendi with the state will have a lasting effect on the churches’ relationship. The last point which might have influenced UGCC and OCU relations was the competition for members between the two churches. Hovorun and Babynskyi have suggested that the Orthodox hoped that not only the UOC’s parishes, but also UGCC’s congregations would eventually join the OCU, and that such a development was a matter of concern for Catholics.66 For the time being, these alleged hopes and fears have not materialized. The position of the Latin rite Catholic church in Ukraine regarding the OCU has been less vocal than that of the UGCC, and in this sense resembles that of the Protestant churches.

62 The document claims that “[t]he Kyivan Church was not hostage to the political interests of state power or the servant of the mighty of this world, because she did not fall into the sin of worshipping worldly authority” (Shevchuk, Our Saint Sophia (see n. 59), n. 6). 63 Babynskyi, “The Orthodox Church of Ukraine” (see n. 22), 491. 64 Cf. Shevchuk and Kotsuba, Unity of Catholics and Orthodox (see n. 50). 65 Ibid. 66 Cf. Cyril Hovorun and Alya Shandra, Why Ukraine Needs a Free and Recognized Orthodox Church (May 18, 2018), http://euromaidanpress.com/2018/05/18/hovorunukraine-autocephalous-orthodox-church/; Babynskyi, “The Orthodox Church of Ukraine” (see n. 22), 491.

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The Protestants The Protestants in Ukraine—the majority of whom belong to Baptist and Evangelical traditions—have been, on the one hand, more vibrant and active than the Orthodox, but, on the other, an “invisible community” in the public life of the country.67 Traditionally, they have been rather distant from inter-denominational engagements in the country, while their public presence has been rather limited and disengaged.68 According to Liubashchenko, many Protestants regard ecumenism as “a phenomenon of universal globalisation, deepening secularisation and the carving of a pathway of liberal ideas into theology” or as the “politicization of religion.”69 What was the Protestant stance towards the OCU? Mykhailo Cherenkov, drawing on interviews with senior leaders of Ukrainian Evangelicals and Baptists, concluded that “Protestants welcome Ukrainian Orthodox in their pursuit of autocephaly, but their declarations of support are marked by certain concerns.”70 Given the state of isolation mentioned earlier, the Protestant approach towards the creation of the OCU was an astonishing development. Two aspects of this must be addressed. First, why would the Protestants take a position regarding an interOrthodox matter, and, second, why would they support the OCU? The Euromaidan changed the Protestant approach to what exists outside their confessional borders. As Roman Soloviy puts it, many Protestants “were inspired […] by the ecumenical character of Christian solidarity during the Maidan Revolution” expressed through common prayers, volunteering, and a feeling of responsibility for society and the country’s predicament.71 Although this opening to the confessional “other” did not become mainstream, it was an important sign that things were changing. Congregations in big cities are becoming more open, while theologians and pastors are becoming more interested in ecclesiology, sacramentology, and ecumenism. At the same time, Protestants have become more active both in charitable work and political engagement, such as participation in elections at various levels and lobbying for legislation.72

67 Bremer, “Religion in Ukraine” (see n. 2), 14. 68 Roman Soloviy explains that this is due to a perception (formed during the Soviet regime) of society, other churches, and government as comprising a “collective hostile system” (Roman Soloviy, “The Challenges of Radical Hospitality for Evangelical Public Theology: the Ukrainian Case,” International Journal of Public Theology 14, no. 3 (2020), 288–290). 69 Liubashchenko, Reformatsiia (see n. 30), 476. 70 Mykhailo Cherenkov, Ukrainski protestanty pro Iedinu Pomisnu: pidtrymuemo, ale i zasterihaemo (May 30, 2018), https://risu.ua/ukrajinski-protestanti-pro-yedinu-pomisnupidtrimuyemo-ale-y-zasterigayemo_n91023. 71 Soloviy, “The Challenges of Radical Hospitality” (see n. 68), 290–292. 72 Victoriya Lyubashchenko, “Les protestants en l’Ukraine depuis l’indépendance,” Istina 64, no. 1 (2019), 71–72. Cf. Liubashchenko, Reformatsiia (see n. 30), 429–30, 456–558.

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In addition to changes to the general context, which paved the way for a more open approach to the Orthodox, there are some specific reasons for Protestants’ positive reception to the creation of the OCU. The first has to do with a change in the Protestant attitude towards Russia. While in the past Ukrainian Protestants were in close contact with their Russian co-believers and part of various Eurasian bodies, over the past two decades the situation began to change. Ukrainian Protestants were worried about limitations on freedom of religion in Russia, of which the Protestants became one of the principal targets.73 But the real turning point was the war in the East of Ukraine: the experience of the Donbass conflict, fuelled by the Russian Federation, has made them more distrustful vis-à-vis Russia.74 The Protestant communities were among the first and most affected victims of the war: some Protestant ministers and members of their families were killed and tortured by insurgents, while their places of worship and institutions were destroyed.75 This went hand in hand with declarations on the part of certain Russian Orthodox clergy and separatist fighters that the conflict was a holy war against the West, the purification of the region from “sects,” and a step towards an “Orthodox state.”76 The other major target was the KP, the chief predecessor of the OCU. One can speculate that the solidarity that comes from persecution made the Protestants and non-UOC Orthodox closer. Second, we must note the role of the history of relations with the KP. The latter was less anti-Protestant in its rhetoric, as compared to the UOC. Moreover, the KP, perhaps due to its marginalized position under various governments, was more open than the UOC to finding a shared understanding with the Protestants, in particular within the UCCRO. Third is the importance for the Protestants of a contextualized mission and inculturation. In a paradoxical way, the Ukrainian Orthodox struggle for autocephaly became very understandable from the Protestant perspective, which cherishes the autonomy of congregations.77 For example, Liubashchenko notes the importance for Ukrainian Protestants of searching their own identity and missionary approaches, independent of foreign influences.78 In this context, one could see 73 See Liubashchenko, Reformatsiia (see n. 30), 465. 74 Cf. Mykhailo Cherenkov, “Reconciling Diversity: A Baptist Theological Perspective on the Nation in a Pluralistic Europe,” Naukovi Zapysky UKU – Bogoslovia 7 (2020), 269– 283. 75 Cherenkov, Ukrainski protestanty pro Iedinu Pomisnu (see n. 70); O.O. Rafalskyi et al., Politychni aspekty kryzy na Donbasi: Diahnostyka stanu ta napriamy vrehulovannia. Analitychna dopovid (Kyiv: IPiEND im. I.F. Kurasa NAN Ukrainy, 2015), 64–66. 76 Rafalskyi, Politychni aspekty (see n. 75), chapter 2. Cyril Hovorun, Political Orthodoxies: The Unorthodoxies of the Church Coerced (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2018), 95– 98. 77 On discussions on the “autonomy of local (pomisni) churches” among Ukrainian Baptists and Evangelicals, see Cherenkov, “Protestantski tserkvi i demokratiia” (see n. 13), 144. 78 Liubashchenko, Reformatsiia (see n. 30), 443–346.

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why the Protestants would appreciate the desire of their Orthodox brothers to be juridically and culturally independent from Moscow. However, the support of the OCU’s autocephaly voiced by Protestants was mixed and came with reservations. One of them was fear that the OCU would pretend to represent the totality of Ukrainian Christians. Metropolitan Epiphanii and other OCU speakers often refer to their church as “a single Local (iedyna Pomisna) Ukrainian Orthodox Church.”79 Although the title seems to position the OCU as the only legitimate Orthodox church in Ukraine, its “uniqueness” is something that alarms other Christians, in particular the Protestants. As Cherenkov observes, “[t]he church can be ‘the only one’ when there is room in it for a variety of Orthodox and Protestants. The Protestants value diversity. That is why they are cautious regarding the narrative around ‘the only one’ church.”80 In this context, a marginal status for the church is perceived by many Protestants as an advantage, i.e. a condition which is conducive to dialogue.81 Besides, intraOrthodox tensions are viewed as consuming energies that otherwise could have been deployed against Protestant and other non-Orthodox believers. From this perspective, the existence of multiple Orthodox jurisdictions in Ukraine is considered by many Protestants to be a blessing. Not unlike the Greek Catholics, the Protestants were afraid in 2019 (less so now) that the OCU might become a de facto state church. However, while for the UGCC the OCU’s self-description in 79 Press Service of Kyiv Metropolitanate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Comment on the Statement of the Synod of Moscow Patriarchate in Ukraine (April 15, 2019), https://www.pomisna.info/en/news/comment-of-the-press-service-of-kyiv-metropolita nate-of-the-ukrainian-orthodox-church-pcu-on-the-statement-of-the-synod-of-moscowpatriarchate-in-ukraine/. Iedyna pomisna as a description of the church is difficult to explain. Although iedyna (single, or the only one) is a clear allusion to the “one” Church of the Creed, in reference to Ukraine it implies that that there should be only one Orthodox (or Christian) church in Ukraine, uniting all the Orthodox (Christian) believers. Pomisna (local) etymologically refers to a place; however, unlike the Greek topikƝ, which designates a diocese, pomisna in Ukrainian (just as pomestnaia in Russian) usually signifies a regional/national church with a pronounced identity and a certain independence. In this sense, all three major Ukrainian churches—the OCU (which is autocephalous), the UOC (which has autonomy within the ROC), and UGCC (a sui iuris church within the Catholic church)—claim to be pomisna church, while the first two declare they are the iedyna pomisna church of Ukraine. 80 Cherenkov, Ukrainski protestanty pro Iedinu Pomisnu (see n. 70). 81 An example of when Protestants felt discriminated against (vs. the interests of the OCU) was the case of the former Lutheran school premises, adjacent to the Lutheran church in Kyiv. The building was transferred by the government to the OCU, upon the latter’s request to have a suitable place for its administrative offices. The transfer occurred despite the fact that the German Evangelical-Lutheran Church of Ukraine claimed, in vain, that their historical building would host a cultural centre. See DW, Shok dlia nimtsiv: iak Groisman viddav pravoslavnym budiliu liuteran, https://www.dw.com/uk/ɲɨɤ-ɞɥɹ-ɧɿɦɰɿɜ-ɹɤɝɪɨɣɫɦɚɧ-ɜɿɞɞɚɜ-ɩɪɚɜɨɫɥɚɜɧɢɦ-ɛɭɞɿɜɥɸ-ɥɸɬɟɪɚɧ/a-50141493.

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terms of nation-building (derzhavotvorcha) church, would be acceptable, the Protestants might have a different view. Viktoriia Liubashchenko argues that a Protestant of any denomination would be suspicious of the principle that the church should play a “nation-building mission.”82 Future relations between Ukrainian Protestants and the OCU will depend to a large degree on the latter’s desire to work respectfully and on equal terms with other Christian denominations.

The OCU and International Ecumenical Dialogue Ecumenical relations are an international business. Most achievements in theological dialogue among the churches have been reached at a global level by transnational groups of scholars and clergy. Ecumenism requires an ability to speak in various languages—both literally (mastering foreign tongues) and metaphorically (understanding other theological traditions), and necessitates time, patience, and resources. One cannot do everything and quickly, one needs to learn slowly, meet people, build trust, and, last but not least, train one’s own specialists in other traditions, who can mediate and push dialogue forward. The OCU’s predecessors, however, existed in deep international isolation. According to Avvakumov, the KP and UAOC have been “almost non-existent to western ecumenists.”83 Unlike the UOC, which had at least some experience with the international ecumenical movement—clergy and professors with degrees from Western academic institutions, links to ecumenical bodies, communities and institutions, presence in ecumenical organizations—the former KP and UAOC members, who form the core of the OCU, were not exposed to inter-Christian dialogue beyond Ukraine. Although some former UOC clergy with ecumenical experience have joined the OCU, the latter needs more experts in the field of interconfessional dialogue if it wants to become an important player in inter-church relations. The WCC and CEC A significant portion of multilateral inter-church relations occur within regional and global ecumenical bodies. In the Ukrainian case, the OCU may apply to both the World Council of Churches (WCC) and the Conference of European Churches (CEC). The WCC is the world’s most important ecumenical organization. Since the beginning of the conflict in Donbass, the WCC has sent several delegations to 82 Liubashchenko, Reformatsiia (see n. 30), 461. 83 Avvakumov, “Ukrainian Greek Catholics” (see n. 20), 22.

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Ukraine and issued a series of statements.84 Regarding tensions over jurisdiction in Ukraine, the WCC has reiterated that it “does not—according to the Ecumenical protocol—interfere or comment on internal discussions in the Orthodox family about canonical status.”85 The OCU is in a strong position regarding its conformity to the criteria of WCC membership, as defined by its Constitution and Rules.86 The OCU satisfies both the “theological” (Trinitarian faith, ministry of preaching and sacrament, ecumenical openness), and the “organizational” (autonomous existence, minimum 50,000 members, membership in a national council of churches) requirements. The procedure of applying for WCC membership is rather complicated, passing through both Executive and Central Committees, and lasts several years. According to the Rules, the decision about membership should be based on “consensus” (Rules, I.5).87 In the process of decision-making, “the appropriate world confessional body or bodies and national council or regional ecumenical organization shall be consulted” (Rules, I.4). In the case of the OCU, it would certainly imply that the WCC would seek advice from the Orthodox members. The Rules also state that “[c]hurches must recognize the essential interdependence of the member churches […] particularly those of the same confession” (Rules, I.3.b.v), which suggests that an inter-Orthodox consensus regarding the OCU’s status is not an irrelevant aspect of the application to the WCC. In terms of regional and national ecumenical bodies to be consulted, the WCC will seek advice from the CEC and, perhaps, the UCCRO. The position of the Protestant member churches is also important. They will take into account the position of the Orthodox members, particularly the ROC. While the ROC is, numerically, the biggest Orthodox church in the world, and its position will be weighed, it has an uneasy relationship with many Protestant churches. Moscow has good relations with many Evangelical churches, although it has been critical of mainstream Protestants for their stance on sexuality and female priesthood. Notwithstanding

84 On the visit of a delegation chaired by the General Secretary Olav Fykse Tveit in 2015, see WCC, WCC delegation expresses solidarity with Ukraine (March 20, 2015), https:// www.oikoumene.org/news/wcc-delegation-expresses-solidarity-with-ukraine. 85 WCC, World Council of Churches responds to misleading media reporting on Ukraine (June 7, 2019), https://www.oikoumene.org/news/world-council-of-churches-responds-tomisleading-media-reporting-on-ukraine. 86 WCC, Constitution and Rules of the World Council of Churches (2013), https://www. oikoumene.org/sites/default/files/Document/WCC_Constitution_and_Rules_Amended_ Busan_2013_EN.pdf. Besides membership, the OCU can apply to be a “church in association,” which also requires approval by the Central Committee (Rules, III). 87 “Consensus” does not necessarily mean a unanimous decision, but is also understood as meaning that “most [delegates] are in agreement […] the proposal expresses the general mind of the meeting” (Rules, XIX.8.c.ii, cf. XIX.9.d).

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this, Protestants would probably prefer not to interfere in what they consider to be an internal Orthodox discussion. The final decision on membership belongs to the WCC Central Committee. Since this body is formed taking into account “the size of the churches” (Constitution V.2.b.i and V.2.c.vii), it is natural that it has a strong Russian presence. In fact, the ROC has five representatives at the Central Committee, which is more than any other autocephalous Orthodox church. The other Orthodox Central Committee members belong to churches that have recognized the OCU (Ecumenical Patriarchate, Alexandria, Greece, Cyprus), and those who did not (Orthodox Churches of Antioch, Serbia, Romania, Albania, Poland, as well as the Orthodox Church in America). Per se, the lack of recognition of the OCU’s autocephaly by all the Orthodox churches is not an impediment to the OCU’s WCC membership. For example, the Orthodox Church in America (OCA) is a WCC member, although only a few Orthodox churches recognise it as autocephalous. WCC membership was also granted to the Orthodox Churches of Japan and Finland, neither of which is autocephalous. Despite conformity to membership criteria and support by Constantinople, the OCU’s eventual application might struggle due to the ROC’s influence, and also by the fear of conflict within the WCC itself. An important regional ecumenical body is the CEC. The OCU seems to satisfy the criteria for CEC membership (Constitution, 3.2).88 To be granted membership, the church must accept the Charta Oecumenica, which the CEC jointly adopted with the Roman Catholic Council of European Bishops’ Conferences. The decision on membership is taken by a vote of the Governing Board—2/3 of votes is needed (Constitution, 4.1). If a quarter of the CEC members protest against the admission, then the matter goes to the General Assembly, which votes with a simple majority. The CEC Governing Board has currently one member from each of the following Orthodox churches: the Ecumenical Patriarchate (its representative is also the CEC’s Vice-President), and the Churches of Greece and Serbia.89 The ROC suspended its membership in 2008 after disputes with Constantinople over Estonia and CEC membership in Estonian Orthodox jurisdictions, and therefore has no representatives within the committees or working groups.90 Although not explicitly mentioned in the Constitution, before any membership is decided, the CEC would proceed with consultations, and, perhaps, visits. For example, while applications from the Orthodox churches in Estonia were considered, a CEC delegation visited Estonia and Russia, and discussed the matter 88 CEC, Constitution of the Conference of European Churches (2018), https://www. ceceurope.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/CEC_Constitution_EN_FINAL.pdf. 89 CEC, Governing Board, https://www.ceceurope.org/governing-board/. 90 DECR, Russian Orthodox Church suspends membership in Conference of European Churches, http://orthodoxeurope.org/page/19/2/585.aspx.

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with senior clergy, assessing the possibility of granting membership. The CEC would certainly consult the Orthodox member churches, some of which would probably support the motion, while others would be opposed. The ROC, even with its membership suspended, will still be capable of influencing the position of some churches, both Orthodox and not. To date, the OCU has not approached either the WCC or CEC with a membership application, and it is difficult to predict whether it will apply any time soon, as well as the possible outcome of its application. If the OCU wishes to join the work of international ecumenical bodies, it would be more logical to first seek CEC membership, and subsequently request to be received into the WCC. Membership in the CEC would increase the OCU’s chances of joining the WCC, while the ROC’s absence from the CEC would give its admission’s process a better chance of success. However, the membership application should normally be preceded by developing relations with other denominations at a domestic level, and internationally with the WCC and CEC member churches. The latter will not sacrifice their relations with Moscow to welcome a church they do not know nor trust. As Pavlo Shvarts, Ukrainian Bishop of the German Lutheran Church puts it, “the OCU should be able to present itself as an interesting partner for cooperation, capable of offering to the West what Moscow cannot give.”91 The OCU’s international ecumenical engagement could start with joining forums which do not have rigid membership procedures. One of them is the Global Christian Forum, founded with the support of the WCC as an attempt to engage with churches who for various reasons could not join the more “official” ecumenical bodies.92 Their approach to cooperation seems to perfectly fit the present case of the OCU: “Since many of [the] churches who gather in the Forum could not be members of the same body, there is no membership, only participation.”93 Still, participation in the Forum would allow the OCU to be in contact with many historical churches, Orthodox included. Moreover, unlike the WCC and CEC, where only Orthodox, non-Chalcedonian, and Protestant churches are members, in the Forum, Catholics are well represented. Participation in the Forum and similar milieus can be considered as either a preparatory step towards, or a temporary alternative to, WCC and CEC membership.

91 This is an authorized quote from my notes from an interview with Shvarts, January 12, 2021. 92 Sarah Rowland Jones, “The Global Christian Forum, A Narrative History: ‘Limuru, Manado and Onwards’,” Transformation 30, no. 4 (2013), 226–242. 93 GCF, How the GCF engages with participants, https://globalchristianforum.org/ introduction/how-the-gcf-engages-with-participants/.

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The Holy See Rome has not formulated its position vis-à-vis the OCU.94 Like many other churches and ecumenical bodies, the Holy See would like to keep neutrality regarding the conflict between Constantinople and Moscow with respect to Ukraine. The Pope and the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity have good relations both with the Ecumenical Patriarchate and the ROC, and do not want to jeopardize these relations.95 Rome’s position of neutrality may be due, among other things, to the perception that the OCU’s creation is a political, rather than purely religious, act.96 The Ukrainian state’s and other players’ involvement in the process of autocephaly, the political connotations that accompanied the OCU’s inception, and the ongoing war in the East, encourage Rome to abstain from taking a stance. Rome is also conscious that a potential recognition will have consequences within the domain of international relations. On the one hand, the Holy See understands that the actions of Constantinople were meant to heal an existing schism. Rome recognizes that the situation of the OCU is very different from that of the KP, since the OCU has been recognized by four autocephalous Orthodox churches. This fact would give more space for local Catholic churches and organizations to engage with the OCU, as well as for academic and cultural cooperation. On the other hand, however, the Holy See has invested a lot of energy into improving relations—both ecumenical and political—with Moscow, and is cautious of provoking a negative reaction from the ROC in the event of contacts between Rome and the OCU.97 One could question whether Nadieszda Kizenko is correct in claiming that “[the Vatican] will recognize the OCU only once all Orthodox churches have done so,”98 but it certainly will not be among the first 94 In September 2018, the Apostolic Nunciature in Kyiv issued a statement saying that “the creation of one Local Ukrainian Orthodox Church […] is an internal question of the Orthodox Church, on which the Holy See never did and has no intention whatsoever of expressing any evaluation, in any venue” (Apostolic Nunciature in Ukraine, Communiqué (September 26, 2018), https://nunciaturekyiv.org/2018/09/26/communique-of-the-aposto lic-nunciature-in-ukraine/). 95 Cf. Mykhaleyko, “The New Independent Orthodox Church” (see n. 31), 490. 96 Cf. Claudio Gugerotti, Vitalne slovo do Synodu episkopiv UHKTs (September 3, 2018), http://kmc.media/2018/09/05/vitalne-slovo-yogo-vysokopreosvyaschenstva-arkhiyepysk opa-klaudio-udzherotti-apostolskogo-nunciya-v-ukrayini-do-synodu-yepyskopiv-ukrayin skoyi-greko-katolyckoyi-cerkvy.html. 97 Desire to keep an ongoing dialogue with Moscow probably explains why Rome has never blamed Russia for the annexation of Crimea or the conflict in the East, though it emphasized the importance of adhering to international law. Cf. Hovorun, “War and Autocephaly in Ukraine” (see n. 7), 9ff. 98 Nadieszda Kizenko, Good Fences Make Good Neighbors: Autocephaly, Legitimacy, and Unity in Ukrainian Church Life (November 21, 2019), https://berkleycenter.georgetown.

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non-Orthodox players to welcome the new Ukrainian church. A perspective OCU membership within the WCC or CEC will be taken into account by the Holy See, but will not have a crucial influence upon Rome’s decision. If the OCU is invited by Constantinople to join The Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church, and such action is accepted by the other Orthodox churches, the Holy See will find itself in a de facto state of multilateral dialogue with the OCU. The fact that the ROC has suspended its membership in the Joint Commission increases the possibility of such a development. Official and informal contacts between the OCU and local Catholic churches, communities, and institutions committed to ecumenical relations—both inside and outside Ukraine—can play an important role in making the OCU more acceptable to the Holy See. Monastic communities, such as Chevetogne Abbey and Community of Bose, or academic institutions, have proven to be able to foster informal dialogue in cases where official relations are deemed impossible. The question is: what would count as an eventual “recognition” of the OCU by Rome? Unlike with the Orthodox churches, where recognition is manifested through Eucharistic communion and mention within diptychs, there is no formal act through which the Holy See “recognizes” other religious communities. For this reason, one could expect a gradually developing acknowledgement, which could take the form of an exchange of greetings or letters, low-profile meetings, and invitations for a visit. Benefits of International Ecumenical Dialogue The fact that on the OCU’s side there has been no visible interest in international ecumenical dialogue might be the consequence of both a lack of experience in this field and the lack of clarity regarding the benefits of such participation.99 Since the former aspect was touched upon above in the chapter, a brief discussion on the question of benefits will follow. It is generally acknowledged that the ecumenical movement has lost some of its past dynamism and is now in crisis.100 Ecumenical bodies and institutions often become battlefields, “captivated” and

edu/responses/good-fences-make-good-neighbors-autocephaly-legitimacy-and-unity-inukrainian-church-life. 99 My initial hypothesis that the OCU’s ecumenical engagement might jeopardize the possibility of the recognition of the OCU’s autocephaly by more conservative Orthodox churches, has been rejected as unfounded by several of my interlocutors within the OCU. 100 See chapters by Walter Kasper and Peter Phillips in Receptive Ecumenism and the Call to Catholic Learning: Exploring a Way for Contemporary Ecumenism, ed. by Paul D. Murray (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008).

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“paralyzed” by competition and disagreements between churches.101 However, with the world becoming more and more globalized, churches are interested in ecumenical and international contacts. One of the side-effects of the Covid-19 pandemic was a rise in the number of applications for membership to the WCC.102 This shows that notwithstanding the crisis of inter-Christian relations, churches worldwide perceive the benefit of joining the ecumenical conversation. Dialogue with Catholics and Protestants has been of great help to the Orthodox churches. The 2010 Communiqué of the Sibiu Consultation makes the following statement: “The Orthodox Churches have profoundly benefitted from the ecumenical movement. It has allowed them to overcome possible temptations to isolation, to meet other Christians […], to explore their own Orthodox mind and voice, to engage in reflection on major global events and social changes, […] and to engage in common work for the material and moral betterment of humanity as a whole.”103 Ecumenical cooperation has had some very practical effects as well. The churches under the Socialist regime used ecumenical movements as part of their survival technique, in the hope that their international exposure would alleviate the persecution they faced domestically.104 They also benefited from “unique ecclesial, moral and financial support during difficult years and circumstances” from their ecumenical partners.105 Scholarships, offered by other churches and organizations, strengthened the Orthodox academic profile.106 Orthodox migrants were often offered Catholic and Protestant church buildings for their services.

101 Cf. Georges Lemopoulos, “Difficultés actuelles de l’œcuménisme,” Lumière & Vie 58, no. 3 (2008), 97–98. 102 Information provided by the WCC office for church relations. The increase of interest in ecumenical cooperation during a pandemic and isolation is interesting. Perhaps, that fact that churches are pushed towards online engagement, where the borders matter less, facilitates international cooperation. 103 “The Future of Orthodox Theological Education and Ecumenism. Communiqué of Sibiu Consultation 2021,” in Orthodox Handbook on Ecumenism: Resources for Theological Education, ed. Pantelis Kalaitzidis et al. (Oxford: Regnum Books International; WCC Publications, 2014), 945–948, here p. 947. 104 For some Russian, Serbian, and Georgian examples, see chapters by Vladimir Fedorov, Cyril Hovorun, Rastko Jovic, and Tamara Grdzelidze in Orthodox Handbook on Ecumenism (see n. 103). 105 Georges Lemopoulos, “Historical Road Map of Orthodox Involvement in the Ecumenical Movement,” in Orthodox Handbook on Ecumenism (see n. 103), 98. 106 Cf. Natallia Vasilevich, “Ecumenical Dimension in the Orthodox Christian Education,” in Orthodox Handbook on Ecumenism (see n. 103), 783–788. However, Vasilevich points out that “a cooperative ecumenical ethos also has the danger of being reduced just to pragmatic ethos using facilities, infrastructure, and developments in theological education of other Christian traditions and the ecumenical movement” (787). This warning could probably apply also outside the sphere of education.

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International ecumenical forums could provide the OCU with an opportunity for dialogue, networking, and cooperation not only with other denominations, but also with churches belonging to the Orthodox family. For the OCU this would mean a possibility of engagement, both official and informal, with other autocephalous churches, including the ROC. The engagement is important as part of the OCU’s struggle for inter-Orthodox recognition. And although this recognition might be considered by ecumenical bodies as something that should pre-date the OCU’s membership, it also might be feasible the other way around. The OCU’s international ecumenical engagement would be beneficial not only to the new Orthodox church, but also to the general state of Ukrainian interdenominational relations. The OCU’s adherence to the Charta Oecumenica and other documents, and its commitment to promoting inter-confessional dialogue, ecumenical formation, and respect for other churches, is something that would be advantageous to all denominations in Ukraine.107 This point should not be overlooked by the WCC, CEC or Holy See. Negative Consequences The conflict between Constantinople and Moscow over Ukraine had a negative effect on inter-confessional dialogue. When it became clear that Constantinople had decided to “heal the canonical situation of the KP and UAOC,” the ROC decided “[t]o suspend the participation of the Russian Orthodox Church in all Hierarchal meetings, theological dialogues, multi-lateral commissions, and other structure[s] in which representatives of the Constantinople Patriarch are chairmen or co-chairmen.”108 This decision has had and will have a detrimental effect on ecumenical relations at various levels. At a local level, the decision has endangered not only inter-Orthodox cooperation, but also established relations the Orthodox had with other churches. In many countries of the diaspora, there exist assemblies of Orthodox bishops, which were precious interlocutors for both non-Orthodox churches and national ecumenical bodies.109 These organisms are normally chaired by a bishop of the 107 See, for example, the following statement by Major Archbishop Sviatoslav: “Today the ecumenical movement at a universal scale is a fact. […] That is why it is very important for our sister church, the newly-born Autocephalous Orthodox Church of Ukraine, to join it. So that it not be closed off into itself.” (Shevchuk and Kotsuba, Unity of Catholics and Orthodox (see n. 50)). 108 Press Service of the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, Journals of a Meeting of the Holy Synod of the Moscow Patriarchate on September 14, 2018 (September 14, 2018), https://www.synod.com/synod/eng2018/20180914_enmoscowsynod.html. 109 On the functioning of these assemblies, see the Decision of Fourth Pre-Conciliar PanOrthodox Conference, The Orthodox Diaspora, https://www.holycouncil.org/-/preconci liar-diaspora.

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Ecumenical Patriarchate. Today, due to Moscow’s decision, the work of these assemblies is under threat.110 This decision also has negative effects on the work of ecumenical bodies where a representative of Constantinople happens to be the chair.111 One of the examples of this is the official Orthodox-Catholic theological interchange, conducted within the framework of The Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church. The work of the Commission has been traditionally marked by high levels of interOrthodox tensions. Hyacinthe Destivelle points out that the ROC has been “having reservations regarding the progress of this dialogue which it considers overly dominated by the Patriarchate of Constantinople.”112 Already at the Ravenna meeting in 2007, the success of a profound theological understanding was overshadowed by the ROC’s departure, and disagreement on the description of the Orthodox concept of unity among autocephalous churches. In a certain sense, this episode set a precedent for the Commission to work without ROC representatives, and today, it is a desire of both Catholic and Orthodox members to keep the Commission going, notwithstanding Moscow’s departure. However, without the presence of the most numerous Orthodox church, the activity of the Commission will lack necessary representation and authority. If the Orthodox churches genuinely cherish ecumenical dialogue, they could either convince the ROC to reconsider its position, or look for creative solutions, such as Constantinople temporarily yielding its presiding positions within ecumenical bodies to a “neutral” jurisdiction.

Conclusion “War is the father of all and king of all; and some he has shown as gods, others men; some he has made slaves, others free,” said Heraclitus.113 Jens Bartelson proposes conceptualizing the Heraclitean polemos as “a cosmological principle of differentiation” of the world “into recognizable beings placed in ontological 110 Cf. for example: ROCOR, Archbishop Mark of Berlin and Germany Issues an Open Letter to the German Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops (February 18, 2019), https:// www.synod.com/synod/eng2019/20190218_enarchbpmarkletter.html. 111 For example, in preparation for the 2022 WCC 11th Assembly, the Orthodox Pre-Assembly should meet, which will be chaired by a representative of Constantinople, as has been the rule among the Orthodox. The ROC is expected not to attend. 112 Hyacinthe Destivelle, “Les chrétiens de l’Est et l’œcuménisme,” Lumière & Vie 58, no. 3 (2008), 76 (My translation). 113 Heraclitus, “Fragment LXXXIII (D. 53),” in The Art and Thought of Heraclitus: An Edition of the Fragments with Translation and Commentary, ed. Charles H. Kahn (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 67.

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opposition to each other.”114 In other words, polemos creates order and structures society. One might read the Ukrainian conflict as a moment which calls for a new reordering of the confessional situation in the country. The war in Ukraine is the key context point which conditions the establishment of the OCU, the struggle between the OCU and the UOC/ROC, as well as the ecumenical reception of the OCU. Ukraine’s hybrid war with Russia and Russian-backed separatists in Donbass has led to a situation in which “one needed to choose their side,” while the state of ambiguity vis-à-vis everything Russian became less tolerable. The decision to choose sides was imposed on Ukrainian churches and institutions, but also recognized by foreign players.115 Both the granting of the tomos and welcoming of the OCU by most Ukrainian confessions constituted a gesture of “choosing sides,” and expressed the perception that independence from Russia would provide a better pastoral position for Ukrainian Orthodoxy. Paradoxically, even the UOC’s refusal to use, in its official title, language stating its belonging to the ROC manifests its desire to distance itself from Russia.116 Not only this refusal, but also the state’s imposition of the mention of belonging to the ROC, express the urgency to take sides within the conflict. Non-Orthodox churches and ecumenical bodies both within Ukraine and abroad have declared a position of neutrality or non-interference in what they acknowledge to be an inter-Orthodox affair. However, the latter can be understood differently. The declaration of non-interference did not stop Ukrainian Greek Catholics and Protestants from speaking out in favor of the independence of Ukrainian Orthodoxy. They treated the KP and UAOC—which lacked canonicity from the Orthodox point of view—and now the OCU, in the same way or better, than they dealt with the UOC. Such an attitude was and remains in sharp contrast to the attitude of the ROC and many other Orthodox churches. One could assume that such a neutrality has taken as its departure point the Ukrainian domestic context, and has been less concerned with how the situation was viewed internationally. Since 2019, this type of neutrality is aligned with both the perspective of 114 Jens Bartelson, War in International Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), 17. 115 For example, the US government has voiced its support for the OCU, as a step towards enhancing Ukrainian sovereignly. Robert Palladino, Secretary Pompeo’s Call With Metropolitan Epifaniy (December 18, 2018), https://ua.usembassy.gov/press-releasessecretary-pompeos-call-with-metropolitan-epifaniy/. 116 The official title of the church is “The Ukrainian Orthodox Church.” The addition “of Moscow Patriarchate” has been occasionally used, both domestically and internationally. On December 20, 2018, a law ʋ 2662–VIII was adopted, which forces the UOC to mention its belonging to the ROC. This law is now being legally challenged. Cf. Vovk, “Dynamics of Church-State Relations” (see n. 3), 39–40. Dmytro Horevoi, Pereimenuvannia UPTs (MP). Chomu zakon Ukrainy dosi ne zapratsiuvav? (March 30, 2021), https://www.radiosvoboda.org/a/tserkva-moskovskoho-patriarkhatu-ereymenuvannia/31175 863.html.

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Constantinople, and of those parts of Ukrainian civil society that cherish ecclesial independence from Moscow. On the other hand, non-interference as understood by international ecumenical actors usually implies that they continue to cooperate with both Constantinople and Moscow, but avoid formal contacts with the OCU. The position of neutrality, thus articulated, conserves the status quo, and fails to account for the new canonical situation (one could call it “partially recognized autocephaly”) of the OCU, which is radically different from the predicament of the OCU’s predecessors. For this reason, Moscow benefits from neutrality more than Constantinople or the OCU. Moreover, churches and ecumenical bodies which distrust the OCU based upon the political impetus of its creation and its ethno-centric rhetoric seem to fail to appreciate that the project, which the OCU attempts to counteract, i.e. “the Russian world,” is no less political.117 The inevitability of “taking a side” and the problem of neutrality seem not to leave space for an option that seeks to be grounded theologically, rather than politically. This raises a question of the nature of the Ukrainian autocephaly and its ecumenical reception: Are we dealing here with ecclesial or political acts? Perhaps the autocephaly of Ukrainian Orthodoxy is a theologico-political question, in which the theology of pastoral engagement within a society is inseparable from the ways in which modern societies articulate themselves politically and culturally within the framework of a nation-state. Ukrainian autocephaly and its reception are theologico-political to the extent to which they address a shared understanding that in the context of the conflict between Ukraine and Russia (while the ROC has ceased to be perceived as super partes), a church, in order to accomplish its pastoral mission, should be self-governed. Inevitably, independence from Russia, at least in the way in which it was practically implemented, implied a relative dependence upon the Ukrainian government and civil society, as well as upon their ethno-centric narratives.118 There is no doubt that many actors involved in the process of the OCU’s creation acted for political reasons. Hovorun rightly claims that historically, autocephaly “turned into a synonym for national sovereignty and became a necessary attribute of an accomplished nation, along with language, culture, and an educational system.”119 Similarly, Mykhaleyko describes autocephaly as “a means of further separating Ukraine from Russia and as part of the political strategy for maintaining integrity, building a common identity and strengthening national 117 Cf. Cyril Hovorun, “Interpreting the ‘Russian World’,” in Eastern Orthodox Encounters of Identity and Otherness: Values, Self-reflection, Dialogue, ed. Andrii Krawchuk and Thomas Bremer (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 163–172. 118 See, for example, emphasis on the nation-building mission, patriotism and defence of Ukrainian sovereignly as part of the mission of the church, by Metropolitan Epiphanii (Dumenko), “Dopovid” (see n. 16). 119 Hovorun, Political Orthodoxies (see n. 76), 163.

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unity.”120 In this sense, Ukraine did not prove to be an exception within the Orthodox paradigm, in which the churches tend to play an active role within nation-building. The raison d’état behind the OCU’s creation and its ecumenical reception should not be left unquestioned. A church which reduces its role to the service of a nation and its interest betrays its universal vocation and eschatological identity.121 Therefore, the critique voiced by Ukrainian Catholics and Protestants regarding the prospect of a state church, and preference for a situation in which no denomination can claim to be hegemonic, is a very positive sign.122 At the same time, the way the churches relate to political issues and the government will continue to affect inter-denominational relations in Ukraine. 123 As far as the nonOrthodox reception of the OCU is concerned, one might wonder whether ecumenism, which conceives of dialogue as a service to national cohesion, does not transform Christ’s call for unity into a secular slogan. Dialogue with churches in other countries could help the OCU and other Ukrainian denominations to practice an ecumenism that transcends the concerns of nation-building. Domestically, with the creation of the OCU, Ukrainian Catholics and Protestants have a legitimate interlocutor and dialogue partner. Dialogue offers a winwin situation for both the OCU and UGCC: it will help the OCU get out of isolation, and it will facilitate the UGCC’s contacts with worldwide Orthodoxy, which have traditionally been at a low level, partially due to perceiving Ukraine through the lens of Moscow’s information policy. Academic institutions affiliated with the UGCC, such as the Ukrainian Catholic University and the Institute of Ecumenical Studies, can become a space for exchange not only between UGCC and OCU, but also between the theologians of the OCU, the UOC, and other Orthodox churches, who today cannot communicate directly. The war in the East and the political tensions which it has exacerbated call for a serious peacebuilding engagement by the churches, in which Orthodox, Catholics and Protestants can work side by side. Ukrainian Catholics and Protestants can offer both intellectual resources and contacts in the Western academic world to strengthen the quality of the OCU’s theological education and formation. It is important that in this process the Orthodox in communion with Moscow are not left aside. Although the UOC is viewed with suspicion by other Ukrainian churches, there is space for cooperation between this church and other denominations. They can jointly promote religious freedom and pluralism, and prevent preferential treatment of any given denomination. However, the OCU may fail to 120 Mykhaleyko, “The New Independent Orthodox Church” (see n. 31), 493. 121 Cf. Pantelis Kalaitzidis, “The Temptation of Judas: Church and National Identities,” Greek Orthodox Theological Review 47, no. 1–4 (2002), 357–379. 122 For Cherenkov, confessional pluralism is the best recipe against the state-church (Cherenkov, “Protestantski tserkvy i demokratiia” (see n. 13), 145–146). 123 Mykhaleyko, “The New Independent Orthodox Church” (see n. 31), 489.

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receive support from other Ukrainian churches in areas where it might be faced with genuine discrimination, without making itself more open to inter-confessional dialogue. The UOC’s increased involvement in dialogue would help its position be heard. This would require a lot of goodwill, patience, and diplomatic skills, but is not a priori impossible. One could expect that the OCU will be—gradually and cautiously—welcomed into the international ecumenical dialogue. What Avvakumov said regarding the KP and UAOC applies to an even larger degree to the newly created Orthodox Church of Ukraine: “exclusion [from inter-confessional dialogue] contradicts the principle of unprejudiced inclusivity at the very heart of the ecumenical endeavor since its beginnings in the mid-twentieth century.”124 Ecumenical conflict cases, such as in the situation of Ukraine, and the Moscow vs. Constantinople struggle for leadership within Orthodoxy, might give international ecumenical bodies a chance to mediate and contribute to the work of unity. While the OCU’s membership in the WCC or CEC, and relations with the Holy See, remain uncertain, an important role may be played by Ukrainian Catholics and Protestants, as well as by smaller actors in the ecumenical field, theological faculties, ecumenical institutes, societies, and informal groups of dialogue. These perspectives, however, will remain wishful thinking if they are not backed by a serious commitment on the OCU’s part. The way in which the latter shows itself to be sensitive to Ukrainian Catholic and Protestant concerns regarding its potential aspiration to become a ‘predominant’ church could influence the other churches’ attitudes toward it. If the OCU is interested in robustly engaging in ecumenical dialogue, its first step could be to be active locally, both within the UCCRO and in its bilateral dialogues with the Catholics and Protestants. This would give the OCU credibility in the eyes of international players, and international recognition may follow in due course. Complications in the functioning of international ecumenical bodies due to the departure of Moscow from the organs co-chaired by Constantinople show that the conflict between the Third and Second (or, rather, the New) Rome runs not only within the world of Orthodoxy, but also beyond. But if one manages to deal with the pitfalls set in motion by the OCU’s inception and recognition, one can see Ukraine as an occasion for new ecumenical possibilities.

124 Avvakumov, “Ukrainian Greek Catholics” (see n. 20), 22.

New Approaches in Ecclesiology? Reflections Induced by the Ukrainian Crisis Thomas Bremer The events around the establishment of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) and the granting of autocephaly to it by the Ecumenical Patriarchate (EP) with all the consequences concern mainly questions of politics, church politics, and church structures. There is no difference whatsoever between the churches involved in questions of faith, like the understanding of God, of salvation, of sacraments, and so on. The liturgy is also basically the same in all churches in question. A random visitor to an Orthodox church service in Ukraine must pay close attention to a few small details if s/he wants to identify the denomination of the church which s/he is attending. Even the language used is not a reliable indicator.1 Still the set of beliefs behind these smaller differences is basically identical, as is how the belief is expressed in forms of piety. Despite these fundamental likenesses in so many areas, the events in Ukraine carry a lot of consequences in a theological field which has been much discussed in the last decades: ecclesiology. The discussions in all churches have touched upon the idea of “Eucharistic ecclesiology,” and, prompted by ecumenical dialogues, the relationship between synodality and primacy as well.2 In these debates, there appears to be a double movement: on the one hand, Orthodox ecclesiology managed to emancipate itself from Western patterns of thinking which have been dominant for a long time.3 This refers above all to an institutional understanding 1 2

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For this issue, see Nadieszda Kizenko’s contribution in this volume. The latter issue played an important role in the official dialogue between the Orthodox and the Catholic Churches. The documents of Ravenna, Ecclesiological and Canonical Consequences of the Sacramental Nature of the Church: Ecclesial Communion, Conciliarity and Authority (October 13, 2007) and of Chieti, Synodality and Primacy during the First Millennium: Towards a Common Understanding in Service to the Unity of the Church (September 21, 2016) are the most important results, see: http://www. christianunity.va/content/unitacristiani/en/dialoghi/sezione-orientale/chiese-ortodosse-ditradizione-bizantina/commissione-mista-internazionale-per-il-dialogo-teologico-tra-la/ documenti-di-dialogo.html. The Saint Irenaeus Joint Orthodox-Catholic Working Group also published a document on synodality and primacy: Serving Communion: Re-thinking the Relationship between Primacy and Synodality (Graz, 2018), see: https://de. moehlerinstitut.de/pdf/texte/kommuniques/2018_graz_serving_communion.pdf. “Western” means in this context mainly Catholic; the potentially important contributions of Protestant theology to both Orthodox and Catholic thinking still have to be researched in depth; see Jennifer Wasmuth, Der Protestantismus und die russische Theologie: Zur Rezeption und Kritik des Protestantismus in den Zeitschriften der Geistlichen Akademien

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of the Church. The concentration on historical research, the experience of Orthodox theologians who lived in the diaspora, and the re-discovery of the patristic heritage led to a new evaluation and apprehension of the local Church. Eminent theologians like Nicholas Afanasieff and Ioannis Zizioulas have contributed to that understanding. On the other hand, there has been a mutual rapprochement between Eastern and Western ecclesiology. Orthodox theologians have discussed the presence of primatial elements in synodal structures, and Catholic theologians have found in Orthodox ideas of synodality helpful elements for their own ecclesiology.4 These developments form the context of any ecclesiological evaluation of the latest events in Ukrainian Orthodoxy. This contribution seeks to reflect upon key ecclesiological aspects connected to these events. Although it will concentrate on their significance for Orthodox ecclesiology, many aspects are also valid for the Catholic understanding of the Church. The first section will lay out the principles of contemporary ecclesiology. Secondly, the question of the territorial organizational form of the Church will be discussed, as “territory” plays an important role in the Ukrainian case. Since the granting of autocephaly was also of central significance for that case, the category of autocephaly will be taken into account as well. Concluding thoughts will try to offer alternative ideas for how to think about ecclesiology in a way which might help solve the problems Orthodoxy and Catholicism alike had already before the debate about Ukraine, but which are still unsettled.

Traditional Principles in Modern Orthodox Ecclesiology Most theologians would agree that there is basically only one larger difference between the Orthodox and the Catholic churches, namely the understanding of the role and of the competences of the Roman bishop. That pertains most of all to jurisdictional questions: the nomination (and deposition) of bishops, resolving issues of discipline for the universal Church, and others. Behind these privileges lies the centralized organization of the Roman Church which had its culmination in the infallibility which the Catholic Church attributed to the Pope at Vatican Council I (1869–70). It is not acceptable for the Eastern churches, nor for any

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an der Wende vom 19. zum 20. Jahrhundert (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2007) as an important step in this endeavor. This Orthodox-Catholic juxtaposition makes it understandable that “primacy” plays such an important role in these debates. The accentuation of synodality in the Catholic Church by Pope Francis must also be understood in this context, above all his Apostolic Constitution Episcopalis communion (September 15, 2018), see: https://www.vatican.va/content/ francesco/en/apost_constitutions/ documents/papa-francesco_costituzione-ap_20180915_episcopalis-communio.html, and his announcement of a Synodal Process for the Catholic Church all over the world in May 2021.

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other Church, but papal infallibility is not a central issue for the organization of the Church. It could be interpreted in a way that would be acceptable for other churches, if it were to emphasize the role of the Pope as a servant to the unity of the Church in matters of belief (with a proper definition of his “ex cathedra” competences). The Pope as a bishop with universal jurisdiction who can interfere in any diocese, however, reveals a fundamental difference between the two approaches of how to understand “Church.” But behind these differences there is an astonishingly high degree of consensus between both churches. The reason for that is that both churches refer to the ecclesiology as it developed during the first centuries, when a local Church was led by an episkopos, a bishop. He was supported by diakonoi, deacons, and presbyteroi, priests. The bishop was the only one who could transfer any ordination, and only he and the priests could preside over the celebration of the Eucharist. Nevertheless, the deacons had a very important role for a long time as they were responsible for charitable activities, which also meant for the finances of the local Church.5 According to the thinking based on the ancient tradition, the Church manifests itself as the congregation gathered around the bishop for the celebration of the Eucharist. The Eucharist creates the Church. When the Christian communities grew to the point where they could no longer gather together in one place with the bishop, priests began to celebrate the Eucharist with other congregations, but always on behalf of and in agreement with the bishop. The liturgical commemorations (prayers for or mentioning of the local bishop, and sometimes also of the first hierarch of the Church) are up to this day a sign for the meaning of the bishop for the local Church and an expression of church communion. One is in communion with the bishop who is commemorated in a Eucharistic celebration. When a bishop is not commemorated anymore, he is ex-communicated, he is no longer regarded to belong to one’s own Church. Although many people nowadays all over the world experience their parish—i.e., the place where they celebrate the Eucharist—as the local Church, and not the eparchy/diocese to which they belong, and although most faithful only rarely have even distant contact with “their” bishop, both Orthodox and Catholic theology define the local Church as the one which is led by a bishop, i.e. the eparchy/diocese. The New Testament shows evidence for such an understanding; the word ekklesia is used there originally and primarily as the local congregation, and only in later texts as a supra-local entity. An important question which follows from these premises is the relationship of the local Church to the universal Church. If the congregation around a bishop is the Church, then how does it relate to the other churches, and how is the Church 5

Protestant Churches have sometimes similar titles for their ministers, but most of them do not know an essential difference between these ministries, since in Holy Scripture, which is normative according to the principle sola Scriptura, such differences cannot be found.

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composed? The Latin tradition speaks (relatively late) about ecclesiae particulares, particular churches, which form parts of the universal Church, but which are deficient in themselves. That presupposes, of course, the idea that the Church in union with the Roman Pope is the Church, and that there cannot be any churchhood, any ecclesiality, outside of it. The question arises: which of these two levels has the priority, the local/particular Church, or the universal Church?6 In Orthodox theology, the idea has prevailed that each local Church is the Church, and that all churches together form the Body of Christ, i.e. the universal Church. The term “all churches together” must however not be understood in a cumulative or additive sense, but rather in an ontological one. The one Church consists of and in the many churches. Moreover, although the Church is organized hierarchically, it is first of all a communion. The ambiguity of the word ekklesia is reflected also in this understanding: there is only one Church, one ekklesia, worldwide as well as locally, in the different ekklesiai. This understanding of the Church led to a lot of consequences and shaped the actual form of the Church in the first centuries. The concentration on the bishop made him the central figure in ecclesiology. The idea of one Church in one given place brought along the principle of clearly defined territories for which the respective bishop was in charge. No other bishop could interfere in his territory (eparchy, or diocese). These territories from the start were shaped in accordance with the political borders of the Roman Empire. When overarching ecclesial structures emerged—which also were formed according to existing political entities—they were called metropolitanates and patriarchates. But the role of the single bishop in his diocese was never questioned. No metropolitan or patriarch could intervene in a bishop’s government of his local church.7 At the same time, it was clear that the bishops were not monads, but were connected to each other and belonged together within the one Church of Christ. Forms were found to express this connection, above all the custom that the neighboring bishops took part in the episcopal ordination of a new one. Being in communion with other bishops was an essential proof that a bishop and his flock belonged to the one Church of Christ. This communion was shown in different ways: by participation in ordinations (as mentioned), by letters which bishops sent after their election to the fellow bishops in their region (“irenic letters”), by 6

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In the late 1990s, there was a debate about this question between two German theologians who worked as cardinals in the Roman Curia, Joseph Ratzinger and Walter Kasper. See Kilian McDonnell, “The Ratzinger/Kasper Debate: The Universal Church and Local Churches,” Theological Studies 63 (2002), 227–250; Paul McPartlan, “The Local Church and the Universal Church: Zizioulas and the Ratzinger-Kasper Debate,” International Journal for the Study of the Christian Church 4 (2004), 21–33. That does not mean that such attempts did not happen, and that bishops could be deposed, above all because of heresy. But theologically, the bishop remained the highest authority in his eparchy.

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participation in local meetings of bishops (“synods”), by liturgical commemoration,8 and also by the possibility for believers who were travelling to participate in the liturgy and to receive communion in other places: they carried letters from their bishop which opened them the church gates. However, this system never functioned fully. Bishops might be in conflict with each other and not accept communion with one another. A bishop might maintain communion with two other bishops who were not in communion among themselves. Theologians and their bishops might fall out with each other over dogmatical questions. When synods could not resolve such problems, the communion broke, and the Church split. That led to the establishment of several churches in the same city, on the same territory, which competed with one another and did not recognize each other. Therefore, the position of the secular authorities became more important: they had an interest in preserving the unity of the Church for political reasons. From the 5th century on, the Roman bishops claimed a more decisive role for themselves. The Roman bishop as “Patriarch of the West” had a specific position for the Latin Church, given that he had the only Apostolic See in the West. Over the centuries, in the West the conception became more important that this position related also to the Christian East which, however, mostly refused this idea and insisted on its autonomy. Thus, both the Eastern and the Western churches grew apart until the papal claims led (at least indirectly) to the separation between the churches in the 11th century. Western ecclesiology took its own path after that and developed the idea of papal primacy in much more elaborated forms. In the Eastern Church, the idea developed that the five patriarchates (Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem) guaranteed the unity of the Church and of the faith, the so-called pentarchy. After the split-off of Rome, Constantinople occupied the first rank. When the Church in Muscovy became a patriarchate in 1589, the number of five was completed again, but the idea of a pentarchy was not revived. In the 19th century, parallel to the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, the ascent of nationalism, and the formation of national states, more independent (“autocephalous”) Orthodox churches were established (above all in Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria, and Romania). By the end of the 20th century, some fourteen churches were generally recognized within Orthodoxy, one (the “Orthodox Church in America”) was recognized only by the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC), and a few others claimed autocephaly but were not in communion with the other ones. The autocephalous churches have become an important factor in Orthodox ecclesiology. That means also that the first hierarchs (not all heads of autocephalous churches are patriarchs), and the respective synod as the decisive body in many autocephalous churches, have gained much more significance and authority. Though the role of the single bishop is still stressed, his independence is much more limited by the autocephalous Church to which he belongs. He is 8

See Vera Tchentsova’s contribution in this volume.

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frequently not so much regarded as the bishop of X, but rather as a bishop of the autocephalous Church of Y. Thus, the intermediate level between the local (episcopal) Church and the universal Church had obtained a weight which in fact has only a very weak foundation in ecclesiology. The authority of the bishop within his diocese is absolute. While there are many forms, both in the Catholic and the Orthodox Church, of participation of lower clergy and laity in the administration of the diocese, in the end, it is the bishop who can decide and who cannot be outvoted. Therefore, the bishop is the key figure in all churches which have an episcopal constitution and claim to be in the apostolic succession. These ecclesiological principles had become overshadowed over the centuries. It was only in the 20th century that they were rediscovered again. The “Eucharistic ecclesiology” according to which the Church constitutes itself in the Eucharistic celebration received new attention and recognition after the works of renowned theologians as Nicholas Afanassieff, Georges Florovsky, and Ioannis Zizioulas. Perhaps it is not by chance that all of them worked for a long period of their lives in the diaspora where they indeed experienced Church much more as an assembly of faithful who gather for the Eucharist than as an overarching organization—in fact, different Orthodox jurisdictions fought frequently about territories in the diaspora. Catholic ecclesiology, as it is expressed in the decrees of Vatican II, was significantly influenced by these Orthodox approaches.9 It always had to integrate the doctrine about the Roman bishop,10 but nevertheless it took a good deal of inspiration from Orthodoxy.

The Question of a Territory From early times on, the realm of a bishop was clearly marked. When overarching structures (metropolitanates and patriarchates) emerged, they too had a clear territory. And when the local churches led by a bishop were split into smaller units, i.e. parishes, the latter ones had a determined territory, too. This territorial principle is valid and visible on all levels of the church structure. Roman Catholic

9

Here above all Afanassieff played an important role. See Pavlo Smytsnyuk, “The Teaching of Vatican II and Eucharistic Ecclesiology: Did Orthodox Theology Influence Vatican II?,” in Revisiting Vatican II: 50 Years of Renewal, vol. 2, ed. Shaji George Kochuthara, (Bangalore: Dharmaran Publications, 2015), 197–205; Anastacia Wooden, “Eucharistic Ecclesiology of Nicholas Afanasiev and Catholic Ecclesiology: History of Interaction and Future Perspectives,” Journal of Ecumenical Studies 45 (2010), 543–560. 10 Smytsnyuk (see n. 9), 199 mentions the perception of the bishop as part of the college of bishops in Vatican II’s constitution Lumen Gentium, which shows this attempt of integration.

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canon law explicitly requires the territorial delimitation of dioceses and parishes.11 How that is organized frequently depends on the concrete circumstances in a given country. In some countries, the registration of the membership of a parish and therefore of a diocese is even regulated by the state authorities (as in Germany, because of the system of church taxes). In other countries, the members known to the parish are those who actively take part in services and in the church life, and who register with the church. But legally everybody who is Catholic belongs to the parish on the territory of which he or she lives, even if he or she does not take part in any kind of church life. All these organizational differences do not contest the territorial principle; everybody can clearly know or learn to which parish his or her place of residence belongs. That also excludes the possibility that two local churches are in charge of the same place, according to the old ecclesial principle that there must be only one bishop in a city. However, the churches do not stick completely to that territorial principle. The same canon 518, which requires the territorial delimitation of Catholic parishes, continues: “When it is expedient, however, personal parishes are to be established determined by reason of the rite, language, or nationality of the Christian faithful of some territory, or even for some other reason.” And indeed, in many dioceses there are parishes which are not organized according to a territory, but to some feature of the members (e.g., belonging to a migrant community, with services and pastoral care in the respective language). This possibility can be a helpful tool in many cases of pastoral need—but it also brings with it ecclesiological questions. On the level of the diocese, too, the territory is not always the most important criterion. The canon mentions “rite.” A Catholic who belongs to another rite than the Latin can be under the jurisdiction of another bishop than his fellow Catholic who lives next door. In some places, several Catholic bishops of different rites reside in the same city. Several towns in Ukraine have a Roman Catholic and a Greek Catholic bishop so that the question “Who is the Catholic bishop in charge of Odessa?” cannot be answered properly.12 Even when according to the canonical principles a person belongs to a given parish, there are many cases in which Catholics attend another parish church (or several others, from time to time), whether out of convenience, or because they prefer the priest or the way mass is celebrated, or because of the church itself or of the music, or for any other reason. In the perspective of the canon law, they belong to the parish of their residence. But as a matter of fact, they live in another one, and their parishes even might belong to different dioceses. 11 See Codex Iuris Canonici, can. 372, §1 for the diocese, and can. 518 for the parish: “As a general rule a parish is to be territorial, that is, one which includes all the Christian faithful of a certain territory.” Here, “Christian faithful” is used in the sense of “members of the Catholic Church”. 12 L’viv even has three Catholic bishops: A Ukrainian-Catholic, a Roman-Catholic and an Armenian-Catholic.

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The Orthodox Church does not have a generally accepted and elaborated code of its canon law. Nevertheless, the same principles outlined for the Roman Catholic case also apply to Orthodox—and so do the exceptions. When concentrating on the eparchy as the local Church, one can find several cases in which the territorial principle is not observed: 1) Dioceses have vicar bishops, because of their size and the need of more clerics who can exercise episcopal duties. The ROC has a special Statute “on the eparchial vicariates,”13 which describes the duties of the vicar bishops, but which also reveals the problems connected with this institution. It says that the highest authority in the vicariate belongs to the eparchial bishop, and thus shows a tension between the two bishops in question—even if they work together in best accord and without any problems, there remains an ecclesiological tension since in such cases there are in fact two bishops on one territory. The Russian Church tries to diminish the problems and to make clear that the eparchial bishop is the highest authority in the vicariate, and that the vicar bishop acts as a delegate of the eparchial bishop. But the vicar bishop is commemorated (together with the eparchial bishop) in the liturgy, he has a cathedral in the place after which he bears his title, and in fact he leads the vicariate in the same way an eparchial bishop leads the eparchy. In addition, there can be vicar bishops who do not have a territorial responsibility, but who are in charge of specific realms in the administration of an eparchy, or of the Patriarchate. 2) In the diaspora, i.e. in countries where there is no Orthodox Church of its own, several bishops and their dioceses exist on the same territory. The list of participants of the “Holy and Great Council” on Crete in 2016 includes three bishops who are in charge of Germany (Metropolitan Augoustinos (Lambardakis) from the EP, Bishop Sergije (Karanoviü) from the Serbian Patriarchate, Metropolitan Serafim (Joanta) from the Romanian Patriarchate);14 if the Russian Church had participated, with Archbishop Mark (Arndt), a fourth one would have been on the list.15 That indicates that in many diaspora countries, 13 See Russian Orthodox Church, Regulations on the diocesan vicariates of the Russian Orthodox Church (Polozhenie o eparhial’nykh vikariatstvakh Russkoi Pravoslavnoi Tserkvi) (December 28, 2011), http://www.patriarchia.ru/db/text/1909320.html. 14 See Holy and Great Council, Delegations (Pentecost 2016), https://www.holycouncil.org/ delegations. 15 See Pan-Orthodox Cathedral, The composition of the delegation of the Russian Orthodox Church for participation in the Pan-Orthodox Council approved (Utverzhden sostav delegatsii Russkoi Pravoslavnoi Tserkvi dlia uchastiia vo Vsepravoslavnom Sobore) (May 4, 2016), http://sobor2016.patriarchia.ru/db/text/4460274.html. After the reunification between the Moscow Patriarchate and the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, in May 2007, and until the death of Archbishop Feofan (Galinski) in 2017, the ROC had even two “Archbishops of Berlin and Germany.” Feofan’s successor was named “Administrator

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the principle of one bishop in one city cannot be maintained. The Orthodox Church has acknowledged this problem. In 2009, at the Panorthodox meeting in Chambésy (Switzerland), the representatives of the churches decided that bishops’ assemblies be established in countries which do not belong to the exclusive jurisdiction of one church, but where bishops of several autocephalous churches were present.16 These assemblies should illustrate that the member bishops are in communion with each other, and not competing, on the same territory. 3) In predominantly Orthodox countries, too, there were and there are cases in which Orthodox churches claim a territory as their own, deny the jurisdiction of another church, and eventually break communion over a dispute—Ukraine being the most prominent example. However, in other cases churches may argue over a certain territory and install parallel hierarchies but still stay in communion with each other. There are several such disputes, most of minor character, with Moldova being probably the most important. Both the Russian and the Romanian Orthodox churches regard it as belonging to their jurisdiction, and both churches have dioceses and parishes in the country. But nevertheless, the Moscow and Bucharest patriarchates stay in communion. In Moldova itself, some faithful attend parishes of both churches, and some priests even concelebrate. That is not official, of course, and the bishops from each side claim that they are in charge, and not the other ones, but we have the fact that in a given territory more than one bishop from different churches claim responsibility, without a break of communion between their churches. So what we can see is a twofold situation. On the one hand, the Orthodox churches try to uphold the idea of having only one bishop for a given place. They do that by ordaining vicar bishops to dioceses which do not exist,17 or by forming bishops’ assemblies in the diaspora. On the other hand, they tolerate a departure from this principle in many cases, mostly for practical reasons—dioceses are so large that a vicar is needed, the diaspora requires new solutions. In some cases, it has led to a break of communion between the churches involved. In the dispute about of the diocese of Berlin and Germany,” and given a title of a diocese in Russia, in order to avoid such a duplication. 16 See Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, Communiqué of the 4th Pre-Conciliar Panorthodox Conference (Chambésy-Geneva, June 6–12, 2009), https://www.goarch.org/-/ chambesy-communique. There is also a draft for Regulations of Episcopal Assemblies on the same website. 17 But it is clear that the dioceses of vicar bishops—in the Orthodox Church frequently named after places on the territory of the eparchy, in the Catholic Church after a historical diocesan see which does not exist anymore—are in fact on the territory of another bishop who is in charge for that place. The vicar does not exercise jurisdiction, but he is consecrated as the bishop of X. But X is situated (even if there are no Christians anymore, as frequently in the Catholic case) in the diocese of someone else.

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Orthodoxy in Estonia, in 1996, there was a schism between Moscow and Constantinople which lasted for four months. After the Russian Church broke communion with Constantinople in the fall of 2018 over Ukraine, the interruption of the communion has already lasted for years.18 The territorial principle carries significant weight in Orthodox ecclesiology, but it does not work, or one could even say, the Church does not stick to it, for valid reasons. However, once one goes beyond the question of the role of a parish and of a diocese, one sees that the territorial principle had a consequence which is a dominant feature in Orthodoxy today: it contributed to the establishment of autocephalous churches. It is worth taking a closer look at them.

Autocephaly as a Decisive Category Not only the debate on Ukraine, but earlier inner-Orthodox events and developments, have already underlined the significance of the autocephalous churches. The Holy and Great Council of Crete was in fact much more a meeting of autocephalous churches than a meeting of the Orthodox Church, as was also the decades-long process which led to it. That can be clearly seen in the organizational rules, the voting procedures, etc.19 They are all concentrated on the autocephalous churches or on their first hierarchs who represented them. The right to vote was given to churches, not to bishops. The votes had to be cast by the first hierarchs of each Church. Dissenting opinions of bishops were possible, but they were regarded as an internal matter of the church to which the respective bishops belonged. Thus, a category has gained significance which according to the ecclesiological tradition does not belong to the nature of the Church. Autocephaly is not identical with the structures of metropolitanates and patriarchates which developed in the 4th and 5th centuries. The processes of obtaining autocephaly were very different:20 The ancient patriarchates of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem were never formally given an autocephaly—they developed in parallel to the structures of the early Church. The Church of Cyprus traces its autocephaly back to a decision of the Ephesus Council (431) according to which “the Rulers 18 There were questions raised whether it is really a schism since the Ecumenical Patriarch still commemorates the Moscow Patriarch, but that can be neglected here. It is without question that the communion is broken, even though only from one side. 19 See Synaxis of the Primates of Orthodox Churches, Organization and Working Procedure of the Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church (Chambésy, January 21–28, 2016), https://www.holycouncil.org/-/procedures. 20 A discussion of this topic in greater length can be found in Thomas Bremer, “Autocephaly: A Challenge for both Orthodox and Catholics,” in Autocephaly: In Search of Unity in Diversity, ed. Edward G. Farrugia and Željko Paša (Rome, forthcoming).

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of the holy churches in Cyprus shall enjoy, without dispute or injury, according to the Canons of the blessed Fathers and ancient custom, the right of performing for themselves the ordination of their excellent Bishops.”21 The ROC got its autocephaly by a decision of the EP in 1589, which was confirmed by the other ancient patriarchates. All other autocephalies were granted in the 19th century or later; they almost all referred to states with an Orthodox population, which had become independent after these states had been part of larger ones—concretely, of the Ottoman or the Russian Empires. The independence of the Church, i.e. the autocephaly, was seen as an ecclesial supplement to the political independence. All this happened in the context of the rise of national consciousness. Those newly founded states were national states in which mostly the titular nation prevailed. So, there are very different types of autocephaly, and it is difficult to use the term homonymously. They represent very different phenomena, notwithstanding the fact that each autocephalous Church is ontologically, i.e. as an autocephalous Church, identical with the others. That means that each of them has the same rights as the other ones (e.g., in the procedures of the Crete Council); their only ecclesiological difference is in their rank in the canonical order of the churches. It is another matter that this order is itself disputed (the list of Constantinople and the one used in Moscow differ in some places; Moscow recognizes the Orthodox Church in America as autocephalous, whereas Constantinople mentions since 2019 the Orthodox Church of Ukraine). In addition, it is not clear what that order means. Frequently, it is called an order of honor, which means that the Patriarch of Constantinople, or his representative, has the right to preside in meetings, or to be the main celebrant in liturgies, etc. According to the Russian Church, that primatial position does not imply any juridical consequences. The EP and many theologians from the Greek tradition, however, claim that the Ecumenical Patriarch has the right to convey autocephaly to churches who apply for that. It would be incorrect to reduce the conflict in Ukraine to this divergent interpretation. Though that point was made in the debates around the autocephaly issue, the Church of Constantinople claimed the right to grant autocephaly in Ukraine not because it has that right in general, but because Ukraine belonged— according to the standpoint of the EP—to its canonical territory. The rights given to the Moscow Patriarch in the late 17th century were revoked,22 and thus the temporary administration of Ukraine by Moscow ceased and came back to Constantinople which then had the right to grant the autocephaly. For the discussion of the legitimacy of the action undertaken by the EP in 2018/19, then, the point is not primarily the prerogatives of the first church, but rather the question whose canonical territory Ukraine was in late 2018—did it belong to Constantinople, or to Moscow? 21 The Canons of the Council of Ephesus (431), can. 8, https://earlychurchtexts.com/public/ ephesus_canons_431.htm. 22 For the events of 1686, see the contribution of Vera Tchentsova in this volume.

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In addition, in almost all cases of autocephalies which were granted after antiquity, the newly autocephalous churches had belonged to the EP.23 That was the case with Russia, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, and Albania. Cyprus drew its ecclesial independence from an Ecumenical Council. The three remaining cases—Georgia, Poland, the Czech Lands and Slovakia—are special. The latter two emerged as the result of shifting of borders in the 20th century which resulted in a significant number of Orthodox faithful living in the newly created countries for whom a church was organized in the period between the World Wars, and eventually given autocephaly. In the case of Georgia, the Church had had a de facto autocephalous status, which was abolished when Russia conquered Georgia and subordinated the Church under the ROC. As soon as it became possible after the 1917 revolution, the Georgian bishops declared the autocephaly of their Church. In antiquity, the Georgian Church had belonged to the Patriarchate of Antioch, not to Constantinople. It is indicative that each of these three churches received two confirmations of autocephaly, one from the Moscow Patriarchate and one from the EP. The one from the Russian Church came at a time when it was under the Soviet regime, and it served Soviet interests to exercise political influence in Poland, Czechoslovakia, and (the Soviet republic of) Georgia, respectively, via the Orthodox churches. Of course, given that the Orthodox Church does not have a central administration, the existence of levels between the local Church (the eparchy) and the universal Church is very helpful and enables the local churches to act together in a coordinated way. A glance at the Oriental Orthodox churches shows that such processes are much more difficult there. It was in fact only when these churches met in the ecumenical movement that they started to organize meetings of their first hierarchs and to form common committees. That led to a situation like the one we have now in regard to the Catholic Church: since 1984, there is an agreement between the Syriac Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church about the mutual acceptance to communion in cases of pastoral need. When there is no priest of their own Church “materially or morally”24 available, faithful are allowed to receive the sacraments of penance, Eucharist, and anointing of the sick from a priest of the respective other Church. The Syriac Orthodox Church is in full communion with the Coptic Orthodox Church. When Pope Francis and the Coptic Pope Tawadros II met in 2017, the latter signed an agreement that in case of a 23 It would be interesting to research autocephalies that existed historically but were abolished again, mostly in the Balkans, like Ohrid (Achrida) or Peü, but that is beyond the topic of this article. 24 Common Declaration of Pope John Paul II and His Holiness Mar Ignatius Zakka I Iwas (June 23, 1984), http://www.christianunity.va/content/unitacristiani/it/dialoghi/sezioneorientale/chiese-ortodosse-orientali/relazioni-bilaterali/patriarcato-siro-ortodosso-dantiochiae-di-tutto-loriente--damas/dichiarazioni-comuni/1984–papa-giovanni-paolo-ii-ed-ilpatriarca-siro-ortodosso-danti/testo-in-inglese.html.

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conversion from one Church to the other baptism should not be repeated. But he could sign the statement only as an individual, not on behalf of his Church, since he did not have the support of his synod. That means that one Church of the Oriental Orthodox community is not sure whether Catholics are baptized at all, whereas the other recommends to their faithful to take communion there in case they have no access to a priest of their own Church. In the Eastern Orthodox churches, however, there was throughout history the awareness not only of belonging together, but also of acting together. The preparation process for the “Holy and Great Council” in 2016, which started decades ago, took place only because of the activities of the EP. Even though the ROC was frequently critical about the EP, it never disputed its right to take initiatives, to convoke meetings, and to preside at these meetings. That shows that there are, of course, practical reasons for this emphasis on the autocephalous churches. Historically, they have shown their necessity. But in a strictly ecclesiological perspective, there is no real place for a level between the local and the universal Church. The Ukrainian dispute, however, was not about the local church, led by a bishop, but about the intermediary level of the autocephalous Church. Though these structures of autocephaly which arose historically do not easily fit into the prevailing ecclesiological scheme, they are a very important reality in church life today. The argument about Orthodoxy in Ukraine is about something that is theologically, i.e. from the point of view of ecclesiology, not that important at all. It is questions of power, influence, authority, and politics that play the most important role here.

Concluding Thoughts What does all this mean for the future of ecclesiology, and for the future of the ecclesial situation in Ukraine? We saw that the competition of several jurisdictions over the same territory can be the cause for harsh inner-Orthodox fights— but we also saw that the co-existence of several jurisdiction for the same area does not necessarily lead to conflicts between churches and to interruption of communion. One could ask whether a solution like the ones described, where the territorial jurisdiction is not clear (diaspora, Moldova), would fit for Ukraine—or rather whether departing from the system of territoriality altogether could be a solution. The principle of one bishop in one city comes from a time when mobility was much lower than it is today, and when adherence to a local community was much simpler. But most important: its rationale was completely different. The principle that there must be only one bishop in one city dealt in antiquity with competing bishops, i.e. with bishops from “heretic” or “schismatic” churches who would have churches and adherents in places where there were already bishops of the

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Catholic Church. The idea was to make clear that the one bishop who had a succession lineage up to the apostles was right, not the other one, and it served to keep the faithful together. Obviously, it never worked, but that was the claim. The main goal was to prevent the faithful from going to another church which was led by another bishop. We cannot pretend that there was an ideal unity in the early Church where the “heretics” would have been clearly identified and ousted. It was rather a continuous fight for domination (in a city) which was underlaid with the claim of being the right one. Therefore, the principle was not about reserving certain areas to bishops and giving them the exclusive right to exercise jurisdiction there, but it was about keeping the Church in the right belief, not allowing dissenting churches to be established and to develop—a danger which was very much real and present in the first centuries. That means that when we apply a hermeneutical approach and ask what the idea behind that principle is, we will see that it is the preservation of the faith, not the organization of church structures. The latter is a consequence of the superior aim. In a situation like the one in our times when a church with a hierarchical structure, be it the Orthodox or the Catholic one, faces problems in organizing the pastoral care for its members, it could depart from the principle for the sake of a better provision of that care. The reality of the dioceses, the parishes, and the situation of the faithful is multifold nowadays, and only in a very few cases it does correspond to the situation we had in the first centuries of Christianity. A more open approach, therefore, could resolve many problems Orthodoxy has nowadays. If we apply these ideas to Ukraine, then it could be the case that there would be two jurisdictions and two Orthodox churches in communion with each other (the latter is not the case at the moment, of course). People could choose to which they belong and where they attend services. The ones would prefer the use of Ukrainian as a liturgical language, others might like Church Slavonic much more. Some faithful would feel connected to a certain bishop, or monastery, or church building, and worship respectively. Since the two churches would be in communion with each other, people could also make spontaneous decisions and attend one service one day, another one the next day or week. This idea can only be applied to a situation in which the churches involved are in communion (as in Moldova, for example). It does not relate to churches of different “confessions,” like the Orthodox and the Catholic ones. Historically, for churches not in communion, it was clear that the other one was “wrong,” that it was schismatic or heretical, that it was even not a Church. As long as a Church does not acknowledge others as churches, it can easily disregard the existence of any other church organization on its territory. To recognize other churches without being in communion with them is a relatively modern phenomenon which came only when churches and their territories expanded, and above all when the churches developed kind relations towards each other in the ecumenical movement. That brought along new problems—if they saw in the other not an adversary

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anymore, but a fellow Christian community with elements of ecclesiality, what would that mean?25 However, in our context, the problem of territoriality is discussed between local churches within one Church. The situation described above is already the reality for many Orthodox in Ukraine.26 It is in contradiction to the ecclesial prescriptions since both churches are not in communion with each other, but it happens, and sometimes even with the consent (the “blessing”) of priests. Metropolitan Symeon (Shostats’kyi), one of the leading figures in the OCU and one of two bishops who had left the UOC in favor of the newly created Church, said in an interview that he prays for the bishops in the UOC, and that he heard that they also pray for him.27 There were also voices in Greek Orthodoxy who interpreted the situation as a kind of normality. Metropolitan Ignatios (Georgakopoulos) of Demetrias said in 2019 that Metropolitan Onufrii (Berezovs’kyi), the head of the UOC, is still in communion with the Ecumenical Patriarch, as the latter commemorates in his liturgies the Russian Patriarch Kirill (Gundiaev), who is in communion with Onufrii.28 That seems to indicate a situation that there are two legitimate churches in Ukraine which are in different ways (via Constantinople and via Moscow) connected to world Orthodoxy. The autocephalous churches which have not recognized the new OCU are in communion with both adversary patriarchates, a situation which shows that there is no strictly logical explanation for the given situation. 25 One could see these problems very clearly in 2002 when the RCC established four dioceses in Russia, and the ROC reacted harshly, claiming Russia as its canonical territory. The RCC approach was a kind of a market model: everybody can offer everywhere what he has to present, and people can make a choice. Therefore, Churches compete everywhere with each other. The argument behind it was religious freedom. The ROC had the canonical territory approach: Russia is its territory, Catholics can have parishes (and sometimes individual Russians convert), but the RCC should not have structures, charitable organizations, schools, dioceses etc. The ROC argued that it has dioceses in the West only for pastoral care of its faithful, but no other structures there. This means in the end the recognition of the other side as a Church. In principle, the RCC offers salvation to everybody and everywhere, by belonging to it. And the ROC says it offers salvation to faithful on its canonical territory, but people in the West can and will be saved by the RCC. This model is much more “ecumenical,” it acknowledges the RCC as the Church in the West which is the RCC’s canonical territory. In the end, the world is divided between Orthodoxy and the RCC. 26 See the contribution of Lozova and Kalenychenko in this volume. 27 See the interview with Metropolitan Symeon, Metropolitan Simeon: “The only autocephalous Orthodox Church in Ukraine will be during my lifetime!” (Mitropolit Simeon: “Edina avtokefal’na Pravoslavna Cerkva v Ukrainɿ bude – za moho zhittia!”) (January 15, 2021), https://risu.ua/mitropolit-simeon-yedina-avtokefalna-pravoslavna-cerkva-v-ukrayi ni-bude---za-mogo-zhittya_n115105. 28 See Metropolitan Ignatius of Demetrias, “Ukrainian Autocephaly and Responsibility Toward the Faithful,” Public Orthodoxy (2019), https://publicorthodoxy.org/2019/10/23/ ukrainian-autocephaly-and-responsibility: “Thus, he [Patriarch Bartholomew] continues for his part to be in communion with Onufriy.”

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A shift of the ecclesiological paradigm would be a bold step, to be sure. But it is not something that would be impossible. The territorial principle is not necessarily inherent to the Church. It was developed historically, with good and understandable reasons, and it is fully possible that it might disappear again, especially given that the reasons for its introduction do not exist any more, and that there are already now so many exceptions to the rule, in both the Catholic and the Orthodox Church. The changes that such a shift would bring along are not so drastic, since in many regards, we have them already as a fact. But it would not only help to resolve a major ecclesiological problem: it would also present a solution for the complicated situation in Ukrainian Orthodoxy.

IV. Church, State and Society

The Place of the Church in Society: Provider of a Moral Code? Elena A. Stepanova

Introduction The late Fr. Thomas Hopko, former Dean of St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary (Crestwood, NY), once commented that according to the Seminary’s “oral tradition,” theologian Fr. Georges Florovsky would begin his lectures in Christian Ethics with the sentence: “For Orthodox Christians there is no such thing as Christian Ethics.”1 While Orthodox theology is less fragmented into subdisciplines than Western-type theologies, the reason not to develop any specified ethical teaching is much deeper. According to the doctrine of theosis or deification, following God’s commandments means that Orthodox Christians partake in the divine nature in their daily lives being in union with God’s energies; at the same time, they remain fully human and distinct from God: “The ultimate goal is for humans to become by grace what Christ is by nature—that is, to become deified—though this oneness with God does not erase the distinction between creature and creator.”2 Moral behavior is possible for human beings not because they accept this or that ethical principle, but because these principles are commanded by God as a law “written in their hearts” (Rom. 2:15). These principles are identical with the Orthodox dogmas expressed in Scripture and Tradition and revealed by God’s will. As Vladimir Lossky put it: “We must live the dogma expressing a revealed truth, which appears to us as an unfathomable mystery.”3 Since the 2000s, however, both the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC), as well as Russian political leaders have increasingly used moral discourse. The postSoviet transition in Russia is characterized by the breakdown of the former Soviet system of moral values and the search for more reliable ones; the focus on moral issues thus becomes quite relevant. There is a long-term tradition tracing back to the Marxist-Leninist dichotomy of the matter and consciousness. Here, religion along with morality, culture, education, social service, patriotic activities, etc., is 1 2 3

Thomas Hopko, Orthodox Christianity and Ethics, https://web.archive.org/web/2021030 3062001/https://www.svots.edu/content/orthodox-christianity-and-ethics. Alexander S. Agadjanian and Scott M. Kenworthy, Understanding World Christianity: Russia (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2021), 22. Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1976), 8.

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attributed to the non-material sphere—so-called dukhovnost, or spirituality.4 The ROC as the most prominent and influential religious body is seen to be most notably linked to dukhovnost in general, and to morality, in particular. Morality is unequivocally attributed to the ROC’s sphere. This is reflected, according to Sonja Luehrmann, in “a more general shift of transformational hopes toward religious institutions” in post-Soviet Russia.5 The idea of an indissoluble connection between [traditional] religion and morality is strongly supported by Russian political powers, whose leaders tend to see the ROC as the agent naturally responsible for the moral state of people, thus endowing the Church with the respective authority. As President of Russia Vladimir Putin stressed, “it is crucial that the Russian Orthodox Church […] constantly focuses on the issues of the moral health of society.”6 Today, the post-Soviet space is characterized by a great diversity of moral discourses expressing institutional and individual moral concepts concerning good and evil, which come into conflict with each other over almost all socially significant issues. In historically Orthodox countries (Russia, Ukraine, Belarus), Orthodox Churches are actively involved into discussions on moral issues. In Russia, the ROC has become an active promoter of a moral agenda both inside the country and on the international arena, seeking to pose as a guarantee of moral “bonds” in society, and thus claiming to play an exclusive role in the sphere of culture and morality as a ready-made tool that can foster people’s moral upbringing. Nevertheless, to use Regula Zwahlen’s phrase, “the term ‘Orthodox morality’ […] is unquestionably a neologism,”7 which has to be analyzed from the point of view of its content and genealogy, as well as in comparison with secular versions of morality in past and present socio-cultural contexts. It is also worthwhile to ask whether the ROC’s moral standards are really meaningful for the people in their daily lives. This chapter considers the following aspects of the ROC’s engagement into sphere of morality: first, how the ROC’s concept of human nature and the origins of morality are expressed in the speeches and writings of the ROC’s hierarchs, as well as in official documents; second, the concept of “traditional values” in the 4

5 6 7

Kathy Rousselet notes that dukhovnost has no real equivalent in English: “Dukhovnost is commonly understood as a sociocultural component, a quality that characterizes Russia and distinguishes it from other nations, particularly those of the West. At the same time it can be used to unite Russia with other former Slavic-majority nations such as Ukraine and Belarus.” Kathy Rousselet, “Dukhovnost in Russia’s politics,” Religion, State & Society, 48, no. 1 (2020), 38–55, here 38. Sonja Luehrmann, Secularism Soviet Style: Teaching Atheism and Religion in a Volga Republic (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2011), 16. President of Russia, Christmas Greetings, January 7, 2021, http://en.kremlin.ru/events/ president/news/64868. Regula Zwahlen, “The Soviet Genealogy of ‘Orthodox Morality’,” https://public orthodoxy.org/2019/06/14/the-soviet-genealogy-of-orthodox-morality/.

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broader context of the distinctiveness of the Russian culture and religion in comparison with European countries and the USA, which are generalized as “the West”; third, how the ROC’s moral standards are presented in various spheres of social life; finally, the variety of moral discourses in post-Soviet countries, including moral controversies between believers and non-believers in the debates on the key moral issues of today’s reality.

The ROC’s Concept of Morality: Continuities and Disruptions Today, the ROC has a consensual public position concerning socially significant issues, including morality, which in most cases with very few exceptions is expressed by the hierarchy on the level of the Moscow Patriarchate and eparchial administrations. The soundest voice in the public space is of that of Patriarch Kirill (Gundiaev),8 as he seems to have a personal commitment to the elaboration of a theological concept of human nature, the core of which is formed by morality. According to Kirill, such moral values as “faith, love, duty, responsibility and solidarity” are neither the product of historical evolution, nor depend on particular socio-cultural conditions. These values have not been created by people, but have been embedded into human nature by God; they are built into the structure of the universe and can be traced back to the first steps of humankind. Genuine moral values are eternal and universal, objective rather than subjective. Consequently, morality does not depend on one’s individual will.9 For Kirill, morality is an inside “bond,” a “column,” a fundamental principle, the sole power that ensures the systemic and holistic perception of being. As an integral part of the human nature, it also belongs to the individual, but not vice versa: “If something is intrinsic to me, but is not intrinsic to another person, this something cannot be considered as a uniting principle, bond, or foundation.”10 The same principle is expressed in a key ROC document, Osnovy uchenia Russkoi Pravoslavnoi tserkvi o dostoinstve, svobode i pravakh cheloveka (“The Russian Orthodox Church’s Basic Teaching on Human Dignity, Freedom and Rights,” henceforth Basic Teaching), adopted by the Bishops’ Council of the ROC in June 2008 (also discussed in this volume by Heta Hurskainen and Regina Elsner): “Moral norms [are] inherent in humanity just as moral norms set forth in

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Sergei Chapnin, Tzerkovnoe vozrozhdenie: itogi (Moscow: EKSMO, 2018), 38. See “Vystuplenie Sviateishego Patriarkha Kirilla na Rozhdestvenskikh parlamentskikh vstrechakh v Sovete Federatsii RF,” January 28, 2014. http://www.patriarchia.ru/db/text/ 3544704.html. 10 “Slovo Sviateishego Patriarkha Kirilla na zasedanii prezidiuma Rossiiskoi akademii obrazovaniia,” November 11, 2009, http://www.patriarchia.ru/db/text/934483.html (my translation).

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the divine revelation reveal God’s design for human beings and their calling. These norms are guidelines for a good life worthy of God-created humanity.”11 Moral values are unchangeable; therefore, they form the core of tradition. For Kirill, novelty and tradition are both part of God’s plan for the humankind. Tradition is understood as the filter helping to choose what is the most substantial in novelty, with morality as a divine criterion: “Everything is changeable. Views on architecture, art and political structure may differ, but there cannot be different views on morality, because morality is not from humans—it is given from above.”12 In other words, morality and tradition are inextricably linked with each other. The ultimate condition of morality is freedom. Kirill distinguishes between two types of freedom: internal freedom from evil, and freedom of moral choice.13 Freedom from evil as the will to goodness in consent with God’s will is intrinsically valuable. Freedom of choice leads to the liberation of the dark, “Dionysian” principle, which is present in every person: “This is a dead end, a way to the destruction of our civilization. This principle, being fundamental to liberalism and telling us that ‘my freedom should not restrict the freedom of another person,’ is so very dangerous.”14 In Kirill’s view, moral autonomy means that people are allowed to define their own norms of behavior, with the only constraint being the autonomy of another person. Such ideology is characterized by the pluralism of opinions and the absence of the notion of sin. Kirill argues that people who choose not to follow the moral principles shared by the majority of the humankind are misled by Western secular liberalism, which proclaims the human to be the absolute and ultimate value. This philosophy, according to Kirill, supports the idea of emancipating a sinful individual who rejects everything that constrains them and prevents them from affirming their sinful self. Human freedom becomes a supreme value, but only as freedom of choice. A situation where every person is free to determine the scale of moral values on which they rely leads to a radical rejection of normative values and the exclusion of the very idea of sin: liberalism creates a favorable environment for sin.15 11 The Russian Orthodox Church’s Basic Teaching on Human Dignity, Freedom and Rights, 1.3. The Russian Orthodox Church: Department for External Church Relations, https:// web.archive.org/web/20160420210022/http://mospat.ru/en/documents/dignity-freedomrights/ii/. 12 “Slovo Sviateishego Patriarkha Kirilla na otkrytii IV Rozhdestvenskikh parlamentskikh vstrech v Sovete Federatsii RF,” January 29, 2016, http://www.patriarchia.ru/db/text/ 4362065.html (My translation). 13 His Holiness Kirill, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, Freedom and Responsibility: A Search for Harmony – Human Rights and Personal Dignity (London: Darton, Longman & Todd; Moscow: Publishing House of the Moscow Patriarchate, 2011), 121. 14 Ibid., 53. 15 For more on the juxtaposition of “freedom” and “morality” in Orthodox statements, where “freedom” represents the central value of “the West,” see Alfons Brüning, “‘Freedom’ vs.

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The concept of morality and freedom is also elaborated in the “Basic Teaching on Human Dignity, Freedom and Rights,” particularly, in Part II, “Freedom of choice and freedom from evil.” This document affirms that “freedom is one of the manifestations of God in human nature” and pays special attention to the distinction between freedom of choice and freedom from evil: The abuse of freedom and the choice of a false, immoral, way of life will ultimately destroy the very freedom of choice as it leads the will to slavery by sin. […] While recognizing the value of freedom of choice, the Church affirms that this freedom will inevitably disappear if the choice is made in favor of evil. Evil and freedom are incompatible.16

The overall duty of the ROC in maintaining morality is the formation of a universal system of moral norms, a global moral consensus, which would express the essence of the moral nature of the human being through dialogue between various religions and ideologies. According to Kirill, the multiplicity of moral codes should be discarded for the sake of a universal moral code based on absolute moral norms, which should not be a compromise between different ethical concepts, but a jointly formulated basis of universal morality, rooted in the moral nature of the human being: With all the differences in cultures and traditions, we all have a common moral feeling which God has put into us, each of us has a voice of conscience, which we Christians call the voice of God. The doctrines of various religions can differ significantly, but as soon as we move to the level of […] moral values, most religious traditions demonstrate a coincidence of views.17

Finally, the fight for moral values has to be supported by the political powers and by society. Their withdrawal from controlling moral issues has resulted in the assault on religious feelings and the propagation of pseudo-religious movements, which use the public arena for strengthening their influence. Moreover, the introduction of standards that contradict traditional moral norms into national and international law systems leads to the imposition of the standards of the minority upon those of the majority. Thus, in Kirill’s words, “the concern for spiritual needs, based on traditional morality, ought to return to the public realm. The upholding of moral standards must become a social cause.”18 ‘Morality’ – On Orthodox Anti-Westernism and Human Rights,” in Orthodox Christianity and Human Rights ed. Alfons Brüning and Evert van der Zweerde (Leuven: Peeters, 2012), 125–154. 16 Basic Teaching (see n. 11). 17 “Doklad Sviateishego Patriarkha Kirilla na otkrytii XXVI Mezhdunarodnykh Rozhdestvenskikh obrazovatelnykh chtenii,” January 26, 2018, http://www.patriarchia.ru/ db/text/5136032.html (my translation). 18 His Holiness Kirill, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, Freedom and Responsibility (see n. 13), 91.

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Paradoxically, a comparison of this concept with the Soviet understanding of morality, in spite of the apparent dissimilarity between the theistic and atheistic understanding, shows that they share much in common—if not in content, then in methods. Both interpret morality as something originating and prescribed “from above,” as an act of obedience of one’s will to the rules of action established by a higher authority, whether the Orthodox Church on behalf of God’s will, or the Communist party. As Regula Zwahlen rightly underlines, the Soviet worldview did not have room for moral autonomy as understood in terms of Kantian philosophy.19 Zwahlen interprets the lack of a concept of moral autonomy in Russian and Soviet thought as being the explanation for there not being a vast dichotomy between “traditional Orthodox” and “modern Soviet” worldviews.20 It also helps explain the “surprising continuity between Soviet and present-day religious moralities.”21 In the Soviet Union, the attitude towards ethics as a valuable philosophical concept appeared quite late, in 1961, when a new Communist Party Program was adopted by the 22nd Communist Party Congress. This program comprised the Moral Code of the Builder of Communism, which was aimed at the moral improvement of Soviet people.22 Because of the ideological needs of the time, Soviet ethical theory was supposed to prove the ultimate truth of communist morality as the highest form achieved throughout the history of moral development. The

19 Regula Zwahlen, “The Lack of Moral Autonomy in the Russian Concept of Personality: A Case of Continuity across the Pre-Revolutionary, Soviet and Post-Soviet Periods,” State, Religion and Church 2, no. 1 (2015), 19–43. 20 Ibid., 37. 21 Alexander Agadjanian, “Exploring Russian Religiosity as a Source of Morality Today,” in Multiple Moralities and Religions in Post-Soviet Russia, ed. Jarrett Zigon (New York: Berghahn Books, 2011), 16–26, here 19. 22 The Moral Code included devotion to the communist cause, love for the socialist Motherland and other socialist countries; conscientious labor for the good of society (“he who does not work shall not eat”); concern for the preservation and growth of public property; high consciousness of public duty, no tolerance towards the violation of public interests; collectivism and comradely mutual aid; one for all and all for one; humane relations and mutual respect among people; man is to man a friend, comrade, and brother; honesty and truthfulness, moral purity, simplicity and modesty in social and personal life; mutual respect in the family, concern for the upbringing of children; no tolerance towards injustice, parasitism, dishonesty, careerism and money-grubbing; friendship and brotherhood of the peoples of the USSR; intolerance towards national and racial hatred; intolerance towards the enemies of communism, peace, and freedom of nations; fraternal solidarity with the working people of all countries and with all peoples, “Moral Code of the Builder of Communism,” Seventeen Moments in Soviet History, http://soviethistory. msu.edu/1961–2/moral-code-of-the-builder-of-communism/moral-code-of-the-builder-ofcommunism-texts/moral-code-of-the-builder-of-communism/).

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Marxist-Leninist concept of morality did recognize certain unchangeable, universal values (listed in the Moral Code),23 those traced in history along with (or in spite of) “illusory” moral values of the class society. These values were supposed to manifest the “genuine human essence,” and the moral image of the Soviet citizen became a subject of particular concern both for the Communist party and for the state as a whole.24 One can see a certain resemblance between the Soviet view on morality as a social agent aimed at the elaboration of proper moral principles in the interests of the broader society and controlled by the state, and the ROC’s special responsibility (assigned by the state powers) for people’s “moral health.” Reflecting upon the notion of the “inherent dignity” of the human being as interpreted in Basic Teaching on Human Dignity, Freedom and Rights25 (henceforth Basic Teaching), Heleen Zorgdrager points out that “human dignity is not conceived of as unconditional, universal and inalienable, but as a moral category. […] Everything in this view depends on what is defined as moral and who sets the norms.”26 Obviously, she continues, “the authority of the Church discerns, affirms and sanctions the law of God,”27 thus dictating what is moral and what is not. Interestingly, Patriarch Kirill sees the relevance of the Soviet understanding of morality for today’s Russia, because even in state atheism the moral paradigm generally remained Christian, and this saved us: our literature, fine arts were permeated with Christian ideas, and the people’s morality remained 23 According to Vladimir Putin, communist ideology, which includes freedom, fraternity, equality, and justice, resembles Christianity, and the Moral Code is a “sublimation, a primitive extract from the Bible” (“Putin: Moral’nyi kodeks stroitelia kommunizma – primitivnaia vyderzhka iz Biblii,” Radio Business FM, January 14, 2018, https://www. bfm.ru/news/374911 (My translation). 24 See Richard De George, Soviet Ethics and Morality (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1969); Philip Grier, Marxist Ethical Theory in the Soviet Union (Dordrecht: D. Reidel Publishing, 1978); Elena Stepanova, “Competing Moral Discourses in Russia: Soviet Legacy and Post-Soviet Controversies,” Politics, Religion & Ideology 20, no. 3 (2019), 340–360. 25 “A human being preserves his God-given dignity and grows in it only if he lives in accordance with moral norms because these norms express the primordial and therefore authentic nature not darkened by sin.” (Basic Teaching, I.5). 26 Kristina Stoeckl similarly notes: “The Russian Orthodox Church thus established a direct link between human dignity and morality, to the point that critics have read the chapter as saying that the Church is making the moral behavior of the individual a condition for recognizing his or her human dignity.” Kristina Stoeckl, “Moral Argument in the Human Rights Debate of the Russian Orthodox Church,” in Christianity, Democracy, and the Shadow of Constantine, ed. George E. Demacopoulos and Aristotle Papanikolaou (New York: Fordham University Press, 2017), 24. 27 Heleen Zorgdrager, “Homosexuality and hypermasculinity in the public discourse of the Russian Orthodox Church: an affect theoretical approach,” International Journal of Philosophy and Theology, 74, no. 3 (2013), 214–239, here 225.

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In other words, for Kirill, the very fact that Soviet atheistic rejection of religion could not damage the moral Christian paradigm serves as the best proof that God forever embeds moral values into the human nature. This is the reason the ROC could reconcile with the Soviet system despite its persecutions. The battle with the “sinful” liberal West occupies a significant place in the ROC conceptualization of morality. For centuries, the role of the “other” as something different from “us”, thus making “us” ourselves, was assigned to “the West.” Whether in the 19th-century Russian Empire, in Soviet times, or now, it is more the imaginary “West” than the real West. Even today, “the West” remains a constructed category that includes beliefs, attitudes and stereotypes forming a conventional, undifferentiated entity with no actual location in space and time. The rejection of normative moral values by a sinful “West” is the popular slogan, which could be traced back to the Soviet times, especially to the 1960–1980s, when, as Alfons Brüning writes, “the Soviet press consistently presented this image of the West as […] a unified culture of exploitation, alienation, and constant conflicts. In turn, this made it possible to affirm the moral superiority and political exclusiveness of Soviet Russia.”29 Brüning points out that in this period the ROC was in close alliance with the Soviet power in the struggle against the “immoral West,” quoting Metropolitan Nikodim’s (Rotov)30 characterization of communist atheism as “representing a system of convictions, including moral principles, that do not contradict Christian norms.”31 As Andrii Krawchuk concludes, the concept of “the West” has become deeply embedded within Orthodox self-consciousness and modes for self-expression: As a constructed category, the West has proven to be of immense utility to Orthodox discourses, whether for explanatory illustrations of identity and difference, for reasoned critiques, or for outright polemical denunciations.32

28 “Sostoialas vstrecha Sviateishego Patriarkh Kirilla s predstaviteliami Konstantinopolskogo Patriarkhata,” May 25, 2016, http://www.patriarchia.ru/db/text/ 4478422.html (my translation). 29 Alfons Brüning, “Morality and Patriotism: Continuity and Change in Russian Orthodox Occidentalism since the Soviet Era,” in Eastern Orthodox Encounters of Identity and Otherness: Values, Self-Reflection, Dialogue, ed. Andrii Krawchuk and Thomas Bremer (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 29–46, here 29. 30 Nikodim, Metropolitan of Leningrad, was the ROC’s highest-ranking hierarch in the 1960– 70s after the Patriarch, and arguably the most influential. 31 Alfons Brüning, “Morality and Patriotism,” (see n. 29) 31. 32 Andrii Krawchuk, “Introduction,” in Eastern Orthodox Encounters (see n. 29), 8. See also Orthodox Constructions of the West, ed. George E. Demacopoulos and Aristotle Papanikolaou (New York: Fordham University Press, 2013).

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The main role of Western secularism and liberalism is to be a constant threat towards Orthodox genuine Christian morality. At the same time, accusing Western secularism of denying Christianity’s moral values seems to be a way of strengthening the moral superiority of the ROC, which in the Chairman of the Department of External Church Relations of Moscow Patriarchate Metropolitan Hilarion’s (Alfeiev) words, allows the ROC to offer itself as “an inspiring example of spiritual and moral revival also for the Western countries”33 in the same mode as in Soviet times. Finally, as mentioned above, the ROC strives for universality of the moral norms system as the way of saving humankind. The self-presentation of the ROC as an “advance guard” in the transcendent battle between good and evil, as well as the accusing of the West for legitimizing human sinfulness, proves that the ROC considers the defense of morality as a world-historical mission.34 As Maria Engström put it, Russia is the Katechon, “the world’s ‘shield’ against the apocalyptic forces of chaos.”35 Similar to the Marxist-Leninist universal project of the communist future of humankind, which seemed to redeem all sins of previous history, the ROC offers a narrative of morality that has universal value. Because of its universality, it could be accepted in other contexts, thus contributing to the moral perfection of other nations. Nevertheless, the fulfillment of the global mission in the fight for good against evil is not an easy task because of its substantial ambiguity. It combines the universal significance of morality embedded into human nature by God with the particularism of the ROC, which is closely linked to the idea of a unique Russian civilization36 with its special moral merits. In Vladimir Putin’s words, “the best qualities of our people have always, throughout the entire history of the country, ensured Russia’s moral and ethical leadership.”37 Thus, as Alexander Agadjanian and Kathy Rousselet show in their analysis of ROC ideology, The discourse of the universal definitely yields to the discourse of particularism: the idea of uniqueness stands behind both the principle of autocephaly and the principle 33 Hilarion, Metropolitan of Volokolamsk, “Rozhdestvo – eto prazdnik ne tolko radosti, no i nadezhdy,” December 28, 2013, http://www.patriarchia.ru/db/text/3484436.html. 34 At the opening of the XXVIII International Christmas Readings, Kirill stressed the importance of “the mission that the Church of Christ accomplishes in the world today, the significance of the Orthodox faith not only for our peoples, but for the entire humanity, in preserving morality based on the eternal Divine commandments.” Vystuplenie Sviateishego Patriarkha Kirilla na otkrytii XXVIII Mezhdunarodnykh Rozhdestvenskikh obrazovatelnykh chtenii, January 27, 2020, http://www.patriarchia.ru/db/text/ 5582481.html. 35 Maria Engström, “Contemporary Russian Messianism and New Russian Foreign Policy,” Contemporary Security Policy 35, no. 3 (2014), 356–379, here 357. 36 See Russia as Civilization: Ideological Discourses in Politics, Media and Academia ed. Kåre Johan Mjør and Sanna Turoma (New York: Routledge, 2020). 37 Meeting with volunteers and finalists of the “Volunteer of Russia 2020” contest, http:// en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/64551.

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Elena A. Stepanova of national identity, thus creating a double and interconnected particularism of a Church and a nation.38

Summing up, the ROC concept of morality comprises the following interrelated aspects. First, unchangeable moral values, which form the core of tradition, are not created by people; rather, they are embedded into the human nature by God. Consequently, freedom from evil means the subordination of human will to God’s will. This excludes the freedom of moral choice, which in practice means the choice of a false and immoral way of life. Second, the freedom of choice supported by Western liberalism is the proclamation of the human being as an absolute and ultimate value, which leads to a radical rejection of normative moral values. Third, the formation of a universal system of moral norms as a way of saving humankind from the power of sin should be supported by all religions and ideologies, as well as by political powers and societies.

Traditional Values as a Tool in the Battle for Moral Upbringing The concept of so-called “traditional values” as the substance of morality promoted by the ROC recently has become the subject of a thorough critical analysis.39 As Kristina Stoeckl argues, in the sphere of “traditional values” the top management of the ROC plays the role of the “moral norms entrepreneurs,” specifically in the international arena.40 38 Alexander Agadjanian and Kathy Rousselet, “Globalization and Identity Discourse in Russian Orthodoxy,” in Eastern Orthodoxy in a Global Age: Tradition Faces the Twentyfirst Century, ed. Victor Roudometof, Alexander Agadjanian and Jerry G. Pankhurst (Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press, 2005), 53–57, here 36. The controversy of universality and nationalism is also mentioned by Elena Namli, “Orthodox Theology, Politics and Power,” in Political Theologies in Orthodox Christianity: Common Challenges, ed. Kristina Stoeckl, Ingeborg Gabriel and Aristotle Papanikolaou (London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2017), 265–282. 39 See Elena Stepanova, “‘The Spiritual and Moral Foundation of Civilization in Every Nation for Thousands of Years’: The Traditional Values Discourse in Russia,” Politics, Religion & Ideology, 16, no. 2–3 (2015), 119–136; Kristina Stoeckl, “The Russian Orthodox Church as Moral Norm Entrepreneur,” Religion, State & Society, 44, no. 2 (2016), 132–151; Alexander Agadjanian, “Tradition, Morality and Community: Elaborating Orthodox Identity in Putin’s Russia,” Religion, State & Society, 45, no. 1 (2017), 39– 60; Irina du Quenoy and Dmitry Dubrovskiy, “Violence and the Defence of ‘Traditional Values’ in the Russian Federation,” in Religion and Violence in Russia: Context, Manifestation, and Policy ed. Olga Oliker (New York: CSIS/Rowman and Littlefeld, 2018), 93– 116; Regina Elsner, “Secular Moral Values as a Threat to Russian Orthodox Identity – The Case of Family Values,” in Religiöse Identitäten in einer globalisierten Welt ed. Judith Könemann and Marianne Heimbach-Steins (Münster: Aschendorff, 2019), 109–118. 40 Stoeckl, “The Russian Orthodox Church” (see n. 39), 132–151.

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Still, the meaning of traditional values remains quite vague. What do the ROC authorities imply by “traditional values”, and what are their origins? Which factors add the quality of being “traditional”? At the XIX Christmas Readings in 2011, a draft document under the title “Eternal values—the foundation of Russian identity” elaborated by the Department for Church-Society Relations was presented. The document listed such values as justice, freedom, solidarity, sobornost (conciliarity), self-restraint and self-sacrifice, patriotism, spiritual and material well-being, and family traditions.41 In the same year, the World Council of Russian People” published the longest and the most substantial inventory of traditional values entitled “The Basic Values – The Fundaments of the National Identity.” The document defined the following values as traditional: faith, justice, peace, freedom, unity, morality, dignity, honesty, patriotism, solidarity, mercy, family, culture and national tradition, prosperity, diligence, self-limitation and devotion.42 In a 2013 statement on the opening of the XXI International Christmas Educational Readings entitled “Traditional Values and Contemporary World,” Patriarch Kirill clarified what the ROC means by traditional values. Values become “traditional” not because they are preserved by tradition in general sense, but because they are revealed by God. Human values are relative and changeable depending on the particular socio-cultural context; their purpose is material well-being. God’s values, however, are eternal and unchangeable; they are aimed at the highest ideals and perception of God’s presence in history. In Kirill words, Christians are “especially responsible for preserving and transmitting spiritual moral values to future generations so that human society does not collapse, and the harmonious beauty of human existence and the entire cosmos does not disappear.”43 Consequently, “for the Orthodox Christian, tradition is a set of creedal and moral truths that the Church has accepted from the testimony of the Apostles and which it has guarded and developed as a function of historical circumstances.”44 According to Kirill, the transcendent and universalist character of traditional values make them applicable not only to Russia but to the rest of the world as well: “We [Russians] share these values with many morally healthy people who do not consider themselves as adherents of any religion and live according to the 41 “Vechnye tsennosti – osnova rossiiskoi identichnosti,” http://www.pravmir.ru/sistemacennostej-infografika/. 42 “Bazisnye tsennosti – osnova obshchenatsional’noi identichnosti,” May 26, 2011. http:// www.patriarchia.ru/db/text/1496038.html- The document was accepted by the XV World Russian National Congress. 43 Doklad Sviateishego Patriarkha Kirilla na otkrytii XXI Mezhdunarodnykh Rozhdestvenskikh Chtenii, January 24, 2013, http://www.patriarchia.ru/db/text/2746897.html (My translation). 44 His Holiness Kirill, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, Freedom and Responsibility (see n. 13), 3.

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law of conscience.”45 Nevertheless, in spite of their “universality,” traditional values are surprisingly fragile, being subject to constant threat from the West. Consequently, the duty of Orthodox (genuine Christian) civilization is to be the world’s last bastion of their defense. This is an integral part of the idea of the ongoing conflict between two opposite civilizations: Western (secular) standing for liberalism, secularism, and individualism, and Russian Orthodox representing traditionalism, moralism, religion and community.46 According to Kirill, We cannot say that we live in a completely peaceful environment. Today there are battles without the roar of guns, and the enemy who threatens us does not visibly cross our borders. However, we are all involved into what the Orthodox tradition calls ‘invisible warfare.’ Everyone today is involved in this battle. We are offered chaos, but we should not be bought by these recommendations and should not take part in the creation of chaos […] We are offered sin, a destruction of the moral foundations.47

For the ROC, the scale of traditional values is much wider than the opposition to same-sex marriages, LGBTQ+ rights,48 and the issue of the traditional family. Nevertheless, the traditional family agenda is a significant part of the traditional values discourse. Today, Russia is not alone in defending the traditional family. To resist the new trends toward gender culture, same-sex marriage, gestational surrogacy, In Vitro Fertilization (IVF), abortion, etc.49, the ROC has created alliances with other conservative actors in the world including the Roman Catholic Church. The joint Communiqué for the 2013 Conference “Orthodox and Catholics in Defense of the Family” states that traditional family meets the requirements of human existence; it is Good News for today’s world, in particular, for a de-Christianized society.50 45 “Vystuplenie Sviateishego Patriarkha Kirilla na Rozhdestvenskikh parlamentskikh vstrechakh v Sovete Federatsii RF” (see n. 9). 46 See Kristina Stoeckl, “The Human Rights Debate in the External Relations of the Russian Orthodox Church,” Religion, State & Society, 40, no. 2 (2012), 212–232, here 216, https:// doi.org/10.1080/09637494.2012.692246. 47 Vystuplenie Sviateishego Patriarkha Kirilla na vstreche so studentami vysshikh uchebnykh zavedenii Smolenskoi Oblasti, August 13, 2013, http://www.patriarchia.ru/db/text/31988 84.html (My translation). 48 See Zorgdrager, “Homosexuality and hypermasculinity” (see n. 27), 214–239. 49 The ROC takes an active part in the debates about the ethical aspects of reproductive technologies. Section XII of the foundational document Osnovy sotsialnoi kontseptsii Russkoi pravoslavnoi tserkvi (“The Basis of the Social Concept of the Russian Orthodox Church,” http://www.patriarchia.ru/db/text/141422.html) (discussed in this volume by Regina Elsner and Heta Hurskainen), “Problems of Bioethics,” expresses concern about the development of biomedical technologies, which goes too fast and thus leaves society no time to assess the ethical and social implications of this progress. See also Alexander Agadjanian, “Tradition, Morality and Community” (see n. 39). 50 Kommiunike konferentsii “Pravoslavnye i katoliki vmeste v zashchitu semi,” Vatican, November 13 (2013), http://mospat.ru/ru/2013/11/13/news94251/.

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A telling example is the International Forum Mnogodetnaia semia i budushchee chelovechestva (“Multiple-Child Families and the Future of Humanity”), which was held in Moscow in September 2014 under the auspices of the ROC. The Forum adopted a resolution addressed to national leaders around the world, as well as to the United Nations General Assembly, the UN Secretary General, and the UN Supreme Commissioner for Human Rights. The Resolution affirms that the ruling elites in the developed countries promote a “society of obsessive consumerism,” which in its essence “is called upon to destroy faith in God as faith in Good, to destroy what is human in the human being (as created by God), to wreck the spiritual dimension in Man as his distinguishing feature in Living Nature.”51 One more ally of the ROC in the battle for traditional family are conservative evangelical Christians in the USA, who see traditional gender norms as crucial in cultivating morality, and family values as central to the faith.52 After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia has been intensively involved in the activity of the American pro-family NGO Focus on the Family and in the World Congress of Families (WCF)—a transnational nongovernmental organization that promotes a traditional, heterosexual family model and conservative gender roles. The WCF was co-convener of the abovementioned Family Congress of 2014 in Moscow, as well as in ROC activities like the annual Christmas readings. The Russian chapter of the WCF has close ties to business, politics, and the ROC, thus representing a new type of religious actor—the Russian Christian Right that is modelled on the strategies and manners of the American Christian Right.53 In general, the ROC’s defense of traditional family is caused by the dramatic shift in family structure, multiplication of gender roles, sex relations, new reproductive technologies, and so on. It is a global phenomenon, which initiates sharp discussions and clashes almost everywhere. At the same time, the defense of traditional family is a much more practical task compared to the world-historical mission of preserving traditional values interpreted as God’s revelation about human nature. Because traditional values in the broadest sense are presented as eternal and unchangeable, and all people all over the world across all times should share these values, they are not dependent on caprices of human history. Ironically, the only way to prove their traditional character is to invent suitable traditions (“invented 51 Vozzvanie “Sviatost materinstva,” http://sm.cnsr.ru/ru/Konferentcii/Pryamaya_translyatciya_ plenarnogo_zasedaniya_Foruma/. 52 See John Anderson, Conservative Christian Politics in Russia and the United States: Dreaming of Christian Nations (London: Routledge, 2014); Seth Dowland, Family Values and the Rise of the Christian Right (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015); Hilde Løvdal Stephens, Family Matters: James Dobson and Focus on the Family’s Crusade for the Christian Home (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2019). 53 Kristina Stoeckl, “The rise of the Russian Christian Right: the case of the World Congress of Families,” Religion, State & Society, 48, no. 4 (2020), 223–238.

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traditions,” in Eric Hobsbawm’s words).54 Here the past serves as the source of various meanings, which are exploited by religious and political powers for pragmatic purposes. Such a usage of the past presupposes the constructing of a new one, based on real, ideal, or mythological interpretation of previous history, as well as creating and establishing new social memories by various means (holidays, ceremonies, rituals, etc.)55. A perfect example of a post-2008 newly invented tradition is the cult of the Saints Peter and Fevroniia as symbols of ideal marriage, love and marital fidelity, which among other things is aimed at diminishing the growing popularity of St. Valentine’s Day.56 As mentioned above, the ROC’s criticism of Western anthropocentrism is based on its interpretation of the sinful human being as “the measure of all things.” In the ROC’s understanding, traditional values are predominantly collective, attributed to universal human nature. Thus, in Basic Teaching, individual rights like freedom and justice are tied absolutely to morality and community. As Regina Elsner notes, “from this perspective, human rights as individual rights are always secondary to collective values and ‘cannot be set against the values and interests of one’s homeland, community and family’ (Basic Teaching, III.5).”57 The ROC’s major documents clearly contrapose human rights and traditional values and insist that in the West, human rights are prescribed to the individual outside from relations to God when the freedom of the personality is transformed into the protection of self-will (as long as it is not detrimental to individuals) and into the demand that the state should guarantee a certain material living standard for the individual and family. In the contemporary systematic understanding of civil human rights, man is treated not as the image of God, but as a self-sufficient and self-sufficing subject.58

Interpreting the “traditional values” discourse in light of the concept of human rights, Kristina Stoeckl asserts that “the traditional values agenda is the conservative flipside of the progressive human rights system,”59 and stresses that 54 Eric Hobsbawm, “Introduction: Inventing Traditions,” The Invention of Tradition, ed. Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 1–14, here 1. 55 Elena Zhidkova, “Sovetskaia grazhdanskaia obriadnost kak alternativa obriadnosti religioznoi,” Gosudarstvo, religia, tserkov’ v Rossii i za rubezhom, 30, no. 3–4 (2012), 408– 442. 56 See Diana Dukhanova, “Petr and Fevronia, and the Day of Family, Love and Faithfulness. Pronatalism and Unstable Gender Order in Today’s Russia,” Gosudarstvo, religiia, tserkov v Rossii i za rubezhom 36, no. 2 (2018), 194–220; Tobias Köllner, Religion and Politics in Contemporary Russia: Beyond the Binary of Power and Authority (London: Routledge, 2020), 108–136. 57 Elsner, “Secular Moral Values” (see n. 39) 114. 58 Osnovy socialnoi kontseptsii Russkoi Pravoslavnoi Tserkvi, IV.7, http://www.mospat.ru/ en/documents/social-concepts/. 59 Stoeckl, “The Russian Orthodox Church as Moral Norm Entrepreneur” (see n. 39), 143.

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“from the human rights perspective the individual comes first, whereas from a religious perspective the community comes first,”60 because the source of moral norms is never an individual with his/her potential to sin, but divine revelation given once and for all. In sum, with the exception of the traditional family agenda, the strategy of the Orthodox defenders of traditional values is based on reference to ultimate abstracts like “human nature,” “justice,” “solidarity,” and so on, which turns traditional values into pure ideas suspended in a vacuum. At best, they could be used symbolically as “everything good”61 in the contrast to “everything bad.” In short, traditional values are the ones, which are considered to be such by the ROC headquarters. Traditional values are identified with a conservative principle of static truth; they are prescribed to be shared by everyone, which means by no one in particular. Moreover, their eternal and revealed character means that there is no need for any kind of endeavor aimed at the implementation of traditional values into practice, as they are guaranteed by God’s will. In other words, the principle of traditional values does not presuppose moral choice and moral conduct of any kind. The very idea of traditional values is aimed at attaining collective security at the expense of individual freedoms and moral autonomy. In addition, contraposing traditional values with the “West” prompts the suspicion that without referring to it they would be seriously weakened. The purpose of the image of the “West” as an existential enemy is to strengthen the ROC’s distinctiveness as the defender of traditional values on behalf of humankind.

Russian Orthodox Moral Teaching and Everyday Moral Dilemmas62 As the ROC claims to provide a moral code in the form of traditional values, what should be its role in people’s moral decision-making in their everyday lives? Does the ideology of traditional values make people good, or bad, or does it have no effect at all? Does it increase one’s empathy and caring, or does it increase one’s prejudice and intolerance, particularly toward those who do not happen to belong to the “Russian Orthodox civilization”? It is not easy to answer these questions as there is practically no reliable data to confirm or refute the practical impact of the promotion of traditional values. As Ivan Zabaev, Yana Mikhaylova, and Daria Oreshina argue, research on the ROC in the public sphere is based on the actions of the Church at the level of the Patriarchate and, less frequently, of the episcopate, but it does not show any 60 Stoeckl, “Moral Argument in the Human Rights Debate” (see n. 26), 14. 61 “Everything good” seems to be the characteristic of the imagined national, moral and religious collectivity—the “Russian Christian civilization”, see Zorgdrager, “Homosexuality and hypermasculinity” (see n. 27). 62 The cases mentioned in this part of the chapter are taken exclusively from Russia.

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results on the parish level.63 The ROC is involved with problems of the common good, “but it does so in ways that cannot be registered by the mechanisms of the public sphere (e.g., public opinion polls or the mass media) […] The mass media and opinion polls do not reflect the Church’s activity within the spheres that are important to Russian citizens, as identified by these polls.”64 The ROC tends to put great emphasis on everyday moral behavior in terms of its compliance with doctrinal principles and established ritual practice. However, the correlation of moral practices and individual religiosity remains unclear, at least according to quantitative sociological research methods used in polls.65 There is in Russia a high level of inconsistency between individual religiosity and its value-normative consequences, which can be explained by the weakness of religious socialization.66 Believers do not always behave in accordance with the doctrinal provisions of their religion; on the contrary, they often agree with what contradicts them. Otherwise, believers would never break the commandments: Theology doesn’t determine people’s actual thoughts and behaviors. In fact, the ideas that one learns in one’s given culture, such as theological ideas, play only a partial role in what people actually think and do. […] The sorts of ideas we label “religious” are employed only in certain situations, not all the time.67

Mark Chaves calls the claim that people behave in accordance with religious faith and commandments “a religious congruence fallacy,” which lies in the idea that, firstly, people’s religious beliefs and values are logical and consistent; secondly, that their everyday behavior flows directly from these beliefs and values; thirdly, that these beliefs and values are invariable and independent of the socio-cultural context.68 In fact, the relationship between individual religiosity and moral behavior is largely determined by a particular socio-cultural context, namely, religious traditions, the presence/absence of a dominant religion, the presence/absence of religion (religions) in the public space, the presence/absence of religious education at school, as well as its content, etc. Thus, the need to distinguish between individual and social components of religiosity is caused by the fact that for certain denominations (e.g., Orthodoxy in Russia) religiosity, measured at the individual level, does not reveal the effects of religion in 63 Ivan Zabaev, Yana Mikhaylova and Daria Oreshina, “Neither public nor private religion: the Russian Orthodox Church in the public sphere of contemporary Russia,” Journal of Contemporary Religion, 33, no. 1 (2018), 17–38, here 19. 64 Ibid., 28. 65 Elena Prutskova, “Religioznost i ee sledstviia v tsennostno-normativnoi sfere,” Sociologicheskii zhurnal, 2 (2013), 72–88, here 73. 66 Ibid., 74. 67 D. Jason Slone, Theological Incorrectness: Why Religious People Believe What They Shouldn’t (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 4. 68 Mark Chaves, “Rain Dances in the Dry Season: Overcoming the Religious Congruence Fallacy,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 49, no. 1 (2010), 1–14.

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other areas of life. More religious and less religious people behave in the same way and have the same values.69

Indirectly, the moral preferences of Orthodox believers could be judged on the basis of their volunteer participation in social service. According to the Synodal Department for Church Charity and Social Ministry data, approximately 10% of all ROC parishes are involved in social services.70 At the same time, according to the results of nationwide opinion polls, approximately 50% of the Russian population have contact with Orthodox believers who are active within their churches and almost all of these respondents indicated that they would be willing to participate in some type of support and social service activity if requested to do by these people (representatives of the Orthodox community).71

Research suggests that Orthodox social projects are aimed at social support, moral upbringing of the clients and participants, and strengthening social solidarity rather than at evangelization.72 The Orthodox parishes become embedded in the wider community and connected with the secular environment at the individual level through engaging non-parishioner volunteers in church social projects. However, it is unclear to which extend social services are driven by religiously motivated moral convictions. At best, it could be concluded that in dealing with moral dilemmas, the leading role belongs to “general cultural factors, including the intuitive involvement of the Russian culture’ religious component,” while the degree of religiosity is not reflected directly in people’s moral judgments.73 Moreover, as Boris Knorre indicates by observing social ministry, “many Church actors still interpret volunteering […] not as an individual voluntary action, but as a duty or obligation, to be fulfilled not arbitrarily, but as part of one’s voluntary decision to be obedient to a priest.”74 From his perspective, this is 69 Elena Prutskova, “Social vs. Individual Centrality of Religiosity: Research in Religious and Non-Religious Settings in Russia,” Religions 12, 15 (2021), 3. 70 There are about 40,000 RO parishes in Russia and more than 4500 social institutions, projects and initiatives run by the ROC (10 percent), including 77 shelters for pregnant women and mothers with children; 211 centers of humanitarian aid; more than 400 projects of support for the disabled; more than 600 institutions and projects for alcohol and drug abuse; and more than 90 shelters for homeless. Synodal Department for Church Charity and Social Ministry, http://www.diaconia.ru/statistic. 71 Zabaev, Mikhailova and Oreshina, “Neither public nor private religion” (see n. 63), 29. 72 Olga A. Bogatova, Evgenia I. Dolgaeva and Anastasia V. Mitrofanova, “Deiatelnost sotsialno orientirovannykh organizatsii Russkoi pravoslavnoi tserkvi: regionalnye aspekty,” Russian Journal of Regional Studies 27, no. 3 (2019), 489–512. 73 Karina R. Arutiunova, Vsevolod A. Agarkov and Yuri I. Aleksandrov, “Moral i religiia: issledovanie moralnykh suzhdenii pravoslavnykh khristian i neveruiushchikh liudei v rossiiskoi kulture,” Eksperimentalnaia psikhologia, 9, no. 1 (2016), 21–37. 74 Boris Knorre, “Volunteering, social ministry and ethical-behavioural attitudes in postSoviet Russian Orthodox Christianity,” Religion, State & Society, 46, no. 1 (2018), 43–63, here 47.

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an “authoritarian-mystical model of church volunteering,” versus a “socially open (or socially inclusive) model of volunteering,” which is based not on “volunteering out of obedience,” but is rather the result of personal free will and choice.75 Knorre concludes that the defensive ethical behavioral attitudes of the authoritarian-mystical model of Russian Orthodoxy are still widespread. That is why the social impact of Orthodox volunteering in Russia is not as effective and extensive as one might expect from such an influential institution as the Russian Orthodox Church. At the same time, there are Orthodox activists and some members of the clergy who recognize the importance of personal choice and motivation in volunteering and in engaging with the Church’s social work. In the ROC’s attempts to develop a humanitariananthropological approach and those close to it, we can see a trend towards developing new ethical behavioral attitudes which correspond more closely to lay ethics than to monastic ethics.76

In their study of Orthodox parish culture and, more generally, the impact of religiosity at the moral behavior on the anthropological level, Valerii Chirkov and Boris Knorre identify two ethical-behavioral paradigms in Russian Orthodoxy. One suggests that the spiritual life must rely on bogoobshchenie (communication with God), which is accompanied by “lively, unceasing and joyful feeling of faith, reverence and filial dependence on God.”77 The other emphasizes human sinful “fallen nature” and the inability to accept God’s grace for the sake of one’s own salvation. In the second paradigm, which is influenced by the monastic ethos as a model of holiness in Russian Orthodoxy,78 the categories of guilt and humility play a fundamental role, requiring obedience in the sense of giving up one’s will. The result is low self-esteem, which allows one to avoid responsibility for one’s actions and to avoid independent decisions. This second paradigm constitutes a dominant stream in the contemporary Russian Orthodox culture.79 As Andrey Shishkov underlines, in this second paradigm “a literal, traditional asceticism replaced ethics. The problem is that in the ascetic struggle with passions, there are no moral problems. There is no category of moral choice.”80 75 Ibid., 50. 76 Ibid., 59. 77 Fr. Piotr Meshcherinov, “Muchenie liubvi ili…” – Kievskaia Rus (2006), http://kievorthodox.org/site/churchlife/1262/. 78 Nikolai Mitrokhin, Russkaia pravoslavnaia tserkov: sovremennoe sostoianie i aktualnye problemy (Moscow: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2004), 106–120. 79 Valery Chirkov and Boris Knorre, “Russian Orthodoxy and Human Motivation: The Categories of ‘Sin,’ ‘Humility,’ and ‘Obedience’ in the Context of Human Agency and Autonomy,” Journal of Psychology and Christianity, 34, no. 1 (2015), 26–38. 80 Andrey Shishkov, “The Navalny Protests and Orthodoxy’s A-Political Theology: Mumbling of the Sacred,” Public Orthodoxy, February 9, 2021, https://publicorthodoxy. org/2021/02/09/the-navalny-protests-and-orthodoxys-a-political-theology/.

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Knorre stresses that one of the reasons for this is that “‘edifying’ literature and Church compendiums on moral theology use the categories of guilt and humility as a systemic element of Church ethics.”81 In Orthodox teaching, the category of “obedience” constitutes a central ethical-behavioral principle by which the obscured human will can be healed. As Archpriest Vladislav Sveshnikov declares in his “Outline of Christian Ethics” - the chief moral theology textbook in Orthodox educational institutions—“a sin-distorted will is best healed through obedience. By obedience accepted from the heart, the principle ‘I want’—the main principle of sinful existence, leading to an ugly, one-sided development of the inner life—is deliberately eliminated from life.”82 Such positioning of the “fallen nature” of a human being at the forefront, as well as cultivating of what Knorre calls a “culture of guilt,”83 is a serious problem in modern Russian Orthodoxy. Milena Benovska, however, asserts: Despite their significance in a contemporary context, obedience, humility, and discipline are not always dominant, nor the most important moral values and concepts around which religious practices are organized among Russian Orthodox believers. There is a clear distinction between the ethical environment created in the monasteries, on the one hand, and the ethical environment and the moral discourse among laypeople, on the other.84

Despite the tension between these ethical-behavioral paradigms, the ROC constantly makes explicit moral claims about socially significant issues and formulates imperative moral codes not just for Orthodox believers, but to all Russian citizens, presupposing that the majority of them by definition belong to the ROC.85 This, however, is not obvious, as shown by disagreements between the ROC and the wider public on issues like restitution of ROC property, construction of new church buildings, and judicial proceedings associated with so-called “insult of

81 Boris Knorre, “Kategorii ‘viny’ i ‘smireniia’ v sisteme tsennostei tserkovno-prikhodskoi subkultury,” in Prikhod i obshchina v sovremennom pravoslavii: kornevaia sistema rossiiskoi religioznosti, ed. Alexander Agadjanian and Kathy Rousselet (Moscow: “Ves mir,” 2011), 339 (My translation). 82 Vladislav Sveshnikov, Ocherki khristianskoi etiki (Moscow: Palomnik, 2000), 253 (My translation). 83 Boris Knorre, “‘Culture of Guilt’ in the Context of ‘Empowerment’ and ‘Oppression’ Paradigms of Post-Soviet Orthodoxy,” National Research University Higher School of Economics, Working Papers, Series: Humanities, WP BRP 56/HUM/2014, https://www. hse.ru/data/2014/05/13/1321518301/56HUM2014.pdf. 84 Milena Benovska, Orthodox Revivalism in Russia: Driving Forces and Moral Quests (New York: Routledge, 2020), 122. 85 Researchers regularly note the great difference between identification with Orthodoxy and practiced religiosity. See, for example, Detelina Tocheva, Intimate divisions: Street-level Orthodoxy in post-Soviet Russia. (Berlin: LIT Verlag, 2017).

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believers’ feelings.”86 The cases reveal controversies between the ROC’s moral discourse and alternatives expressed by individuals (both believers and nonbelievers) in media, social networks, public discussions, etc. In arguing their positions, both sides refer to such moral categories as “freedom,” “solidarity,” “justice,” “dignity,” and “responsibility.” The strongest case of an insult of believers’ feelings was Pussy Riot’s “Punk Prayer” performed on February 21, 2012, in Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Savior, after which Maria Aliokhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova were sentenced to two years in a penal colony for hooliganism.87 The case initiated an ongoing discussion in the Russian society on the nature of Christianity, the moral reputation of the ROC, and the limits of the freedom of opinion and expression. Commenting on the case, Kirill later said: Forgiveness cannot be formal; forgiveness is always a mutual movement. […] But it has to be done in such a way that forgiveness is not perceived as an encouragement of wrongdoing. Imagine a relationship with a loved one who has done something nasty towards you. You forgive him, although he does not repent of what he has done […] just as they [Pussy Riot – E. S.] did not need forgiveness. This is a manifestation of a certain lie, a certain untruth, because God is Love, but God is also justice, and love without justice is weakness, just like justice without love is cruelty.88

The discussion received a new impulse in 2017, when the blogger Ruslan Sokolovskii was convicted on incitement of hatred and “insult of believers’ feelings.” The blogger was eventually given a two-and-a-half-year suspended sentence. The charge stemmed from a prank video uploaded on Sokolovskii’s YouTube channel, where he was playing Pokemon Go on his smartphone in the Russian Orthodox Cathedral of All Saints in Ekaterinburg and regretted “not catching the rarest of Pokemons: Jesus.”89 The official position of the ROC was declared in the statement of the Ekaterinburg Diocese Council: To express grief about the petrification of the heart of a young man who dared to cynically abuse the memory of thousands of martyrs of faith and truth during the 86 See Elena Stepanova, “Competing Moral Discourses in Russia: Soviet Legacy and PostSoviet Controversies,” Politics, Religion & Ideology 20, no. 3 (2019), 340–360. 87 See Nicholas Denysenko, “An Appeal to Mary: An Analysis of Pussy Riot’s Punk Performance in Moscow,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 81, no. 4 (2013), 1061–1092; Vera Shevzov, “Women on the Fault Lines of Faith: Pussy Riot and the Insider/Outsider Challenge to Post-Soviet Orthodoxy,” Religion and Gender 4, no. 2 (2014), 121–144; Dmitrii Uzlaner, “The Pussy Riot Case and the Peculiarities of Russian Post-Secularism,” State, Religion and Church 1, no. 1 (2014), 23–58. 88 See Otvety Sviateishego Patriarkha Kirilla na voprosy predstavitelei Molodezhnoi obshchestvennoi palaty i Palaty molodykh zakonodatelei pri Sovete Federatsii, December 13, 2015, http://www.patriarchia.ru/db/text/4295958.html. 89 See Elena Cresci, “Russian YouTuber Convicted for Playing Pokémon Go in Church,” The Guardian, May 11, 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/11/ pokemon-go-russian-youtuber-convicted-playing-church-ruslan-sokolovsky.

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repressions of the 20th century in order to attract public attention to his personality and activities; to testify deep conviction that in a law-based society […] such provocations […] should be firmly terminated in strict accordance with the state legislation, and to avoid recurring in the future; […] to express hope that Ruslan Sokolovskii would recognize his moral wrongness, and repent of the sacrilege he committed; […] to not to confuse Christian forgiveness with Stockholm syndrome, or Orthodoxy with Tolstoi’s teaching.90

The Diocese’s statement refers negatively to Tolstoi’s teaching on non-resistance to evil by force, reflecting its long-term critique on the part of both Soviet ideology and the ROC. Sokolovskii’s defenders included a number of ROC clerics and seminary students who stressed that, although they did not approve of his action, the basic Christian principle “love your enemies” (Mt. 5:44) and “God is not mocked” (Gal. 6:7) should be followed in any circumstances. Cases associated with restitution of the former ROC property91 include a 2017 initiative by the St. Petersburg city administration to transfer St. Isaac’s Cathedral to the ROC for 49-year gratis use. This aroused mass protests in St. Petersburg and other places all over Russia, accompanied by harsh debates between supporters and opponents (both secular and religious). While explaining the reasons for the transfer, Patriarch Kirill drew public attention to the moral side of the issue: The transfer of St. Petersburg’s St. Isaac’s Cathedral in the year of the 100th anniversary of revolutionary events is called to symbolize the reconciliation of our people. The destruction of churches and mass murders of believers was the most terrible page in the history of national division. Now the space around the returned churches should become a symbol of concord and mutual forgiveness—of “Whites” and “Reds,” believers and non-believers, the rich and the poor. […] The Church prays for the return of Isaac to stop the evil intentions of people who use a house of prayer as a reason for discord.92

In his open letter to Patriarch Kirill, Mikhail Piotrovskii, director of the State Hermitage Museum and the head of the Russian Museums Union, stressed that the transfer of St. Isaac would not add peace to the Russian society; on the contrary, it would provoke public conflicts. He pointed out that St. Petersburg is a city where people go out in the streets not only because of monuments: “People

90 “Zaiavlenie Eparkhial’nogo soveta v sviazi s situatsiei, slozhivsheisia v rezultate deiatelnosti blogera Ruslana Sokolovskogo,” Ekaterinburgskaia eparkhia, 8 September 2016, http://www.ekaterinburg-eparhia.ru/news/2016/09/06/13434/ (My translation). 91 See Tobias Köllner, “On the Restitution of Property and the Making of ‘Authentic’ Landscapes in Contemporary Russia,” Europe-Asia Studies, 70, no. 7 (2018), 1083–1102. 92 Zaiavlenie Sviateishego Patriarkha Kirilla v sviazi s peredachei Isaakievskogo sobora v pol’zovanie Tserkvi, February 17, 2017, http://www.patriarchia.ru/db/text/4805764.html (My translation)

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fight for the dignity of their city.”93 According to the anthropologist Jeanne Kormina, each side of the conflict has its own truth. The ROC stresses the necessity of “concord and mutual forgiveness,” as well as the preservation of the “spirit of the nation.”94 Secular observers raised objections against preferential treatment of the ROC at the expense of others. St. Isaac’s is a symbol of St. Petersburg: as such, it should not belong to any particular institution, even if it is the Church. The decision was ultimately to postpone the transfer to the distant future. Another exemplary case took place in Ekaterinburg. In 2010, the local ROC diocese, along with regional authorities, proposed the construction of a new cathedral to St. Catherine95 as a “sanctuary of revival and new life” and a “perfect gift” to the city of Ekaterinburg for its 300th anniversary (to be celebrated in 2023). Several locations for the Cathedral were discussed, including the artificial island in the middle of a pond in the downtown area. As in the St. Petersburg case, the protesters against construction included atheists, Orthodox, and non-Orthodox believers; they stressed that their intention was mainly to preserve the historical legacy of the city. Their Committee for the City Pond initiated several actions in the form of “embracing the pond,” when more than a thousand people held hands in a circle around it, symbolizing both the solidarity of the people and their personal responsibility for the action.96 The “Temple-on-the-pond” project was ultimately rejected by the city administration. The decision to build St. Catherine’s Cathedral on the waterside caused a third wave of public protests in Summer 2019. That plan was rejected as well. The protesters’ motivation was a moral protest rather than an anti-clerical one. Generally, the thousands of protestors did not express negative feelings against the ROC; instead, they insisted that their opinion should be taken into account when making decisions concerning public spaces. Those interviewed stressed the importance of the freedom of self-expression, justice, civil responsibility, etc.97

93 Ivan Nechepurenko, “Fight Over Control of a Cathedral Shows St. Petersburg’s Contrarian Side,” The New York Times, February 13, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/13/ world/europe/st-isaacs-cathedral-petersburg-russia-orthodox-church.html 94 See Zhanna Kormina, ‘O tom, zachem RPTs novye i starye khramy,” The Village, January 30, 2017, http://www.the-village.ru/village/people/city-news/255979–orthodoxy. See also Jeanne Kormina, “‘The church should know its place’: The passions and the interests of urban struggle in post-atheist Russia,” History and Anthropology 32, no. 5 (2021), 574– 595. 95 As her name suggests, St. Catherine is the heavenly patroness of the city of Ekaterinburg. 96 “Aktsiia ‘Obnimi prud’ proshla segodnia v Ekaterinburge,” Akhilla, April 8, 2017, https://ahilla.ru/aktsiya-obnimi-prud-proshla-segodnya-v-ekaterinburge/. 97 Alexander B. Belousov, Dmitrii A. Davydov and Elena S. Kochukhova, “V postmaterialisticheskom trende: motivatsiia uchastnikov protesta v skvere u Teatra dramy v Ekaterinburge,” Monitoring of Public Opinion: Economic and Social Changes 6 (2020), 53–72.

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From the ROC side, Metropolitan Kirill (Nakonechnyi) of Ekaterinburg and Verkhoture declared that the actions of the protesters against the construction of the cathedral demonstrated hatred for the presence of God in their lives: There is no cathedral in stone of the Holy Great Martyr Catherine—the Bride of Christ—in this city. But the content will always find a form for itself. There is a genuine cathedral of St. Catherine’s children who are not indifferent to the abomination that has manifested itself in our city, and who with bold prayer, patience and hope overcome the devil’s temptations. And we happily realize that we are one, we are together, we are with God. The true Church of the God’s community with human souls is incomparably more valuable than any golden domes.98

The ROC’s urge to impose traditional values “from above,” as a “perfect gift,” has sometimes caused serious controversies between the Church’s officials and the broader public. In the discussions, the former usually appeal to moral values, which do not depend on individual will, while the latter defend their right to moral choice. The ROC, being oppressed in the past, pretends to possess exclusive rights in judging what good is and what evil is. Conversely, the ROC’s opponents argue in terms of everyday life and human rights. Their arguments refer to having the right for moral judgments, even if it does not appear in the form of a conceptualized moral code, but rather represents “embodied” moral dispositions.99

Conclusion The post-Soviet reality in Russia may be characterized as a “cacophony of moral debate, argumentation, and questioning,”100 where religiosity is an important resource for finding “appropriate and viable moral practices,”101 both collectively and personally.102 The ROC seems to take for granted the status of moral authority. According to Vladimir Legoida, the Chairman of the Department for the Church’s Society and Mass Mediɚ Relations, “The Church can and should give a moral assessment of the life of society and the behavior of the powers that be,”103 simply

98 “‘My vsegda khoteli tolko sviatosti i mira’: Mitropolit Kirill ozvuchil pozitsiiu po stroitel’stvu Sobora Sviatoi Ekateriny,” Ekaterinburgskaia eparkhiia, June 16, 2019, http://www.ekaterinburg-eparhia.ru/news/2019/06/16/21165/ (My translation). 99 See Jarrett Zigon, “Multiple Moralities Discourses,” in Multiple Moralities (see n. 21). 100 Ibid., 3. 101 Religion, Morality, and Community in Post-Soviet Societies, ed. Catherine Wanner and Mark D. Steinberg (US: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2008), 4. 102 Benovska, Orthodox Revivalism in Russia (see n. 84), 20. 103 Vladimir Legoida, “Segodnia Tserkvi neobkhodimo vystraivat sviaz cheloveka s Bogom v sovershenno novykh usloviiakh,” August 27, 2020, http://www.patriarchia.ru/db/text/ 5683988.html.

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because it is presumed that the Church has special access to divine revelation concerning morality. As Patriarch Kirill keeps saying, Morality has no other source—only the Divine source. All attempts to explain morality on the basis of certain social, cultural premises by people who have renounced God are easily refuted. […] Morality cannot be deduced from either social, cultural or other circumstances and conditions of human life. Otherwise, there would be a multiplicity of morals: as many heads, so many minds.104

Nonetheless, in practice, as Milena Benovska notes, “under the conditions of continued social change, the aspirations of the clergy to impose unitary Orthodox morals are confronted with the reality of multiple moralities.”105 In such a reality it is not easy to define the role of Orthodox concepts, such as human dignity, sin, redemption and deification, on the moral upbringing of people, not least because there is no reliable data on value dispositions in the contemporary Russian society, including moral grounds for the attitude towards social practices. Also, the correlation between religious self-affiliation106 and the acceptance of core doctrinal believes is unclear: “A disconnect between self-reported faith and social, moral and behavioral orientations that the faith entails is quite typical, and it is as yet difficult to discern the consequences of mass conversion to Orthodoxy.”107 Vyacheslav Karpov stresses the essential characteristic of the present religious situation in Russia: the desecularization in the form of privileging Russian Orthodoxy and other so-called “traditional” religions in last thirty years was not a natural process, but to a great extent has been imposed from above.108 As a result, reference groups, religious ecologies and plausibility structures that support and reinforce faith, have not been formed: “Even a very assertive state with very obedient media will hardly be able to convince people that being Orthodox, Muslim, Jewish or otherwise faithful involves certain moral commitments in daily life.”109 Another important factor, which problematizes the ROC’s role as moral

104 “Patriarshaia propoved v Nedeliu o Strashnom Sude,” March 7, 2021, http://www.patriarchia. ru/db/text/5782117.html (My translation). 105 Benovska, Orthodox Revivalism in Russia, (see n. 84), 131. 106 According to the recent data of Vserossiiskii tsentr izuchenia obshchestvennogo mneniia – VTSIOM (Russian Public Opinion Research Center), 70% of Russians identify themselves as Orthodox. “Protsent very,” Rossiiskaya gazeta, February 1, 2021, https://rg.ru/2021/02/ 01/chto-znachat-segodnia-cerkov-i-patriarh-v-zhizni-obshchestva.html. 107 Vyacheslav Karpov, “The Social Dynamics of Russia’s Desecularisation: A Comparative and Theoretical Perspective,” Religion, State & Society, 41, no. 3 (2013), 254–283, here 259. 108 In the sense that the activists and actors of desecularization largely include religious and secular elites and leaders, those in position of power and authority, see ibid., 256. 109 Ibid., 260.

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authority, is mentioned by Dmitry Uzlaner.110 He refers to Alexander Agadjanian’s definition of religion as “working symbolic resource,”111 which in today’s Russia has a very weak impact over people’s way of living and their everyday moral choices. Moreover, as Uzlaner stresses, Patriarch Kirill’s efforts to strengthen the role of the ROC in people’s lives has failed; the result is an increasing critique of the ROC, especially in social networks.112 In general, the debates on the moral dimensions of socially relevant issues demonstrate the opposition of two basic strategies: interpreting morality as a set of rigid propositions (authorized by either religious or secular powers), to which individuals have to subordinate themselves, and the right of a person for moral choice, as well as bearing responsibility for it. Thus, the distinction lies between those who feel more comfortable sharing socially and/or institutionally accepted moral values, and those who stand for a self-sufficient position. There are believers and nonbelievers who share “traditional” moral values; those who vote for the freedom of moral choice may include Orthodox adherents, as well as atheists and agnostics. In any case, the Russian Orthodox Church today clearly assumes the mission of being a moral authority.

110 Dmitry Uzlaner, “The End of the Pro-Orthodox Consensus: Religion as a New Cleavage in Russian Society,” in Orthodox Religion and Politics in Contemporary Eastern Europe: On Multiple Secularisms and Entanglements, ed. Tobias Köllner (London: Routledge, 2018), 173–192. 111 Alexander Agadjanian, “The Search for Privacy and the Return of a Grand Narrative: Religion in a Post-Communist Society,” Social Compass, 53, no. 2 (2006), 169–184, here 174. 112 See, for example, the independent analytical website “Akhilla” (https://ahilla.ru/).

The Ascetical as the Civic: Civil Society as Political Communion Aristotle Papanikolaou

The Orthodox Political World: The Current Situation After the fall of communism, which affected countries in Eastern Europe and within the former Soviet Union, the world looked on with hopeful curiosity to see if these formerly communist spaces could transition to western-style democracy. Many weighed in, including Samuel Huntington, whose infamous “clash of civilization” thesis declared that democracy could not thrive in the traditional Orthodox countries. Many also wondered what role the Orthodox churches would play in the transition to democracy, now that it was no longer under repressive communist oversight. Thirty years have passed and much has transpired in these formerly communist traditional Orthodox countries, including war, bombings, economic crises, political upheaval, and a pandemic. In the midst of all this, coming into clear view has been the position of the institutional Orthodox churches in relation to the fluid political and societal changes in post-communist countries. Not a single Orthodox church has condemned, renounced, or disavowed democracy. It is also plainly evident, however, that the institutional Orthodox churches had as their main goal the reestablishment of their privileged place in relation to the political and cultural landscape of their respective countries. On this score, they succeeded. The Orthodox churches have reemerged as very powerful players in the political and cultural life of countries within the jurisdiction of the Orthodox Churches of Russia, Romania, Serbia, Georgia, Armenia, and, more recently, the Orthodox Church of Ukraine. In these particular countries, the Orthodox churches also succeeded in relinking ethnic and religious identity, even if liturgical participation in some of these countries is very low. This is not to deny the existence of a kind of religious pluralism within these countries, but in the post-communist reality, there is no doubting the fact that the ethnic identification in these countries usually evokes the simultaneous religious identification of being Orthodox, unless further clarified—to be Russian, for example, means also being by default Orthodox.1 1

“Religious Belief and National Belonging in Central and Eastern Europe. National and religious identities converge in a region once dominated by atheist regimes,” Pew Research Center (2017), https://www.pewforum.org/2017/05/10/religious-belief-and-national-belo

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Such an elision of ethnic and religious identification is really a remarkable achievement, especially given the communist regimes’ relentless attempts to eliminate religious identification, or at least to relegate it to a permanent underclass. The only exception to this general post-communist narrative is Bulgaria, where the institutional Orthodox Church continues to struggle for public legitimacy and where most Bulgarians do not identify as Orthodox by default.2 Since the fall of communism, the institutional Orthodox countries have been guided by a modern version of the Byzantine symphonic model, which is reimagined along the lines of the nation state, where the state privileges the Orthodox Church, and where the Church, theoretically, works for the public good. Integral to this symphonic model is the privileged positioning of Orthodox Christianity within the nation state, even if it is not constitutionally the established religion.3 The reemergence of this model within these countries was not in any way a given; and, yet, such a relationship has been solidified. The institutional churches are powerful political and cultural players in these post-communist countries, where most of the citizenry of a particular nation elides its ethnic and national identity; meanwhile, in Western Europe, the institutional churches are weak, and ethnic and religious identity have been separated for decades. By all accounts, it would seem that the religious revival in these post-communist Orthodox countries is a success story, especially since the institutional Orthodox churches appear to support democratic structures. But is it? The relinking of national and ethnic identity has reignited in these countries both a religious nationalism and a conservative populism that appropriates the nation’s Orthodox heritage, both of which pose a threat to democratic structures that attempt to promote and protect a variety of political pluralisms, including religious, ethnic, and moral. If the United States has only recently become aware of the potential of a religious nationalism within its borders, such a phenomenon is generally familiar terrain in European countries. More ominous is the reality that in order to regain their privileged status, the institutional Orthodox churches had to make decisions in light of their relation to state power rather than in light of any sustained reflection on Orthodox tradition or in view of their relation to global Orthodoxy. This has often reduced the role of institutional Orthodox churches to

2 3

nging-in-central-and-eastern-europe/. The situation is slightly more complicated in Ukraine, in which there is a sizable Greek Catholic population. To be Ukrainian therefore does not necessarily mean being Orthodox, but could also mean being Greek Catholic. Those are, however, the only two default options: any other identification would require clarification and nuance. See Daniela Kalkandjieva, “The Bulgarian Orthodox Church,” in Eastern Christianity and Politics in the Twenty-First Century, ed. Lucian N. Leustean (New York: Routledge, 2014), 114–139. For one of the most incisive and insightful overviews of “symphonia,” see Davor Džalto, Anarchy and the Kingdom of God: From Eschatology to Orthodox Political Theology and Back (New York: Fordham University Press, 2021).

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an extension of a particular state agenda,4 or as has been recently stated more effectively, if not eloquently: “Today it seems that (the Church) is running, panting behind the state, and is satisfied simply to offer the setting, the costumes, and the extras (non-essential actors) in a performance where the main protagonist is the political power.”5 And, while no Orthodox Church has ever officially condemned democracy, it is indisputable that for these churches that whatever democratic structures exist, they cannot interfere with the privileging of the institutional Orthodox Church within the broader political and cultural space. It is also questionable whether these churches actually support democracy, especially given that in Russia (whose authoritarian “managed democracy” has encountered no resistance from the Russian Orthodox Church), democracy is practically nonexistent, while democratic structures in Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, Romania, Serbia, Bulgaria, Georgia, and Armenia are tenuous, at best. The Orthodox churches, understandably, do not want to return to communist repression, but the current situation of state influence on the Orthodox churches in all these post-communist countries is the flip-side of the political coin. The state still shapes the churches’ agenda, to a greater or lesser degree, but this time for a nationalist, pseudo-democratic façade.

Orthodoxy and Democracy: Yes and No There are many ways of conceiving democracy. One way is in terms of majority vote. It was this kind of democracy that Socrates, together with Plato, Aristotle, and John Chrysostom, most feared, insofar as majority vote simply meant mob rule, or what we currently call “populism.” Majority rule, though necessary, is not a sufficient condition for democracy, especially since such a majority could repudiate democratic principles, which include, minimally, freedom and equality. Democracy understood in terms of majority rule has been influenced by autocrats in order to present a democratic façade, as when Saddam Hussein claimed in 2002 that he won one hundred percent of the votes in a referendum to approve another seven-year term. Majority rule could also usher in a totalitarian regime, which then uses emergency state powers or other more subtle biopolitical methods to dismantle democratic structures.

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See Robert C. Blitt, “Religious Soft Power in Russian Foreign Policy: Constitutional Change and the Russian Orthodox Church,” Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs, May 2021, https://berkleycenter.georgetown.edu/publications/religious-soft-powerin-russian-foreign-policy-constitutional-change-and-the-russian-orthodox-church. Christos Phradellos, “ȅȚ șİȠȜȠȖȚțȑȢ ʌȡȠțȜȒıİȚȢ IJȘȢ ȑȞȠʌȜȘȢ ʌȐȜȘȢ țĮȚ Ș ǼʌĮȞȐıIJĮıȘ IJȠȣ 21”, Volos Academy for Theological Studies, May 18, 2021, https://www.polymerwsvolos. org/2021/05/18/oi-theologikes-prokliseis-tis-enoplis-palis/.

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Majority rule is simply no guarantee of democracy, which is ultimately measured by structures that maximize the principles of freedom and equality. Democracies committed to such principles may not look exactly the same, as Cécile Laborde has recently argued,6 but there must be a commitment to discerning how best to realize these political goals. The language of “civil society” names those institutions, groups, and interests that attempt to secure certain goods within a political public space, and in so doing advance two vital components of a democratic structure committed to freedom and equality. First, insofar as a civil society is constituted by multiple institutions and groups representing a variety of interests in particular goods, civil society is instrumental in constituting the public space as pluralistic. Second, the existence of diverse institutions and groups, each vying to secure particular good, guards against the centralization of power. In the modern nation-state, centralized power is inevitable and often useful in deterring corruption at the local governmental levels; at the same time, local civic institutions and groups, each interacting with the others in discussions and conflicts over public goods, serve as a check against overreaching centralized authorities. In short, the presence of civic society is a necessary constitutive element of a democracy that is not measured simply by majority rule but by the principles of freedom and equality, even if the latter are contested terms. In fact, civic society is the public realm where the meaning of these particular terms—freedom and equality—are contested. Without civic society, the meaning of such terms is dictated from the top down, which, of course, is a performative contradiction.7 Again: in the post-communist situation, no Orthodox church would repudiate “democracy” per se, nor would they even reject the political principles of freedom and equality, especially in light of the theological affirmation that all are created in the image and likeness of God. It is also worth noting that the situation in all the Orthodox countries is not identical. In Russia, the Orthodox Church labored to convince politicians and the wider Russian public of the usefulness of Russia’s Orthodox history, and it eventually succeeded with the Putin regime in an arrangement that currently mirrors the pre-revolutionary church-state relationship, and which supports a Belarusian autocracy. In Russia and Belarus, civil society is weak, almost non-existent, and the institutional Church has essentially supported an autocratic regime for its own benefit and has become an office of the Kremlin. In Serbia, Romania, Moldova, Bulgaria, Armenia, Ukraine, and Georgia, autocracy has not been firmly established, even if it is always a real temptation and possibility. In these particular countries, there still exists political pluralism in the form of different parties and ideologies that continue to vie for political power.

6 7

Cécile Laborde, Liberalism’s Religion (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2017). For a good overview, see John Ehrenberg, Civil Society: The Critical History of an Idea, 2nd edition (New York: New York University Press, 2017).

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With the exception of Ukraine,8 civil society is weak and pluralism in the public sphere other than political is minimal. In Greece, political pluralism is robust and even when leftists hold political power, they cannot deny the public force of the institutional Orthodox Church. Even though civil society in Greece is also stronger than in most Orthodox countries, pluralism within the public political space is still limited. Greece has had a much longer tradition of negotiating democratic structures, but, arguably, not that much longer, since Greece never fully implemented democratic practices until the post-Junta restoration of democracy in 1974, and this despite being liberated from the Ottomans in 1821. What are we to make of this political situation in the Orthodox world? There are common threads. First, in each of these Orthodox countries, the institutional Church’s primary goal has been to secure its own privileged space and that of Orthodox Christianity more generally within the wider society. This effort to secure privilege has often led the Church to support anti-democratic regimes, such as the Church of Greece’s support of the Junta and the Russian Orthodox Church’s backing of the Putin regime. Second, as Cyril Hovorun has stated, the institutional Orthodox churches have served primarily the interests of empire or nation, promoting a religious nationalism where religious and national identity are indistinct.9 In this sense, the commitment of the institutional churches to pluralism has been minimal. The two kinds of pluralism which the Orthodox churches have most glaringly failed to support are religious and moral pluralism. On the surface, it does seem that the Orthodox churches support religious pluralism, and official representatives of these Orthodox churches no doubt would not deny a person’s right to believe without coercion. In traditional Orthodox countries, however, very little religious pluralism actually exists, and much more common are the efforts of institutional Orthodox churches to block the promotion of religious pluralism within the public sphere. The most egregious example of this resistance to religious pluralism includes the infamous Russian laws (dubbed the Iarovaia laws) against mission and proselytizing. In Greece, the Church initially resisted the building of a mosque in Athens, and only recently has Archbishop Ieronymus (Liápis) offered words of support. More alarming is how, of all the countries in the European Union, Greece has the highest number of violations in the European Court of Human Rights regarding religious freedom: In the 20 years since then (1993), the Court has issued over 50 Article 9 (on Freedom of thought, conscience and religion) decisions […] Of those 50-odd convictions, the Greek state has been on the receiving end of over 20% of them. This is a striking statistic, given that of 47 countries covered by the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR), and thus by the Court which protects it (the ECtHR), a single country, Greece, is responsible for such a large percentage of violations found of the religious 8 9

Cyril Hovorun, “Via Tertia for the Orthodox Churches,” International Journal of Public Theology 14 (2020), 336–354. Ibid., esp. 336–339.

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Despite proclamations by Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew (Arhondonis) and other notable hierarchs, the Orthodox churches as a whole do not receive high marks when it comes to promoting religious pluralism within their own jurisdictions—being somewhat oblivious to the performative contradiction they enact when these same churches call for religious freedom of Christians in the Middle East, Egypt, or elsewhere, or when Orthodox Christians demand religious freedom in the West in relation to certain social issues. In the past fifty years, in Western Europe, another form of pluralism has erupted, which can be called moral pluralism.11 Even though in traditional rhetoric on modern democracy, church-state separation offered the illusion that morality was a matter of individual choice and, thus, of the private sphere, religious morality hovered as the moral horizon for modern western democracies, at least until the 1960s. In the United States, in particular, this moral horizon was supported by an unspoken alliance among Jews, Catholics, and Protestants. Although there were substantial differences among these groups, together with attempts at exclusions by the Protestant majority, they did not disagree on moral matters, especially those relating to sex, sexuality, gender roles, abortion, and divorce, to name a few. At a time when most people in the US identified religiously even if attendance was moderate, such an alliance was a powerful force shaping the moral imagination of the United States. This moral consensus, however, has disintegrated. The religious denominations that once supported it have now been divided among themselves into liberal and conservative camps. Liberals and conservatives on moral matters are more likely to work with those of similar moral convictions in other denominational and religious traditions than with those within their own tradition. There is much that divides the religiously affiliated liberals and conservatives (as well as much that unites them), but the most glaring issues of division center on sex, sexuality, and gender. Religiously affiliated conservatives have rallied around “traditional values,” and in the United States, their greatest fear is a new statist totalitarianism that restricts their religious freedom in relation to these particular issues.

10 Effie Fokas, “Banal, Benign or Pernicious? Religion and National Identity from the Perspective of Religious Minorities in Greece,” New Diversities 17, no. 1 (2015), 47–62 (Emphasis mine). See also eadem, “Kokkinakis at the Grassroots Level,” Religion and Human Rights 12 (2017), 210–222; eadem, “Pluralism and Religious Freedom: Insight from Orthodox Europe,” Orthodox Christianity and Human Rights in Europe: A Dialogue Between Theological Paradigms and Socio-Legal Pragmatics, ed. Elisabeth-Alexandra Diamantopoulou and Louis-Léon Christians (Brussels: Peter Lang, 2018), 109–134. 11 José Casanova, Public Religions in the Modern World (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994).

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In the Orthodox world, the Orthodox churches have consistently and unequivocally taken strong stances against moral pluralism in the public sphere. One could nuance this claim by arguing that these same churches would support one’s private freedom of choice regarding sexual ethics, but recent legislation against so-called “gay propaganda” in Russia indicates otherwise. Beyond their own borders, Orthodox churches have forged international alliances with American Evangelicals, in particular, in common cause to promote traditional values against a perceived threat of liberal totalitarianism.12 The Orthodox churches have been institutionally vocal about forging and maintaining a public morality on various issues, especially those related to sex, sexuality, and gender, even if there are statements that prove the exception rather than the rule, such as that by the recently elected Patriarch of Serbia, Porfirije (Periü): I think that my commitment to the complete equality of all people in the field of personal, property and other rights is not unknown. I understand and support them. However, all these rights, legal experts explained to me, can be fully exercised in the existing legal system of the Republic of Serbia or with minimal amendments to existing laws.13

As was stated, democracy can mean many things, and although the Orthodox churches support voting, parliamentarianism, campaigning, party politics, they have been much more ambivalent on the components of democracy that involve what has been called “civil society.” The inter-institutional and interpersonal relations constitutive of civil society shape a democracy that fosters a public space that is pluralistic—culturally, socially, institutionally, ethnically, religiously, and morally. It is this kind of democracy, one that goes well beyond the right to vote, that is marked by civic engagement and a public pluralistic space, that guarantees freedom and equality for all persons without discrimination, for which the Orthodox churches do not exhibit a great deal of enthusiasm.

Anti-Secular Rhetoric: Rejecting Pluralism The Orthodox problem with and suspicion of “civil society” may be due to multiple reasons, but civil society’s association with the emergence of the “secular” is no doubt one of them. It is arguable that both the idea and the materialization of civil society are inconceivable without the emergence of the secular. The “secular” has come to mean many things, but most Orthodox speak about the 12 See the research of the Postsecular Conflicts Project: https://www.uibk.ac.at/projects/post secular-conflicts/index.html.en, which is funded by a grant from the European Research Council, and whose Principal Investigator is Kristina Stoeckl. 13 The quote is from an interview given by Patriarch Porfirije to the Vecherna novosti newspaper, see http://www.spc.rs/sr/patrijarh_porfirije_intervju_dat_vechernjim_novostima.

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secular as an aggressively anti-religious attitude and space, in which religion is marginalized or privatized. Given the communist experience, the Orthodox suspicion of the secular is understandable. The secular as an anti-religious force, however, is a very narrow view. To nuance an Orthodox approach to the civil society, further nuance of the various meanings of the secular is required. There is a great deal of confusion around the word “secular.” In global popular imagination, it is usually associated with a decline or elimination of religion that is correlated with modernization and scientific advancement. “Secular” can also conjure an active, aggressive agency that intentionally attempts to eradicate religion. This particular meaning, however, was more of a prediction than an analyticcal and explanatory concept. Since the 17th century, things have changed in the West regarding the positioning of religion in relation to politics, society and culture, and such changes have led to decreased participation, particularly in Western Europe. However, it is debatable whether religion has declined, especially if we consider that in Norway belief in ghosts was recently on the rise.14 Religion has not been eliminated or eradicated, notwithstanding the best attempts of repressive totalitarian regimes. There is a great deal of inaccuracy when this “decline” trope is evoked, but religion has not declined. And if post-secular is meant to convey that religion has “come back,” that too is inaccurate, since religion never went away. Things have changed, but religion remains a powerful political, societal, and cultural force everywhere in the globe, including Western Europe. The institutional churches may be weaker, and there are surely those who want religion to be weakened, but religion remains. At worst, this decline trope is used as a rhetorical scare tactic to mobilize a more popular response that would reintegrate particular religious values in default social mores or explicitly within legal frameworks. There is another meaning to the word “secular,” which has to do with the privatization of religion. Rather than being descriptive, analytical, or explanatory, this way of understanding secular is normative. The idea is that for democracy to thrive, religion must be marginalized or privatized from the public sphere. While the decline of religion has turned out to be a myth, religion has been privatized to varying degrees depending on the particular country, even within Western Europe. The most extreme example is in France, where the privatization of religion is seen as necessary for the sake of securing freedom. France is well known for not allowing people to publicly wear religious clothing, such as a head scarf, or even to visibly display a cross in the workplace. France, however, is an exception, as religion plays a public role in most Western European societies, as well as in the United States. In many Northern European societies, even though religious participation is low, the official 14 Andrew Higgins “Norway has a new passion: Ghost hunting,” The New York Times (October 25, 2015), https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/25/world/europe/for-many-norwe gians-ghosts-fill-a-void.html.

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Lutheran churches still exercise state-sponsored social services, which most citizens support. In the United States, it is very clear that religion influences the public sphere, especially in politics, both in elections and even in legislation on controversial issues. So, if we mean by secular the privatization of religion, not all Westerners think alike about this privatization, and the degree and for in which religion is public depends on the particular country.15 So, when Orthodox say that the West is secular in the sense of trying to advance atheism and attempting to eliminate religion, this is not quite accurate, and, as a result, can be reduced to mere rhetoric. But clearly there is something different about the role of religion than what was once the case in pre-modern societies. If European societies are secular in some way, that does not necessarily mean the elimination of religion or even the privatization of religion.16 How exactly are Western societies secularized? In pre-modern societies, religion was what we may call “the all-encompassing reality.”17 Belief in the supernatural was a given, the default; belief in the supernatural was important to understanding the other aspects of society, such as politics, government, law, culture, science and education. The pre-modern self was a porous one, and unbelief in the supernatural was inconceivable.18 After the Reformation, but especially after the American and French Revolutions, all these other areas of society started to separate themselves from religion. So, there was churchstate separation, but also culture, economics, science, and education started to develop independently of religion. This separation of religion from these parts of society was not simply promoted by influential atheists like Karl Marx, but also happened as a result of the scientific revolution, where it was seen that scientific advancement could occur without religion. When asked by Napoleon why God was missing from his new book on physics, Pierre Laplace famously replied, “I have no need of that hypothesis.” This understanding of the secular is the “differentiation thesis,” and it is used to describe the historical phenomenon where the various parts of society no longer rely on religion for their meaning. Religion stops becoming the all-encompassing 15 See Elizabeth Shakman Hurd, Beyond Religious Freedom: The New Global Politics of Religion (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2015), 26. José Casanova, “The Secular, Secularizations, Secularisms,” in Rethinking Secularism, ed. Craig Calhoun, Mark Juergensmeyer and Jonathan van Antwerpen (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 54– 74. 16 Even one-time adherents of the privatization thesis have changed their minds. See John Rawls, Theory of Justice, 2nd edition (New York: Belknap Press, 1999), and Political Liberalism, expanded edition (Columbia University Press, 2005); Jürgen Habermas, “Religion in the Public Sphere,” European Journal of Philosophy 14 (2006), 1–25. For a recent Rawlsian rendition of liberal democracy that includes a public role for religion, see Cécile Laborde, Liberalism’s Religion (see n. 6). 17 Casanova, Public Religions in the Modern World (see n. 11), 15. 18 Charles Taylor, The Secular Age (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007), 3

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reality; there no longer is a “common theological perspective”19 shared by all members of a society. In this historical phenomenon, we start seeing the emergence of a rejection of the supernatural, of unbelief becoming an option;20 an emphasis on the autonomy of the individual; the elevation of human rights as a way of protecting the individual from the power of government; and the religious way of understanding the cosmos no longer influencing the various parts of society, such as politics, government, law, education, science, and economics and culture. It is not the case that religion stops playing a role in society, nor is it the case that this “differentiation” leads to the elimination of morality, even if the morality of a society is not the same as the morality of a specific religion. Religion still plays a role in society, but it is a different role. There also was another effect of this third meaning of the “secular,” and that is pluralism.21 If this third meaning of secular means to simply describe—not predict or dictate—that religion has a different role in relation to society, that it no longer determines the meaning of the various parts of society or the reason why they function in society, then one of the effects of this secularization is the emergence of pluralism in a society, which itself is the condition for the possibility of a civil society. Pluralism existed even in pre-modern societies and empires. Secular pluralism, however, means that no one can be placed in a position of being a second-class citizen in a society as a result of who they are, as the Orthodox were second-class citizens under the Ottomans, or the Jews were second-class citizens under the Byzantine Empire. Secular, in this understanding, does not mean the elimination of religion or the forced privatization of religion. It means the acceptance of a pluralistic society in a way that never existed in pre-modern societies and empires. In my opinion, even though many Orthodox like to criticize the West for promoting a secular society that is atheistic, immoral and trying to eliminate religion, this criticism is simply rhetoric because that kind of secular society rarely exists anywhere in the world. In fact, the clearest example we have of an atheistic, anti-religious society was former soviet-style communism, which often contrasted itself against the “religious West.” What the Orthodox should really focus on and what they should be discussing more often is whether the Orthodox can accept what I would call a Christian secularism22 that accepts first the fact that religion now has, for various historical 19 Jeffrey Stout, Democracy and Tradition (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004), 11. 20 For an understanding of the secular in terms of “unbelief as an option,” see Taylor, The Secular Age (see n. 18), 3. 21 Charles Taylor’s most succinct articulation of this understanding of the secular is in “Religion is Not the Problem: Secularism and Democracy,” Commonweal, February 25, 2011, 17–21. See also his essay “Western Secularity,” in Rethinking Secularism (see n. 15). 22 See also Brandon Gallaher, “A Secularism of the Royal Doors: Toward an Eastern Orthodox Christian Theology of Secularism,” in Fundamentalism or Tradition: Christianity

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reasons, a different role in society; and, second, accepts the presence of a pluralistic society, whose citizens are protected by laws affirming their rights and freedoms. The repositioning of religion within the political, cultural and economic landscape of a given society is what the differentiation thesis attempts to analyze and describe. The end result is not simply the decline in the influence of a particular religion in political, economic, and cultural givens, but the decline of a common theological perspective as the framing horizon of a given society. What this repositioning of religion or religiosity enables is a more radical pluralism. Such a radical pluralism does not mean that religions do not have a public voice, quite the opposite: it actually allows multiple religious voices to have a public hearing, even in those situations where a particular religion may be an established religion. If, in fact, we can imagine spaces in the world where religions play a public role, but no single religious voice or common theological perspective dominates, then we are, in fact, not living in a post-secular world, nor do I think we want to. The hard question for Christians, and especially for Orthodox Christians, is what role should religion play in a society where religion is not the all-encompassing reality, where Orthodoxy is not the default common theological perspective of all citizens? What one sees today in the post-communist Orthodox world is an attempt to reject the secular as a neutral space that marginalizes religion, and even attempts to eliminate it. It is motivated by fear that the kind of decline of religious participation and identification in the West will occur in these post-communist countries—and the fear, quite truthfully, is justified. What the Orthodox countries fear is a situation where not being religious is simply what is normal, and where national identity is no longer linked to religious identity. Among Russians, for example, even though 90% identify as Russian Orthodox, only 75% say that they believe in God, and less than 5% attend religious services on a regular basis. According to a recent report by the Pew Research Center, the pattern is similar in most Orthodox countries.23 To be clear: in the West one does not see a hostility to religion as what is normal, as some Orthodox rhetorically proclaim, except perhaps in France. This characterization of the West as secular is inaccurate, but the West is secular in the sense that being religious is in decline and the link between religion and nationalism is being severed. In the West, ever more people they are “spiritual but not religious.” The West is secular in the sense that western societies are no longer governed by a common theological perspective that shapes cultural and legal structures, and that it attempts to secure religious pluralism, after Secularism, ed. Aristotle Papanikolaou and George E. Demacopoulos (New York: Fordham University Press, 2019), 109–130. 23 Pew Research Center, “Russians Return to Religion, But Not to Church” (2014), https://www.pewforum.org/2014/02/10/russians-return-to-religion-but-not-to-church/ and Pew Research Center, “Religious Belief and National Belonging in Central and Eastern Europe” (see n. 1).

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where all religions have a voice in the public political space. But, again, it is very, very important to remember that if one means by “secular” an aggressive attempt to privatize religion and keep it silenced in the public political space, even to eliminate it, then this does not occur in the West, and, thus, we are not in a postsecular world. In most other western countries, one can see a vibrant public religious presence, even if it is not taken seriously due to the decline in religious participation and identification. Given this framework, the diametrical opposition between an East that is religious and a secular West that tries to eliminate religion is a false one and is simply used for rhetoric. Religion is alive in the West. However, insofar as the Orthodox churches are attempting to reinstate a kind of symphonia, where cultural, legal and political life is shaped and influenced by a common theological perspective, they are rejecting secularism in all its different forms that I described above, including that which makes possible a pluralistic public space, i.e., a civil society. This rejection of secularism in all its forms is an overcompensation that, in the end, leads to a nationalistic Orthodoxy, one in which religion and ethnicity are elided, and where pluralism is seen more as a threat than a possibility, or, more strongly, as constitutive of a vibrant democracy.

The Ascetic as the Civic: Practices of Political Communion Does it have to be this way? Historically, it would seem that the Orthodox churches know no other way. Theologically, however, the tradition points in another direction where the churches’ main concern can be neither privilege nor power, but where they promote a variety of pluralisms in the political space, including civic, institutional, ethnic, religious, and even moral. Even if there is no precedent within Orthodox history of negotiating democratic political structures constituted by civic society, and the only model has been a symphonic model adapted either to imperial or nation-state structures, this does not mean that there is a diametrical opposition between Orthodoxy and civic-society style democracy. The answer for the Orthodox world must be found primarily in ecclesiology and theological anthropology, in the understanding of what Church is and what God has created humans to be, which eschatologically are one and the same. Humans are called to be deified, to attain theosis, to be like God, which means to love as God loves the world; the Church is the theotic event of the union of all in God. On this side of the eschaton, that union is gifted as event in the Eucharist, after which the Church exists institutionally in relation to any given local space and, as a result of technology, to global issues and concerns. After the Eucharist, the Orthodox Christian moves in the “world” in their ongoing training to be theotic in the world, which means to walk in a Eucharistic mode of being.

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Over the past century, one of the more vigorous discussion within Orthodoxy has been on the meaning of “church.” In the early part of the 20th century, Nicholas Afanasiev was instrumental in working out what has come to be known as “Eucharistic ecclesiology,” which many interpreted as development of the Russian notion of sobornost popularized by Alexei Khomiakov in the middle of the 19th century. It is fair to say that Eucharistic ecclesiology emerged as dominant model for the Orthodox self-understanding, especially as it was formulated by the wellknown Orthodox theologian John Zizioulas. It has been common when referring to Eucharistic ecclesiology to recall Henri de Lubac’s famous dictum: “the Eucharist makes the Church.”24 Such a slogan, however, does not accurately capture what is meant by Eucharistic ecclesiology. When Zizioulas locates the church in the Eucharistic celebration, he is not saying that the celebration of the Eucharist functions as a causal agent whose effect is the church. The causal agent for realization of the church is and always will be the Holy Spirit. Theologically, Zizioulas argues for locating the church in the Eucharistic celebration because in that celebration the Holy Spirit is present in a particular way as a result of the assembly of the faithful in sacrificial prayer to God that remembers Christ’s last supper with his disciples, as well as his passion, but which also points to the eschatological unity of all in the body of Christ.25 No Orthodox theologian would dispute this point. If the Holy Spirit is present in the Eucharistic celebration, which is both a historical continuation of the last supper and an iconic reflection of the eternal Eucharistic celebration before the heavenly altar, then the Holy Spirit makes present the resurrected and, hence, eschatological Body of Christ. The Holy Spirit, however, does not simply change the material elements of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ for consumption and, thus, for the individual salvation of the individual Christians who are present; the Holy Spirit presences the resurrected Body of Christ and in so doing unites the entire assembly with the Body of Christ, thus, constituting the assembly as the Body of Christ. If it is the Body of Christ, then it is the Church in all its fullness, which means that it is the communion of all material creation with God the Father, in the person of Christ, and by the Holy Spirit. This identification of Eucharist/Church/Body of Christ is then grounded in a theology of the Holy Spirit that understands the person and the work of the Spirit as presencing the eschaton, which is nothing less than the unity of all in Christ. There is a remarkable theological coherence to this theological vision, which is grounded in the Orthodox understanding of theosis as divine-human communion, and which is trinitarian at its core not in the sense of the church mirroring 24 Henri de Lubac, The Splendour of the Church (London: Sheed and Ward, 1956), 12. 25 For a fuller exposition of the logic of Zizioulas’s Eucharistic ecclesiology, see Aristotle Papanikolaou, Being with God: Trinity, Apophaticism and Divine-Human Communion (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2006).

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the trinitarian persons in communion, or with having to do with the monarchy of the Father; it is trinitarian in the sense of expressing divine-human communion in the person of Christ and by the Holy Spirit. Given this coherence, it is hard to understand why there would be an objection to locating the fullness of the church in the event of the Eucharistic celebration, especially when such locating is guided by the trinitarian understandings of the role of Christ and the Holy Spirit in effecting divine-human communion. And yet, locating the church in the event of the Eucharistic celebration has had its detractors, with some advancing a baptismal ecclesiology in which the unity of the Church is effected in an amorphous way by the presence of the Holy Spirit in each believer.26 Just as no Orthodox theologian would deny the presence of the Holy Spirit at baptism, no Orthodox theologian would deny that there is no Church without baptism. But can one really locate the church in baptism? A so-called baptismal ecclesiology is incapable of answering the question: where is the church? If we step back a bit, what is often forgotten among the naysayers of Eucharistic ecclesiology is that it emerged to address a very pressing question of the late 19th and early 20th century, which is, where is the Church? One response that was given was the visible institutional structures of the Church; Eucharistic ecclesiology emerged, among Orthodox and Catholics alike,27 in order to counter such a top-down, pyramidal understanding of the Church. In terms of locating the Church, it—rightly in my judgment—focused attention on worship, specifically the Eucharist, to highlight the importance of the people of God in the Church and the mutually constitutive relationship between the various ministries, lay and clerical, in order for church to be church. Some may argue that the question of “where is the Church?” is unanswerable since it is an invisible, cosmic, eschatological reality. That may be the case, but it is an unavoidable question, 26 Among others, see Calinic Berger, “Does the Eucharist Make the Church? An Ecclesiological Comparison of Staniloae and Zizioulas,” St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 51, no. 1 (2007), 23–70; and, John Erickson, “The Church in Modern Orthodox Thought: Towards a Baptismal Ecclesiology,” International Journal for the Study of the Christian Church 11, no. 2–3 (2011), 137–151. 27 Zizioulas is not alone in his support of a Eucharistic understanding of the Church. It is evident in such well-known Orthodox theologians as John Meyendorff, Alexander Schmemann, Georges Florovsky, and Nicholas Afanasiev. The latter is considered by some to be the father of Eucharistic ecclesiology, though Florovsky started to make links between Church, Christ, and the Eucharist in a 1929 article entitled “The Eucharist and Catholicity.” The first signs of a Eucharistic ecclesiology in Afanasiev appear in the mid1930s in his work on councils and canon law. There are discussions of the links of this Eucharistic understanding of the Church to Bulgakov’s sophiology, to Alexei Khomiakov’s identification of the Church and the Russian concept of sobornost’, to the Roman Catholic theologian Johann Adam Möhler, or more generally to German Romanticism. For a good overview, see Aidan Nichols, Theology in the Russian Diaspora: Church, Fathers, Eucharist in Nikolai Afanas’ev (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), esp. 62– 93.

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much like “where is God?” To the latter question, the response has been in the person of Jesus Christ, in all his physical materiality. In much the same way, the Church must be iconically visible in some way. Eucharistic ecclesiology simply argues that it is not in the visible institutional structures of the Church, such as councils, local synods, curias, or Popes. If the problem is the phrase “Eucharistic ecclesiology”, which admittedly has a very modern ring, let’s try another angle: if asked “where is God,” we would point to the person of Jesus Christ; if asked “where is the Church?”, it is difficult to think how anyone could point to anything but the Eucharist. This identification of the Church with the Eucharist is able to make sense of the institutional structures that are traditionally identified with the Orthodox church. Although the imperial frame of the Christian Roman (Byzantine) Empire shaped many of the institutional mechanisms still operative in the church, as well as many other factors,28 it is also the case that the synodal forms of organization show a remarkable consistency with a Eucharistic understanding of the church. If the church is identified with the Eucharistic assembly, then it is logical that a communion of local churches is institutionally represented in a synod with an elected primate, i.e., the bishop. A logical extension of this local institutionalization of communion would expand to other geographically bounded local communion of churches, with corresponding synodal institutional structures. In other words, theologically, the synodal structures that govern the Orthodox churches, together with local bishops as primates, make sense. Even the notion of autocephaly of larger, mostly national churches, coheres with this Eucharistic logic, though there is no theological rationale for how the borders of autocephalous churches are drawn. Fleshing out the institutional architecture of a Eucharistic ecclesiology in relation to a discussion of Orthodoxy and civil society is clarifying for several reasons. First, as many have noticed, it indicates a kind of democratic ethos within the Orthodox church, especially in the form of synods and a resistance to a universal primate with universal jurisdictional powers (not universal primacy per se). Second, it highlights the challenge of mapping out a strictly institutional Orthodox response to politics and public life, since local churches enjoy some measure of autonomy and independence, even if subsumed under autocephalous churches. For example, it is simply not the case that a primate of an autocephalous church can so easily dictate to a local bishop how to respond to local public issues within a respective eparchy. Third, it shows how autocephalous churches are both ecclesial and political institutions insofar as the mapping of an autocephalous church

28 For a helpful analysis of the various structures of the Orthodox church as they developed over time, see Cyril Hovorun, Scaffolds of the Church: Toward a Poststructural Ecclesiology (Eugene: Cascade Books, 2017). See also John Erickson’s contribution in this volume.

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in recent history follows the creation of national borders. Thus, even if autocephaly means an administrative independence in relation other Orthodox churches, it usually results in a political dependence on the nation-state. Fourth, there is no universal primate in the Orthodox church with the jurisdictional power that is possessed by the bishop of Rome, the pope. What this means is that there is no universal directive from above, no universal tone or set of prescriptions on guiding Orthodox churches or Christians in relation to modern democratic structures. The Orthodox churches are only lately really negotiating such structures; Orthodox Christians are only very recently learning to live without emperors and kings, even if they are currently supporting autocrats for personal gain under the guise of pseudo-democracies. One of the weaknesses of Eucharistic ecclesiology concerns not discerning exactly what happens after the Eucharist, how the Church as institution is to respond to “the world” and how the Christian is to walk and live in the world in a Eucharistic mode of being, which is one of learning how to love such that what is fostered are relations among other humans that realize a personal irreducible uniqueness. To address this, I have argued for the integration of the ascetical into the understanding of ecclesiology.29 It may be true that the theologians responsible for Eucharistic ecclesiology have overemphasized the Eucharistic communal assembly at the expense of the ascetical, but it is wrong to argue that Eucharistic ecclesiology does not allow for such an integration.30 It must be clarified that when speaking of Eucharistic ecclesiology, the Church is strictly identified with the liturgical event of the Eucharist and only by extension with institutional structures, such as eparchies, metropolises, patriarchates, and councils. The Church is a happening, a realization, a manifestation, and a constituting of the assembly as the body of Christ, and this as a result of the post-Pentecostal activity of the Holy Spirit. While such a sacramental understanding of Church as event may imply certain after-the-Eucharist conciliar structures, less clear is the role and mission of those structures, as well as the individual Christian, in the world. What is also absent is reflection on how Eucharistic celebrations in their lived realities do not feel like the manifestation of the type of communion that Zizioulas describes. The latter two weaknesses result from a lack of integration of the ascetical into the Eucharistic understanding of the Church. After the Eucharist, the Christian must enter the world in such a way as to ascetically struggle to learn how to love in the face of an Other that does not share

29 Aristotle Papanikolaou, “Integrating the Ascetical and the Eucharistic,” International Journal for the Study of the Christian Church 11, no. 2–3 (2011), 173–182. 30 Such a mutual interdependence is actually evident in the daily structure of services and prayers in the Eastern Orthodox tradition, all of which culminate in the morning and daily celebration of the Eucharist.

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her Orthodox presuppositions.31 This asceticism means that the faith is shared by persuasion and not by force, which means that the Orthodox Christian must inhabit a space with others who do not share her beliefs or presuppositions—a shared public political space.32 The political space is indeed distinct from the ecclesial, especially as it is one that would allow as one option among many the turn to belief in the non-existence of God. This “world,” then, is the arena for the Orthodox Christian’s ascetical struggle toward theosis. The first thing to notice is that asceticism is not limited to the monastery; if it is linked to the Christian transformation into a theotic and, thus, Eucharistic mode of being, then the “world” becomes a desert in which this ascetical struggle takes place. What differentiates the worldly space of ascetical struggle from the monastery is that the Christian must come face to face and learn to live, as well as love, the one who does not believe in Jesus Christ, or does not believe in Jesus Christ in the same way. One option for this Christian is to support a politics of truth, which means a politics in which truth is imposed politically, leading to the destruction of competitors or, at the very least, the exclusion of those who don’t accept these truths as full and equal citizens.33 The Orthodox were on the receiving end of such a politics of “truth” during the Ottoman and communist regimes. If theosis means to love the other as God loves, and if God does not force God’s creation to love God or even to obey God, what right do any humans have to impose such a politics of truth on those who don’t accept it? In engaging the Other, the Christian must learn to love the Other in all their Otherness. In so doing, they must learn to live with the Other, which means to interact in such a way so as to recognize the Other, and it is in this recognition that together they can facilitate groups, institutions, and governing structures that form a common world in which common goods are shared. The Christian “action” is to relate to others in a way that recognizes their equal dignity and in so doing forges a pluralistic political space. As Hannah Arendt has argued, “[w]hile all aspects of the human condition are somehow related to politics, this plurality is specifically the condition—not only the conditio sine qua non, but the conditio per quam—of all political life.”34 This interaction will inevitably lead to conflict,

31 See Aristotle Papanikolaou, “Theosis,” in The Oxford Handbook of Mystical Theology, ed. Edward Howells and Mark A.McIntosh (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020), 569– 585. 32 For further development of this point, see Aristotle Papanikolaou, The Mystical as Political: Democracy and Non-Radical Orthodoxy (South Bend, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2012). 33 On the meaning of the “politics of truth,” see Robin W. Lovin, Christian Realism and the New Realities (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), esp. 5. 34 Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition, 2nd edition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), 7, 220.

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but conflict need not entail violence.35 It may require acceptance, but it could also be productive in opening ways to imagine a more just and equal common world. This common world is not the Church, but in terms of ascetically acting so as to form relations and structures that maximize the conditions for the possibility of the manifestation of irreducibility, then such a pluralistic political space is analogous to the Church as a Eucharistic event. In short, a politics that is understood as part of asceticism is one that would maximize the conditions of pluralism so as to maximize irreducibility as an embodied experience; thus, such an asceticism would inevitably foster the ethos, groups, structures, institutions, and governance that is constitutive of civil society.36 Put another way, the ascetical practices for theosis are similar, if not often identical, to the practices required for forming, maintaining, and sustaining civil society. If a Christian asceticism of theosis is simultaneously a politics of civil society, then the institutional Church should relate to the world in such a way as to facilitate the practical results of such ascetical practices. First, it should recognize that its own leadership is subject to this ascetical rule. Second, the institutional Church does not relate as an institution to other individuals within a given local space, but rather to other groups and institutions, including the respective leaderships. Through these institutional interactions, both structural and personal, and through public declarations, the institutional churches wield potential cultural and social capital that has real effects on individuals. The end game of its own strategies and actions should not be a politics of truth, which could potentially result in unfreedoms and inequalities. The institutional Church should follow the lead of the ascetical Christian in forging relations that would strengthen civil society and, thus, relational patterns that realize the manifestation of irreducibility in the world. Such an approach comes at a cost—relinquishing religious nationalism, delinking religious and ethnic identity, and a reduction in institutional power—but, at least, the churches would finally resist the temptation of Judas.37

35 On the inevitability of conflict in politics, and how it is a constitutive aspect of civil society, see Lovin, Christian Realism and the New Realities, 84–151. 36 It would be worth discussing whether ascetical practices are the kind of “action” Arendt has in mind that, in distinction from labor and work, forge the political as a pluralistic space of Others. See Arendt, The Human Condition (see n. 34). 37 Pantelis Kalaitzidis, “Church and National Identities,” Greek Orthodox Theological Review 47, no. 1–4 (2002), 357–379.

Church and State in Orthodox Christianity: Two Versions of Symphonia Nathaniel Wood Since the collapse of communism in Eastern and Southeastern Europe, Orthodox Christianity has returned to national and international political influence, sparking new interest in the Orthodox churches’ role in public life and their relationship to political power. The topic has drawn the attention not only of scholars in the social sciences but also of Orthodox theologians, who have become increasingly aware of the need for Orthodoxy to address contemporary questions of “political theology” from a constructive standpoint, including the question of church-state relations. Many have observed that, compared to the Catholic and Protestant traditions, Orthodox political theology is woefully underdeveloped.1 This is particularly true with respect to the theology of church and state. For most of its history, Orthodox political theology has upheld, in some form, the ideal of a free partnership between church and state. This ideal, articulated in the Byzantine notion of symphonia or church-state “harmony,” has left a deep and lasting impression on Orthodox theopolitical imagination. Its basic assumptions could go mostly unchallenged as long as most of the world’s Orthodox Christians lived under confessionally Orthodox monarchies. Even after the fall of those monarchies, Orthodox Christians’ subjection to ideological rivals—whether Muslim Ottomans or militantly atheist Soviets—forestalled much fundamental rethinking of the theology of church and state. It is Orthodoxy’s more recent encounter with Western models of secularization and state neutrality towards religious and moral values that has called the old assumptions of the symphonia model into question. However, apart from a few sporadic individual efforts, the Orthodoxy has not yet developed a renewed theology of church-state relations that responds systematically to the challenges of secularization and the pluralism of values. The development of such a theology will be crucial if Orthodox churches and communities are to discern how to respond faithfully and responsibility to the face of new political and cultural realities. The question of church-state relations is also pressed onto Orthodox Christians by broad theological themes internal to the tradition. In theological perspective, the scope of the church’s mission in the world is universal, involving the transmission of the gospel to all nations and the sanctification of all dimensions of human life. This is because the meaning of Christ’s incarnation is universal, an 1

Pantelis Kalaitzidis, Orthodoxy and Political Theology, trans. Fr. Gregory Edwards [Doxa and Praxis: Exploring Orthodox Theology Series] (Geneva: World Council of Churches, 2012).

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eschatological promise that God will be “all in all,” the heart of the Orthodox doctrine of deification or theosis.2 If this approach to Orthodox theology is correct, then it might follow that Orthodoxy has no choice but to contemplate politics through the lens of an eschatological hope for the “churching” of the world.3 Orthodox theology would admit no domain of human life and no sphere of human activity that will not be drawn into the life of the church, since “the ecclesial and the political communities will eventually coincide.”4 This perspective raises a host of questions about how the church should relate to the political order here and now, prior to the eschaton. Fundamentally, the question is whether the Orthodox Churches could engage in political activity in a way that anticipates the world’s “churching” within the context of the modern secular state. Orthodoxy therefore must articulate a theological account of the significance of the state in relation to the church’s mission. What, from an Orthodox perspective, is the proper relationship between the state authority and the work of the church? Are there aspects of church’s mission that call for church-state cooperation, and if so, what form should such cooperation take? Should the state act as a champion of Orthodoxy, protecting the church and explicitly promoting its moral values domestically and/or abroad? Or should the state instead direct its activity exclusively towards non-sectarian goods such as security and material welfare, human rights, and personal freedoms, which in their own way advance the church’s mission, even if only “anonymously”? In short, can there be an Orthodox Christian politics without a Christian state? The present chapter considers two potential paradigms for an Orthodox theology of church-state relations: that of a “church with a state” and a “stateless” church. The chapter examines the paradigms by comparing the in many ways rival political visions of the two most powerful Orthodox patriarchates: Constantinople and Moscow. Both Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew and Patriarch Kirill of 2

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For a broad overview of the sources and interpretation of the doctrine of theosis, see Theosis: Deification in Christian Theology, vol. 1, ed. Stephen Finlan and Vladimir Kharlamov (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2006). For more on the connection between theosis and political theology, see Aristotle Papanikolaou, The Mystical as Political: Democracy and Non-Radical Orthodoxy (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2012), and Nathaniel Wood, “Deifying Democracy: Liberalism and the Politics of Theosis,” Ph.D. dissertation, Fordham University (May 2017). The politics of “churching” the world has been developed most profoundly by Vladimir Soloviev and Sergius Bulgakov. See, for example, Vladimir Soloviev, The Justification of the Good: An Essay on Moral Philosophy, ed. Boris Jakim and trans. Nathalie Duddington (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), and essays by Bulgakov in Sergii Bulgakov: Towards a Russian Political Theology, ed. Rowan Williams (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1999). Alexander Kyrlezhev, “On the Possibility/Impossibility of an Eastern Orthodox Political Theology,” in Political Theologies in Orthodox Christianity: Common Challenges – Divergent Positions, ed. Kristina Stoeckl, Ingeborg Gabriel and Aristotle Papanikolaou (London and New York: T&T Clark, 2017), 182.

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Moscow have invoked the doctrine of symphonia as relevant for Orthodox Christian politics in the 21st century. However, the political situations of the two patriarchates differ vastly, and these differences appear in the specific ways each employs symphonia. In Moscow’s case, the Russian Orthodox Church has reemerged from more than seventy years of Soviet repression with renewed opportunities for influencing political and social life in Russia—and it has pursued those opportunities with vigor. Since the turn of the new millennium, with the appearance of the Bases of the Social Concept of the Russian Orthodox Church (discussed by Hurskainen and Elsner in this volume), the Moscow Patriarchate has called for explicit cooperation between the church and the Russian government on issues such as public moral formation, the defense and promotion of Russian culture, and the development of legislative agendas. Moscow thus represents a contemporary approach to Orthodox politics that remains attached to the basic notion of Orthodoxy as a “church with a state”—and one with international influence, hearkening back to the old Byzantine and later Muscovite notion of the emperor as political head of all Christians. Symphonia has made a comeback in Russia, though not as an exact transplantation of Byzantine or Muscovite political theory but as the adaptation of an enduring political-theological trope to a changed political context. Constantinople also has sought to bring symphonia into the modern world. Yet the political situation of Ecumenical Patriarchate is very different from that of Moscow. If the Russian Orthodox Church resembles a “church with a state,” then the Church of Constantinople is a “stateless” church. Since the fall of the Byzantine Empire to the Ottomans in the 1453, Constantinople has not enjoyed the privilege of its former relationship to imperial power. The patriarchate did assume a host of administrative and legal functions as ethnarch of the Orthodox Christian community under the Ottoman millet system, but it did so as subject to an Islamic empire that was, at best, indifferent to the church’s mission. Today, the temporal authority of the Ecumenical Patriarchate is all but non-existent. The patriarchate occupies the precarious position of a tiny, shrinking religious minority in an increasingly illiberal Turkey,5 while the overwhelming majority of Orthodox faithful under its jurisdiction live outside Turkey, either in its canonical territories in Greece or in Western diaspora. Constantinople is a church without a state, with a significant portion of its flock living in Orthodox-minority secular liberal democracies. In this situation, Constantinople has revised symphonia in a way that more fully detaches it from the old “church with a state” paradigm and offers an approach to Orthodox social action that differs sharply from that of

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As few as 5,000 Orthodox Christians under the jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate currently live in Turkey. Stefan Dege, “Christians in Turkey Are Second-Class Citizens,” Deutsche Welle (2014), https://www.dw.com/en/christians-in-turkey-are-second-class-citi zens/a-17619847.

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Moscow. The differences between these two approaches become especially apparent in relation to issues surround liberalism, secularism, and human rights.

Orthodoxy’s Symphonic Heritage In the beginning, of course, the church had no relationship to state power. There are some political theologians in the West, such as those who have been influenced by the Anabaptist tradition, who have taken the marginalized position of the New Testament church as normative for Christian politics, lamenting the “Constantinian” alliance of Christian politics with the politics of the state. For these theologians, the normative relationship between the church and the state is primarily one of tension. The church carries out the “political” aspect of its mission not through state action but rather by cultivating communities of virtue and peace beyond the state’s violence—the church as a counter-polis.6 For many in the Orthodox East, however, “Constantinian” is not a dirty word, and the conversion of Rome was not a fall from the original purity of the New Testament church but progress towards the redemption of the social order. Predominantly, the Orthodox have viewed the church’s natural relationship to the state not as one of tension but of cooperation. There are historical reasons for this tendency, having to do with the imperial context in which Orthodox political theology evolved, which differed in important ways from the Latin West. After the Roman Empire fell in the West, the church there found itself in an environment without any stable, centralized political organization. Consequently, the Western Church assumed for itself many of the political and social functions once conducted by the empire, acting as a sort of quasi-state and, as a result, often finding itself in competition with the emerging political powers over the scope and boundaries of their respective spheres and, ultimately, over the supremacy of spiritual versus temporal authority. It is natural, then, that Western political theology would develop a stronger perception of the church as an ecclesial society confronting the state as a potentially hostile foreign power. This sense of confrontation between church and state never became dominant in the East, a fact celebrated by some contemporary Orthodox, including Patriarch Kirill of Moscow.7 In the East, the Orthodox Church existed for roughly eleven centuries as the established church 6

7

For example: John Howard Yoder, The Politics of Jesus (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1972), and Stanley Hauerwas and William H. Willimon, Resident Aliens: A Provocative Christian Assessment of Culture and Ministry for People Who Know that Something is Wrong (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1989). Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, “God’s Plan for Man and Free Will,” in Freedom and Responsibility: A Search for Harmony—Human Rights and Personal Dignity, trans. Michael Lomax, Basil Bush and the Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 2011), 39–50.

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of the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire. Accordingly, Byzantine Christians could take for granted the existence of a strong and relatively stable political order headed by an emperor who, at least in principle, was a friend of the church and a champion of the faith. The Byzantine emperor “was perceived as part of the church hierarchy and could be perceived as a man of the church.”8 Disputes did arise between emperors and bishops, but these were perceived less as conflicts between two rival alien powers than as “intramural” quarrels within a single social body. This background helped to enshrine the “church with a state” paradigm as predominant throughout the history of Orthodox political theology. In mainstream Orthodox understanding, the church is not a political sovereignty in its own right directly wielding temporal power (not a “church as a state”), but, at least theoretically, the church should rely on the cooperation of state power in carrying out its mission. The state, in turn, is legitimized in connection with this mission. However, despite its prevalence, this paradigm has not really been elaborated as a coherent, systematic theory of the political order. There are historical reasons for this: precisely because the Orthodox Churches have mainly relied on temporal rulers to look after the social and political needs of the realm, they have not felt the same urgency as the Western churches to develop their own comprehensive theory of the state.9 Instead, as John Anthony McGuckin suggests, Byzantine political theology was expressed through a set of recurring theological tropes employed in different ways and in somewhat of an ad hoc fashion across the centuries, depending on the specific ways in which particular emperors involved themselves with ecclesiastical matters.10 The same holds true for the migration of these tropes into other Orthodox nations like Russia, which neither exactly copied Byzantine models of church-state relations nor maintained a consistent theory throughout its political evolution. The most central of these tropes include the notion of symphonia along with some accompanying ideas: the priestly/apostolic status of the emperor, the earthly mirroring of the heavenly Kingdom, and the universality of the empire—all of which combined within a theological mindset that framed the partnership of church and empire within the divine economy of salvation. The malleability of these tropes has allowed the ideal of church-state cooperation to persist, like a meme, by adapting itself to different contexts, and 8

Boris Uspenskii and Victor Zhivov, “Tsar and God: Semiotic Aspects of the Sacralization of the Monarch in Russia,” in “Tsar and God” and Other Essays in Russian Cultural Semiotics, ed. Marcus C. Levitt (Brighton, MA: Academic Studies Press, 2012), 11. 9 Vasilios N. Makrides, “Political Theology in Orthodox Christian Contexts: Specificities and Particularities in Comparison with Western Latin Christianity,” in Stoeckl, Gabriel, and Papanikolaou, Political Theologies (see n. 4), 25–54. 10 John A. McGuckin, “The Legacy of the 13th Apostle: Origins of the East Christian Conceptions of Church and State Relation,” St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 47, no. 3–4 (2003), 271.

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has made it possible for symphonia, the “heart of Byzantine political theology,”11 to outlive the Christian empire in which it was born. The enduring allure of the “church with a state” paradigm is also rooted in the broader commitments of Orthodox theology noted above, including the doctrine of deification and what it entails. Deification lends itself to an integrated vision of nature and grace, of creation and salvation. Orthodox soteriology perceives the whole life of the human person—as a physical, spiritual, and social being—as destined for transfiguration through communion with God. Thus, even while Orthodox practice has often come to be associated with an escape from the world, this is at odds with a theology that perceives deification as a union of the material and the spiritual and even an interpenetration (perichoresis) of God and creation grounded in the theanthropic identity of the incarnate Christ. In keeping with this perspective, Orthodox theology as a rule does not partition the world into unrelated “sacred” and “profane” domains that are indifferent to each other—such would be theologically incoherent. Instead, Orthodox theology tends to perceive all dimensions of human life, including the sociopolitical, as being “caught up in God’s work of the deification of humanity.”12 It does not relegate the political to a separate territory outside the economy of salvation; rather, the political is enfolded in God’s deifying work. The political order, like every other sphere of activity, becomes a possible instrument and mediator of divine grace. Such commitments lend themselves to a theological framing of political history. Some Church Fathers had already begun to ascribe providential significance to the Roman Empire before there was any expectation of its Christianization. Origen is a noteworthy example here, having interpreted the rise of the empire and the peace of Augustus through a providential lens in a way that would be echoed repeatedly in later theological and liturgical texts: the universality of the Roman monarchy facilitated the spread of the Gospel among the nations, thereby securing the conditions for the church’s apostolic mission.13 There is already a perception here that, despite its paganism, the political order exists in some sense for the church. This general theme—that the pagan political order unwittingly serves God’s purposes—has biblical roots, appearing for instance in St. Paul’s assertion that the governing authorities exist to mediate divine justice against wrongdoers (Rom. 13:1-7) as well as in the grand arc of the Old Testament narrative of Yahweh’s making use of pagan kingdoms in his dealings with the people of Israel, sovereignly propping up kingdoms and pulling them down as

11 McGuckin, “The Legacy of the 13th Apostle” (see n. 10), 285. 12 John Anthony McGuckin, The Ascent of Christian Law: Patristic and Byzantine Formulations of a New Civilization (Yonkers, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2012), 253. 13 See the discussion in Erik Peterson, “Monotheism as a Political Problem,” in Theological Tractates, trans. and ed. Michael J. Hollerich (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2011).

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instruments of judgment or liberation for the covenant people.14 However, any linkage between the empire and the church’s mission before Constantine appears solely from the standpoint of divine providence rather than deliberate cooperation, and so properly speaking it is not yet a theology of church-state relations. The situation changed dramatically with the conversion of Constantine, when theologians like Eusebius of Caesarea transformed God’s providential use of temporal powers into an explicit partnership between church and empire.15 From this perspective, Constantine’s conversion advanced politics into a new stage of providential history, one marked by a more conscious co-activity of the divine and the human. When Constantine defeated his rivals for the imperial throne, Eusebius depicted him as the vanquisher of God’s enemies and as liberator of the once-persecuted church, as Moses had been for the Israelites16—but now this was a role the emperor willingly embraced. The new political theology gave the church-state partnership ontological weight: the symphonic harmony between the empire and the church was founded on a more fundamental harmony between the earthly political order and the heavenly Kingdom. As a Christian emperor, then, Constantine had assumed the role of God’s “viceroy”;17 he became the earthly steward and image of God’s “heavenly sovereignty,” one who governs the earthly society “according to the pattern of the divine original.”18 The Orthodox belief in creation’s participation in the divine is reflected strongly here; there is a deification of the political order underway, both in the sacralization of the emperor and in the redirecting of the emperor’s responsibilities towards bringing God’s Kingdom to earth. This sort of participatory ontology of political power would only be intensified as it made its way into Muscovite Rus, where the very title of “tsar” was intended to link the ruler not only to the Roman Empire but also to God the Heavenly Tsar.19 The tsar became “nothing but a living and visible image, that is, a living image of the very King of Heaven”; for him, “[t]he higher kingdom 14 For more on the political theological significance of God’s sovereignty over world empires in the Hebrew Bible, see Oliver O’Donovan, The Desire of the Nations: Rediscovering the Roots of Political Theology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 30–81. 15 Devin Singh, “Eusebius as a Political Theologian: The Legend Continues,” Harvard Theological Review 108, no. 1 (2015), 129–154; Peter R. Brown, “Constantine, Eusebius, and the Future of Christianity,” St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 57, no. 2 (2013), 117–133; F. Edward Cranz, “Kingdom and Polity in Eusebius of Caesarea,” Harvard Theological Review 45, no. 1 (1952), 47–66. 16 Claudia Rapp, “Imperial Ideology in the Making: Eusebius of Caesarea on Constantine as ‘Bishop’,” Journal of Theological Studies 49 (1998), 685–695. 17 Steven Runciman, The Byzantine Theocracy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), 26–50. 18 Eusebius of Caesarea, “A Speech for the Thirtieth Anniversary of Constantine’s Accession,” trans. E. C. Richardson, in From Irenaeus to Grotius: A Sourcebook in Christian Political Thought, ed. Oliver O’Donovan and Joan Lockwood O’Donovan (Grand Rapids, MI, and Cambridge, UK: William B. Eerdmans, 1999), 60. 19 Uspenskii and Zhivov, “Tsar and God” (see n. 8), 5–8.

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served as a standard, a token of a perfect idea, which the Orthodox ruler must invariably follow.”20 In truth, to speak of “church-state relations” within this framework is something of a misnomer, a “philological error” as Steven Runciman put it.21 Orthodox political theology in the Byzantine-Russian tradition generally did not frame the empire and church as two separate realities that needed to “relate” to each other. The conversion of political power relocated it inside the church, transforming earthly rule into “a form of ecclesiastical service”22—hence the blending of ecclesiastical and political language, such as seen in Eusebius’s description of Constantine as a “universal bishop.”23 Imperial and ecclesiastical authority were two distinct ministries of one movement of society towards deification. Symphonia should be understood, according to Meyendorff, not as “a harmony between two powers or between two distinct societies, the Church and the State; rather, it is meant to represent the internal cohesion of a single human society, for whose orderly welfare on earth the emperor alone is responsible.” Church and empire are “one single body of the faithful administered by a two-fold, God-given hierarchy.”24 The result of symphonic theology was to link the political order’s raison d’être to the work of the deification, and thus to the church’s mission. As such, the emperor had special obligations towards the church, upon which his divine authority rested. His first and primary duty was “protecting and sheltering the Church, which alone could give legitimacy to his imperial claims and reality to his responsibilities, as the promoter of the apostolic faith and the guardian of Christian truth in the life of human society.”25 The purpose of the emperor’s duties to the church, though, was the promotion of the welfare of society towards which the activities of both church and empire were directed. Justinian in his sixth Novella affirmed that symphonia is for the good of society: There are two greatest gifts which God, in his love for man, has granted from on high: the priesthood and the imperial dignity. The first serves divine things, the second directs and administers human affairs; both, however, proceed from the same origin and adorn the life of mankind. Hence, nothing should be such a source of care to the 20 Natalia Koptseva and Alexandra A. Sitnikova, “The Historical Basis for the Understanding of a State in Modern Russia: A Case Study Based on Analysis of Components in the Concept of a State, Established between the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries,” International Journal for the Semiotics of Law 32 (2019), 68. 21 Runciman, Byzantine Theocracy (see n. 17), 9. 22 V. V. Zenkovsky, A History of Russian Philosophy, vol. 1, trans. George L. Kline (New York: Columbia University Press, 1953), 37. 23 Rapp, “Imperial Theology” (see n. 16), 685. 24 John Meyendorff, “Justinian, the Empire and the Church,” in Personalities of the Early Church, ed. Everett Ferguson (New York: Garland Publishing, 1993), 49. 25 John Meyendorff, Byzantium and the Rise of Russia (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1989), 11.

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emperors as the dignity of the priests, since it is for the [imperial] welfare that they constantly implore God. For if the priesthood is in every way free from blame and possesses access to God, and if the emperors administer equitably and judiciously the state entrusted to their care, general harmony will result, and whatever is beneficial will be bestowed upon the human race.26

Symphonia assigns church and state separate spheres of activity: the clergy look after “divine things,” while the emperor attends to “human affairs.” These two spheres, though distinct, converge in the integral material-spiritual welfare of society, and ultimately aim towards its deification. The political and the ecclesial are harmonized in relation to this common telos; therefore, the difference between their activities does not entail either’s indifference towards the other, hence the church’s responsibility to pray for the welfare of the empire, and the emperor’s responsibility to assist the church, by means of temporal power, in the promotion of Orthodox faith through, e.g., the calling of ecumenical councils and the enforcement of their resolutions. What is more, the emperor had a responsibility to assist the church in the moral improvement of society; the church’s moral instruction was to be reinforced through law. Consider the words of John Chrysostom: If you find he [the ruler] assists you, why would you not be subject to him? Besides, he makes virtue easier for you by meting out punishment to the wicked, rewards and honor to the good, and cooperating with God’s will; which is why Paul calls him God’s ‘minister.’ Consider: I give you advice about responsible behavior, and he supports that advice through laws. I urge that it is wrong to cheat and steal, and he holds assizes to deal with just those activities. There are two points there that demand respect: that he is sent by God, and that it is for this purpose.27

Church and state act in different ways, but their activities are coordinated for the promotion of justice and virtue; and it is cooperation, Chrysostom suggests, that legitimates the emperor’s authority. This notion of coordinated activity on moral issues is at the heart of contemporary reiterations of symphonia by both Moscow and Constantinople, and, as we see below, it is a source of significant tension between the Moscow Patriarchate and Western liberalism, with its purported neutrality on issues of personal morality. The persistent application of symphonic tropes over the centuries firmly entrenched the “church with a state” paradigm within the Orthodox mind. Many Orthodox came to believe that the church needs temporal authority as its partner, that the fate of the church itself is caught up with the fate of the empire. This belief is perhaps seen most clearly in a letter from the late Byzantine era, written by Patriarch Anthony of Constantinople to the Grand Prince of Moscow. The letter 26 Quoted in John Meyendorff, Byzantine Theology: Historical Trends and Doctrinal Themes (New York: Fordham University Press, 1979), 213. 27 John Chrysostom, “Twenty-Fourth Homily on Romans,” in O’Donovan and Lockwood O’Donovan, From Irenaeus to Grotius (see n. 18), 94.

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dates from the final decade of the 14th century, when most Orthodox Christians lived outside the shrunken Byzantine territory. Nonetheless, the patriarch staunchly defends the necessity of the empire (to the extent that it could anymore be called one), invoking the longstanding idea that the emperor is the rightful political head of all Christians, whether under his de facto rule or not. The patriarch writes: The holy emperor has a great place in the church, for he is not like other rulers or governors of other regions. This is so because from the beginning the emperors established and confirmed the faith in all the inhabited world…For this reason the emperors enjoy great honor and position in the Church, for even if, by God’s permission, the nations have constricted the authority and domain of the emperor, still to this day the emperor possesses the same charge from the church and the same rank and the same prayers. The basileus is anointed with the great myrrh and is appointed basileus and autokrator of the Romans, and indeed of all Christians. […] Therefore, my son, you are wrong to affirm that we have the church without an Emperor, for it is impossible for Christians to have a church and no empire. The Basileia (empire) and the church have a great unity and community—indeed they cannot be separated.28

For the patriarch, even the fading of the empire’s power does not prompt any fundamental change in political theology. The quote text illustrates one of the temptations of the political theological tradition the patriarch had inherited. The pre-Constantinian providential discourse on Rome, bolstered by the Eusebian discourse on the earthly mirroring of the heavenly Kingdom, nurtured the conviction that it was this empire that actualized the Kingdom of God on earth. Orthodox political theology lost its sense of “eschatological reserve,” the experience of the Kingdom as something future, something “not yet,” and so the success of the church’s mission, even its very existence, was perceived as dependent on the empire’s preservation. The church became wedded to the idea of Rome. Even still, this trope proved to be as adaptable as the others, as the material embodiment of the Kingdom would later migrate to Russia as the Third Rome and New Israel, which shaped Russian perspectives on the divine sanction of the earthly monarch and the “holy people” over which he ruled.29 Thus there appear in Russia sentiments echoing Patriarch Anthony’s belief in the necessity of empire, such as the statement by canonist N. S. Suvorov: “The bulwark of the Orthodox Church

28 “Letter of Patriarch Anthony,” in Byzantium: Church, Society, and Civilization Seen Through Contemporary Eyes, ed. Deno John Geanakoplos (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1984), 143. 29 For discussion of the limits of the “Third Rome” metaphor in Russia compared to the prevalence of theological parallels between tsarist and Old Testament rule, see Daniel B. Rowland, God, Tsar & People: The Political Culture of Early Modern Russia (Ithaca and London: Northern Illinois University Press, 2020), 155–187.

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in Russia can only be Imperial power, with whose fall no most holy patriarch will be able to save the Russian Orthodox Church from disintegration.”30 The era of Christian empires may be over, but the centuries of confusion between earthly empires and the Kingdom of God have left their mark on Orthodox political theology, which has been described by Pantelis Kalaitzidis. Orthodox political theology tends to function, in the vein of Carl Schmitt, as a legitimation of the state.31 Although there were theoretical mechanisms within both Byzantine and Russian theology for the removal of emperors who betrayed their divine calling, Orthodox political theology has been overwhelmingly “conservative” in orientation, in that it has tended to affirm existing systems of power. It has not developed a strong tradition of “prophetic” political theology that is radically critical of the current order, as became common in 20th-century Western Christianity.32 Even when Orthodox thinkers have denounced the actions of specific rulers, Orthodox political theology has offered few resources for systemic critique and reform. Perhaps worst is the fact that the Orthodox Church was stunted in its development as an independent contributor to the good of society and has only just begun to consider seriously how it might work towards social transfiguration without becoming entangled with the state. Symphonia, in some variation or another, continued to occupy a central place in Orthodox political theology into the contemporary era. It was taken for granted even in some of the most original and progressive Orthodox political theologies that appeared in Russian in the fertile period before the revolution of 1917, such as the “free theocracy” of Vladimir Soloviev. Although Soloviev’s political theology was strongly critical of historical expressions of Christian theocracy,33 it still presupposed an official alliance between church and state as the normative form of Orthodox politics—in this case, for the promotion of “liberal” causes such as human dignity and the freedom of individual conscience.34 Political theologies like Soloviev’s do, however, demonstrate the plasticity of the symphonia trope. The basic commitment to Orthodoxy as a public faith and to some type of church30 N. S. Suvorov, Zhurnaly i protokoly zasedanii Vysochaishe uchrezhdennogo Predsobornogo Prisutstviia, vol. 1 (St. Petersburg, 1906), 203; quoted in Uspenskii and Zhivov, “Tsar and God” (see n. 8), 79. 31 Carl Schmitt, Political Theology: Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty, trans. George Schwab (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005); for Kalaitzidis’s discussion of Orthodox political theology in relation to Schmitt, see Kalaitzidis, Orthodoxy and Political Theology (see n. 1), 15–44. 32 Kalaitzidis, Orthodoxy and Political Theology (see n. 1), 65–80. 33 Vladimir Soloviev, “On the Decline of the Medieval Worldview,” in Freedom, Faith, and Dogma: Essays by V. S. Soloviev on Christianity and Judaism, trans. and ed. Vladimir Wozniuk (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2008), 159–170. 34 This is especially true in his work in the 1880s but remained to a lesser extent until his death. See Vladimir Soloviev, Russia and the Universal Church, trans. Herbert Rees (London: Geoffrey Bles, 1948).

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state cooperation for the improvement of society remained, but recast in a more liberal and humanistic frame, one shaped by encounter with modernity. Symphonia likewise remains operative in the official documents and activities of the Orthodox Churches. In the post-communist setting, it has been especially important as a means for Orthodox countries to reestablish a sense of connection to their religious heritage and to assert their freedom to reengage with the public sphere on their own terms.35 Positive appeals to symphonia have been made by the current patriarchs of both Moscow and Constantinople. In both cases, the symphonia trope has been revitalized for a new setting. Neither Constantinople nor Moscow aims to reinstate a Byzantine or Muscovite imperial model. However, the two patriarchates have reconfigured symphonia in different ways that lend themselves to different models of social action and that reflect different postures towards secularization, pluralism, liberalism, and human rights. Whereas Moscow’s symphonia refashions the “church with a state” paradigm for the 21st century, seeking strong links between church and state, Constantinople’s appeals to symphonia point towards the possibility of Christian social action in liberal democratic contexts that does not depend on privileged status or formal partnership with the state. The remainder of this chapter will examine these two approaches in more detail.

Symphonia in Moscow In February of 2009, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev celebrated Kirill’s patriarchal enthronement as a new opportunity for “fully fledged […] dialogue between the Russian Orthodox Church and the state” and praised the church’s contributions to “building Russian statehood, developing its national culture and affirming spiritual and moral values in society.”36 The newly-enthroned patriarch echoed the president’s words, calling for church-state collaboration as an Orthodox ideal, a desire repeated again a few days later by Bishop Ilarion (Alfeiev), the church’s representative to European institutions.37 Such statements reflect a hope that had already been formalized by the Moscow Patriarchate nearly a decade earlier in the 2000 document Bases of the Social Concept of the Russian Orthodox Church,38 with significant input from 35 Lucian N. Leustean, “The Concept of Symphonia in Contemporary European Orthodoxy,” International Journal for the Study of the Christian Church 11, no. 2–3 (2011), 197. 36 Quoted in Robert C. Blitt, “One New President, One New Patriarch, and a Generous Disregard for the Constitution: A Recipe for the Continuing Decline of Secular Russia,” Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law 43, no. 5 (2010), 1343. 37 Leustean, “The Concept” (see n. 35), 188. 38 Russian Orthodox Church, Bases of the Social Concept of the Russian Orthodox Church, https://mospat.ru/en/documents/social-concepts/.

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Kirill and Bishop Ilarion. The document (also discussed in this volume by Elsner and Hurskainen), which is the most significant effort of the post-Soviet church to formulate an official social teaching, acknowledges the reality of church-state separation enshrined in the 1993 Russian Constitution.39 To a degree, it recognizes the freedom granted to the church by the new arrangement as an improvement on the past, where the symphonia concept had been twisted in a way that subjugated the church to the Russian state, as in Peter the Great’s dissolution of the patriarchal rank. The document stresses the distinction between church and state: In church-state relations, the difference in their natures should be taken into account. The Church has been founded by God Himself, our Lord Jesus Christ, while the Godinstituted nature of state power is revealed in historical process only indirectly. The goal of the Church is the eternal salvation of people, while the goal of state is their well-being on earth.40

It advocates for “mutual non-interference” between church and state with respect to each other’s internal affairs. However, it would not be accurate to say, as Kristina Stoeckl does, that there is “a break with the long tradition of the symphonic model of church-state relations.”41 Rather, it presents a “potpourri of various ingredients” of symphonia, and the very suggestion that symphonia was “distorted” in Russian and Byzantine history implies that there is a “correct” implementation of the concept—which the church now seeks to execute.42 Although the document guards more carefully against state involvement in the church than Byzantine and Muscovite political theology did, and even though then-Metropolitan Kirill at the time emphatically rejected the idea of the Russian Orthodox Church as an official state church,43 extensive church-state cooperation is still taken as the ideal. One locus of that cooperation was to be the public promotion of certain “moral norms” that allegedly are necessary both for public welfare and for human being’s salvation. Centered on these moral norms, then, the “tasks and work of the Church and the state may coincide not only in seeking purely earthly welfare, but also in the fulfilment of the salvific mission of the Church.”44 Therefore, despite lip service to church-state separation, it is fair to say that the understanding of church-state relations “is not one of separation, but instead the bridging of the two entities. The claim to extensive areas of cooperation […] allows the 39 “Constitution of the Russian Federation,” http://www.constitution.ru/en/10003000–01.htm. 40 Social Concept (see n. 38), III. 3. 41 Kristina Stoeckl, “European Integration and Russian Orthodoxy: Two Multiple Modernities Perspectives,” in Multiple Modernities and Postsecular Societies, ed. Massimo Rosati and Kristina Stoeckl (London and New York: Routledge, 2012), 99–100. 42 Mikhail Antonov, “The Varieties of Symphonia and the Church-State Relations in Russia,” Oxford Journal of Law and Religion 9, no. 3 (2020), 552–570. 43 Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad, “The Russian Orthodox Church and the Third Millennium,” Ecumenical Review, 52, no. 3 (2000), 306. 44 Social Concept (see n. 38), III. 3.

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Orthodox Church a prominent political role, as envisaged in the symphonic ideal.”45 And despite formal constitutional church-state separation, the fact that the church claims a “right” to expect that the state’s partnerships with religious groups consider the number of that group’s adherents and its historical contributions to national culture (ibid., III.6), gives it de facto privilege over other religious institutions. Such privilege is on display in the 1997 law “On Freedom of Conscience and Associations,” which gave preferential treatment to “traditional” religious groups and imposed restrictions on religious minorities and foreign missionaries.46 Some of the proposed areas of church-state cooperation in Bases of the Social Concept (ibid., III.8) are not different from those found in many secular democracies and are, in principle, compatible with a robust (but not aggressively secularist) church-state separation: peacemaking, social welfare, healthcare, environmental preservation. As we see below, these are areas in which the Ecumenical Patriarchate also advocates for church-state cooperation. Other areas have lent themselves more readily to the erosion of church-state separation: “the preservation of morality in society”; “spiritual, cultural, moral, and patriotic education and formation”; “opposition to pseudo-religious structures presenting a threat to the individual and society.” Furthermore, one area in which there should not be church-state cooperation according to the document—“waging civil war or aggressive external war”—has, since the start of the Ukraine crisis, ceased to hold in practice. The international dimension is crucial to the Moscow Patriarchate’s current approach to symphonia. As shown above, there was always an international aspect to symphonia starting in the Byzantine system due to its association with the empire. In contemporary Russia, this international aspect operates in at least two related ways, both ironically illustrating the fundamentally parochial character of contemporary Russian symphonia, and both feeding into what Cyril Hovorun refers to as Russia’s “civilizational nationalism.”47 One aspect is essentially defensive, focused on the perceived encroachment of Western values into Russia and territories historically under its cultural and ecclesiastical influence. For the Moscow Patriarchate, this issue centers on the global spread of liberalism. Patriarch Kirill has criticized Western liberalism consistently over the past two decades, with many of his addresses on the topic collected in the volume Freedom and Responsibility. The “clash between the liberal model of civilization” and “national cultural and religious identity” is in his estimation “the single largest challenge facing the human community in the 45 Zoe Knox, “The Symphonic Ideal: The Moscow Patriarchate’s Post-Soviet Leadership,” Europe-Asia Studies 55, no. 4 (2003), 582. 46 Knox, “The Symphonic Ideal” (see n. 45), 583–86. 47 Cyril Hovorun, Political Orthodoxies: The Unorthodoxies of the Church Coerced (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2018), 165–175.

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twenty-first century.” Globalization has removed the barriers that “protect nations’ spiritual health and their religious and historical identity from the expansion of alien, destructive social and cultural factors” which have their basis in “liberal ideas, combining with pagan anthropocentrism.”48 At the heart of the problem is liberalism’s endorsement of radical individualism and unlimited freedom, unmoored from moral responsibility, expressed in the liberal theory of human rights. The appeal to “moral norms” as a locus of church-state collaboration in Bases of the Social Concept thus sheds light on the character of contemporary Russian symphonia: it is fundamentally an anti-liberal project. It is not strictly speaking anti-modern, but reflects a sort of “conservative aggiornamento,”49 a transformative encounter between tradition and modernity that steers modern concepts in a more traditionalist direction. The patriarchate has pursued a strategy of reworking liberal concepts to eliminate contradictions with its conception of “moral norms” or “traditional values,” as seen most prominently in the 2008 follow-up to Bases of the Social Concept, The Russian Orthodox Church’s Basic Teaching on Human Dignity, Freedom, and Rights, which coopts human rights language in order to restrict individual expressions of freedom that go against community, cultural norms, or religious sentiment.50 This strategy has allowed the patriarchate’s work to align with the government’s suspicion towards Western encroachment. It has also enabled the patriarchate to exert international influence by actively promoting “traditional values” abroad.51 A second international aspect of 20th-century Russian symphonia is the Russkii mir or “Russian World” ideology (discussed by Rousselet in this volume), the aspect that most strongly hearkens back to the imperial character of Byzantine symphonia. The Russian state and church have understood the Russkii mir idea and its significance in different ways, but their interests have aligned. From the state’s perspective, Russkii mir was to serve as a tool of soft power mainly associated with the promotion of a shared “Russian civilization” among speakers of the Russian language in neighboring states. It became an official program of the Russian state with the 2007 establishment of the Russkii Mir Foundation.52 The language of a “Russian World” entered the church lexicon two years later in a

48 Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, “Religious Faith as the Source of Social Norms,” in Freedom and Responsibility (see n. 7), chapter 1, 5–6. 49 This concept is developed by Kristina Stoeckl and Dmitry Uzlaner in their The Moralist International: Russia in the Global Culture Wars (New York: Fordham University Press, 2022). 50 Russian Orthodox Church, The Russian Orthodox Church’s Basic Teaching on Human Dignity, Freedom, and Rights. https://old.mospat.ru/en/documents/dignity-freedom-rights/. 51 Kristina Stoeckl, “The Russian Orthodox Church as Moral Norm Entrepreneur,” Religion, State & Society 44, no. 2 (2016), 132–151. 52 The foundation’s website is available at http://russkiymir.ru.

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speech by Patriarch Kirill, wherein he imbued the term with a religious significance by linking it to the concept of Holy Rus.53 The patriarch’s use of this language links Russkii mir to the old notion that Russia has a “unique and exalted role in the economy of salvation,” that it—following Constantinople’s decline— is the last faithful guardian of world Orthodoxy (thus related to the “Third Rome” idea).54 However, it also recalls the Christianization of Kievan Rus’ and the baptism of Vladimir the Great (in Crimea), affirming a spiritual unity among Kiev’s successors and justifying a project of “re-Christianization” of these post-Soviet nations under Moscow’s leadership. Russkii mir thus frames symphonia in expansionist terms: church and state reinforce each other in their foreign interventions in countries such as Ukraine. In the worst cases, Orthodoxy has been used to legitimize military aggression. In 2014, President Putin directly invoked Prince Vladimir’s baptism to justify Russian annexation of Crimea. Church representatives were notably absent from this ceremony, illustrating that such interventionist appeals to Orthodoxy do not always enjoy complete agreement between church and state. Yet Patriarch Kirill, for his part, also highlighted the “religious subtext” of the Ukrainian conflict, warning of attempts by “Uniates and schismatics” to “defeat canonical Orthodoxy in Ukraine”—in his own way offering tacit support for Russian intervention in the defense of true Orthodox faith.55 Both these examples illustrate the parochial character of contemporary Russian symphonia; its international dimension ultimately serves a Russian civilizational nationalism against the liberal West. Even if it has backed away from the older sacralization of imperial rule, it still falls victim to the basic risk that symphonia binds Orthodoxy too tightly to a specific political agenda, in this case an expansionist Russo-centric conception of a distinctively Orthodox civilization. Brandon Gallaher helpfully calls it a kind of “quasi-phyletism.”56 But these examples also illustrate what John Anderson identifies as the “asymmetric” character of Russian symphonia. Through such activities as its ideological resistance to liberalism and its promotion of the Russkii mir ideology, the Moscow Patriarchate demonstrates its usefulness to the state as a partner in projecting the 53 Nicolai N. Petro, “Russia’s Orthodox Soft Power,” Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs (2015), https://www.carnegiecouncil.org/publications/articles_papers_ reports/727. 54 Michael Cherniavsky, “‘Holy Russia:’ A Study in the History of an Idea,” The American Historical Review, 63, no. 3 (1958), 619. 55 Fr. Anthony Perkins, “Of Little Green Men and Long Black Robes: The Role of the Orthodox Church in the Conflict in Ukraine,” Foreign Policy Research Institute (2017), https://www.fpri.org/article/2017/12/little-green-men-long-black-robes-role-orthodoxchurch-conflict-ukraine/. 56 Brandon Gallaher, “A Tale of Two Speeches: Secularism and Primacy in Contemporary Roman Catholicism and Russian Orthodoxy,” in Primacy in the Church. Volume 2: The Office of the Primate and the Authority of Councils, ed. John Chryssavgis (Yonkers, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2016), 807–837.

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state’s foreign policy interests and in shaping Russian society against unwanted pressure from the West. These are “shared orientations or affinities between the interests of church and state” that give meaning to their symphonic relationship, but for the most part, they are instances of “church preferences reinforcing, not determining” the state’s interests.57 What is missing, compared to Byzantine political theology, is the notion of a genuine convergence of the goals of church and state in a unified vision of deified society. Although the interests of church and state commonly align, it is not clear what resonance the symphonia trope might have should their overall agendas more sharply diverge. Furthermore, at the level of political theology, the function of symphonia in Russia has been to shield the church’s theological tradition from a truly meaningful encounter with modern social and political philosophies. For the most part, the Moscow Patriarchate has avoided the extreme of simple reactionary isolationism, but there is also no genuinely mutual dialogue in the encounter between the church’s theology and liberalism. As Brandon Gallaher observes, What is sought in the Moscow Patriarchal version of secular-religious dialogue is not a mutual harmony of the secular, human rights, freedom of expression, etc., with the traditional and religious but a harmonization of the first with the second with the religious and traditional correcting (or even eliminating) the secular.58

The continued deployment of the symphonia trope in this case stunts the development of a modern Russian Orthodox political theology. The insights of modern political history in the West can be written off as foreign ideological imports alien to Orthodoxy, and Orthodox political theology will have little to learn from them.

Symphonia in Constantinople Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew has also appealed to the contemporary relevance of symphonia. However, the Ecumenical Patriarchate’s deployment of the trope differs from that of the Moscow Patriarchate in some significant ways, which ultimately are more conducive to the development of an Orthodox political theology in dialogue with the contemporary world. One example of Patriarch Bartholomew’s appeals to symphonia appears in a 2005 speech he delivered at the London School of Economics on “The Role of Religion in a Changing Europe.” The “changing Europe” the patriarch has in mind is one marked by secularization and multiculturalism. In this setting, the patriarch

57 John Anderson, “Putin and the Russian Orthodox Church: Asymmetric Symphonia?,” Journal of International Affairs 61, no. 1 (2007), 186. 58 Gallaher, “A Tale” (see n. 56), 833.

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advances a form of symphonia that does not rely on the establishment of Orthodoxy as a state church. Affirming the continued significance of Justinian’s vision, he states: Whether we are living in a confessional or a non-confessional system—and as Christians we can accept either situation—it is our hope that there will exist between religion and the state a symphonia of active collaboration. We should not think only of separation, neutrality, or mutual tolerance, but of a relationship that is far more dynamic and creative.59

By invoking symphonia, the patriarch is resisting the privatization of Orthodox faith. This has been an issue of longstanding concern: “Faith does not belong ultimately to the private sphere,” he reiterates in another speech on religion’s role in European public life from 2019.60 “There has never been a greater need for spiritual leaders to engage in the affairs of this world,” he states elsewhere, arguing that religious leaders “must take a visible place on the stage” addressing matters of public concern.61 For the patriarch, the enduring value of symphonia, separate from its specific Byzantine manifestations, lay in its refusal to separate spiritual from social life and its insistence on the church’s calling to contribute to society’s common good. Symphonia thus critiques two tendencies, each antithetical to the church’s mission: on the one hand, the spiritualist temptation of Orthodox Christians to withdraw from the world, and on the other hand, the secularist temptation to remove religion entirely from public life, both of which rob the church of its witness to the transfiguration of human society and reduce faith strictly to a matter of private devotion. Symphonia appears also in the recent groundbreaking document For the Life of the World: Toward a Social Ethos of the Orthodox Church,62 commissioned and endorsed by the Ecumenical Patriarchate with the input of an international committee of Orthodox scholars, many of them living outside Orthodox countries. The document is in many respects a response to the direction of the Russian Orthodox Church since The Bases of the Social Concept, taking a much more conciliatory tone towards liberal democracy and human rights, doubtless a reflection of the political contexts of its contributors. The document is clear in linking symphonia to the common good: 59 Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, “The Role of Religion in a Changing Europe,” Greek Orthodox Theological Review, 51, no. 1–4 (2006), 349. 60 Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, “The Role of the Churches in Today’s Europe,” 3. https://www.coleurope.eu/sites/default/files/uploads/event/speech_patriarch_bartholomeus. pdf. 61 Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, “Fundamentalism and Faith,” in Cosmic Grace, Humble Prayer: The Ecological Vision of the Green Patriarch Bartholomew I, ed. John Chryssavgis (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2003), 134–138. 62 Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, For the Life of the World: Toward a Social Ethos of the Orthodox Church, 2020. https://www.goarch.org/social-ethos.

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In time, this cooperation for the sake of the common good was enshrined within Orthodox tradition under the term “symphonia” in the Emperor Justinian’s Novellas. This same principle was operative in the constitution of many Orthodox nation states in the post-Ottoman period. And today, as well, the principle of symphonia can continue to guide the Church in her attempts to work with governments toward the common good and to struggle against injustice.63

The positive mention of symphonia does not reflect some “fantastical nostalgia for some long-vanished golden era,” nor a longing to recover the Byzantine mode of church-state cooperation. On the contrary, the document celebrates, as an act of divine providence, the “dissolution of the ancient compact between state and church” and the “reduction of the Church’s political enfranchisement,” arguing that the end of the Byzantine model has freed the church to pursue its mission without entanglement in the state’s earthly ambitions. This entails a radical reworking of symphonia, which can no longer be “invoked as a justification for the imposition of religious orthodoxy on society at large, or from promotion of the Church as a political power.”64 In other words, symphonia loses its connection to the defense and promotion of faith that was central to its classical forms. What remains is the connection to church action on behalf of the common good. Even though For the Life of the World offers perhaps the most full-throated defense of church-state separation in an Orthodox Church document, the document also insists that such separation in no way “preclude[s] the Church from direct and robust cooperation with political and civil authorities and organs of state in advancing the common good and pursuing works of charity”65. It pushes back against ideologically secularist attempts to “silence the voice of faith in the public sphere.” In fact, the document advances the possibility for the church to offer unique contributions to public discourse about the common good, recognizing Christianity’s historical influence on the Western conception itself and acknowledging that the church might continue to bear witness to it in an era increasingly marked by individualism. If invoking symphonia is meant to guide the church’s public witness, it is fair to say that for the Ecumenical Patriarchate, the symbol is associated more closely with civil society than with the state.66 The Orthodox Churches can be present in public life without the institutional privileges and power symphonia typically suggests, entering into dialogue about issues pertinent to the common good on an equal footing with non-Orthodox Churches, other religious organizations, social movements, governments, and non-governmental organizations. The church can 63 64 65 66

Social Concept (see n. 38), II. 14. Ibid. Ibid. Daniela Kalkandjieva, “Orthodox Churches in the Post-Communist Countries and the Separation between Religion and State,” in Law and Religion in the Liberal State, ed. Md Jahid Hossain Bhuiyan and Darryn Jensen (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2020), 35–52.

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carry out the public side of its mission by cooperating with such groups to “support all initiatives, tendencies and developments, which lead to an improvement of social standards, to justice and peace” without seeking to establish formal church-state alliances.67 If the church adopts this approach to public witness, then part of its role, rather than seeking to monopolize public moral discourse, is to foster a healthy and vibrant civil society that welcomes a diversity of religious and secular voices. It is not surprising that ecumenical and interreligious dialogue has held a prominent place in the patriarch’s agenda. It is also notable that the Ecumenical Patriarchate, as a “church without a state” within its own country, has had to focus its public influence at the international level, seeking opportunities for collaboration with both national actors in other countries and with supranational institutions such as the European Union. However, the shape of this international influence has differed sharply from the “civilizational nationalism” that has so often characterized the Moscow Patriarchate’s transnational activities. In this respect, the Ecumenical Patriarchate’s social witness more closely resembles that of the modern papacy, which after the loss of the Papal States has likewise found itself without direct access to political power. As with the papacy, the decline of the Ecumenical Patriarchate’s temporal power and its independence from national church-state alliances has created unique opportunities for the patriarch to speak to global issues and to intervene in disputes or debates between nations or political programs without pressure to represent the parochial national interests of the state to which it is attached—a new situation in world Orthodoxy. Ironically, political dispossession has the chance to increase the Orthodox Church’s public witness, by presenting new openings for the church to speak on matters of global concern without the old trappings of the “universal empire.” This widened perspective is reflected in the public causes for which Patriarch Bartholomew has become known: the migrant and refugee crisis, the promotion of religious freedom and human rights, and, most notably, the protection of the environment. None of this is to suggest that Constantinople does not also aim to speak with a distinctive voice on such issues, drawing from the riches of its tradition. Patriarch Bartholomew’s comments on rights discourse are instructive here. The Orthodox Church and human rights are “natural allies,” the patriarch thinks, given the church’s commitment to the dignity of the person. But the patriarch recognizes the incompleteness of human rights, which risk devolving into “endless individualistic entitlement” that weakens society and threatens justice and dignity68—the same basic worry expressed by the Moscow Patriarchate. What Orthodoxy has to offer, in this case, is a reminder of the social dimension of human rights, building of the Orthodox theology of personhood that links freedom to communion— 67 Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, “The Role of the Churches in Today’s Europe” (see n. 60), 12–13. 68 Ibid., 11.

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supplementing rights of the individual with duties of love to one’s neighbor.69 Importantly, however, the Orthodox “supplement” to human rights here does not serve the anti-liberal and anti-Western function of “moral norms” or “traditional values” language in the Moscow Patriarchate’s discourse on human rights. Instead, this is a call for genuine dialogue and an acknowledgment that the Orthodox Churches can work through, and indeed strengthen, the basic liberal democratic values of the modern West.

Conclusion Far from a cohesive theory of politics, the idea of symphonia is an endlessly adaptable symbol that expresses, in various ways, Orthodox Christianity’s holistic vision of the deification of the world and its refusal to draw permanent and impermeable boundaries between the sacred and the profane. As a theological framework for Christian political action, it has taken different forms depending on the concrete realities of church-state relations. This chapter has shown how the two leading patriarchates in the Orthodox world, Constantinople and Moscow, both with different access to state power, have advanced divergent conceptions of symphonia in the 21st century. Moscow, which seeks to carry forward, in new form, Orthodoxy’s tradition of close ties between church and state, has taken the path of anti-liberalism and the subversion of liberal theories of human rights. Constantinople, the “stateless” church and church of diaspora, has put forward the more radical reimagining of symphonia that invites new approaches to Orthodox Christian politics in a pluralistic world. Although modern Orthodox political theology, especially at the official level, is still in its early stages, the trajectory of the Ecumenical Patriarchate gives hope for Orthodox political theology that responds with a faithful openness to the challenges of secularism, liberalism, and human rights theory. The differing contexts and divergent approaches of these two patriarchates should inform Orthodox political theological reflection on the church’s social mission in the 21st century.

69 Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, “The Role of Religion in a Changing Europe” (see n. 59).

Afterword Adalberto Mainardi “Then it was as if I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts, […] the person that each is in God’s eyes. If only they could all see themselves as they really are. If only we could see each other that way all the time. There would be no more war, no more hatred, no more cruelty, no more greed […] But this cannot be seen, only believed and ‘understood’ by a peculiar gift.” These words by Thomas Merton (1915–1968), the Trappist monk and writer engaged in interreligious dialogue, defines what he calls the position of a “guilty bystander” as the only possible way a Christian can contemplate the contemporary world. The reality of sin and human suffering, oppression, and injustice, cannot be denied, yet the energies of the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ are ceaselessly at work. Like the blind Bartimaeus, Christians have to renew his cry, “My teacher, let me see again!”, so as to regain a glimpse of hope and follow their Master on the way (cf. Mark 10:51-52). Moral involvement in social and political reality is unavoidable, yet Christians are called to see this reality with transfigured eyes, as the entire Orthodox ascetic tradition teaches. In the same way, no Christian can claim for him/herself the position of a detached and impartial spectator in the Ukrainian crisis, which represents a testing ground not only for contemporary Orthodoxy, but for all 21st century Christianity. The reader of the essays in this volume has to confess to being not a detached spectator, but a “guilty bystander,” deeply involved in the problems s/he analyzes, and this involvement interferes in seeking to understand these questions. It is in this spirit that I offer these notes: not an impartial conclusion nor a word from outside, but a sympathetic echo of the Ukrainian drama as a chance to rethink the challenges Christianity faces in the globalized world. One of the aspects that clearly emerges through the chapters in this book is the relationship between Orthodoxy and post-modernity. The Ukrainian conflict, which was political and military before becoming ecclesiastic, highlights the different attitudes the Orthodox Churches have towards the contemporary globalized world: opposition, open conflict, dialogue, or mutual interaction. I would like to sum up the results and the perspectives suggested by the authors under three headings: what have we learned from the Ukrainian crisis? (What can we know?); what actions should be taken to overcome the crisis? (What ought we do?); and finally, what perspectives are there for reconciliation? (What can we hope for?).

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1. What Have we Learned? The essays presented here signal a step forward in a better understanding of the issues at stake. In her study of the Patriarchal and Synodal Act of 1686 and its reception in historiography, Vera Tchentsova shows in what she calls “the omnipresence of the past” how historians, voluntarily or involuntarily, presented biased accounts of the facts behind the documents issued in 1686. As she convincingly demonstrates, “Patriarch Dionysius IV delegated the exercise of his authority to the Patriarch of Moscow for an unspecified period of time”: the Ecumenical Patriarch was commemorated “among the first” as the real head of “all parishes and eparchies” of the Metropolitanate of Kyiv, while the Patriarch of Moscow ranked second as befitted an “elder and superior,” i.e. the hierarch who was delegated to ordain the metropolitans of Kyiv. The scholarly assessment of past facts, however, does not imply a prescriptive norm for the present, but rather a caution in projecting onto the past a jurisdictional controversy risen three centuries later (and vice versa). The perspective changes if we take seriously the Eucharistic context of the commemoration during the anaphora: the local Church of Kyiv, in communion with the Patriarch of Constantinople, is also in communion with the Patriarch of Moscow, who ordains the Metropolitans of Kyiv. A pastoral problem that arose in specific historical circumstances (the impossibility for the Ecumenical Patriarch to appoint a bishop to the chair of Kyiv) found a creative solution that interpreted canonical tradition to adapt it to the political situation of the late 17th century. In the same way, John Erickson, studying the territorial organization of the Orthodox Church, reminds us that “the present of Christians in antiquity was quite different from our own.” He notes how disagreement over the principle of territoriality is ultimately linked to an “imperial ecclesiology.” How much in the Ukrainian crisis still depends on a “universalistic” ecclesiology as opposed to an (insufficient) ecclesiology of the local Church? This question has been addressed by Serhii Bortnyk from the point of view of exclusivism in Ukrainian Orthodoxy (political, ethnical, canonical) as opposed to openness and universalism; and indirectly by Nicholas Denysenko in his reconstruction of the early stages of Ukrainian autocephalist movement in the 1920s. Still, the way an ecclesiology of the local Church could mediate between the challenges of globalization and communion at the universal level remains an open question both for Catholics and for Orthodox in a secularized world where Christians are increasingly a minority. The essays in this volume have investigated the multifaceted entanglements and oppositions (as well as cooperation or dialogue) between Orthodoxy, liberalism, secularism, human rights discourse, on one hand, and alternative choices between democracies and authoritarian models of government on the other. As Aristotle Papanikolaou notes in his effort to understand civil society as political communion in an Orthodox theological perspective, the institutional Orthodox

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Churches have reemerged as powerful players in the political and cultural life of many countries in the post-communist era. The analysis of different models of church-state relations, the two rival versions of neo-Byzantine “symphonia” pursued respectively by Moscow and Constantinople (Nathaniel Wood), mirrored in two different documents on the social doctrine of the Church, the “Social Concept” of the Russian Orthodox Church and the “Social Ethos” of the Ecumenical Patriarchate (Heta Hurskainen), clearly reveal the Orthodox Churches as conscious players in a post-secular context. Contemporary states are no longer confessional but secular (at different levels). The difference is the degree to which they promote or hinder the development of a pluralistic society from the religious point of view. This book provides indepth insights on such crucial issues as the role of the Church in society as a provider of moral codes (Elena A. Stepanova), or on the kind of socio-ethical negotiations at work in Ukrainian Orthodoxy (Regina Elsner). At a socio-political level, particularly important are the deconstructions of such culturological-religious-political concepts as those of “Russian world” or “Russkii Mir” (Kathy Rousselet), and the alternative “Kyivan Christianity” or “Churches of the Kyivan tradition” (Alfons Brüning). From all these analyses, some further questions arise. Is communion among the Churches possible without a prior choice of field in the political arena? Where is the Christian novelty, the Christian “difference” in relation to “this-world” models, such as liberalist ideology, nationalism, or antidemocratic authoritarianism? Where is the Church? We need to go a step further.

2. What Kind of Theological Reflection is Still Lacking? What Ought to be Done to Foster Reconciliation among Churches in Ukraine? As Pavlo Smytsnyuk has shown, participation in ecumenical or social platforms, both at the national and the international level, can constitute that ground of encounter among the different churches in Ukraine. Each church (as the case of the Greek Catholic Church shows) can help the other to purify its self-image from nationalism, and to highlight what makes it “holy, catholic and apostolic,” and at the same time witness to that unity which opens to communion and does not imply exclusion. In this sense, dialogue among the Churches is not one among the possible options, but the necessary path for the very ecclesial identity of each Church, authentically local and authentically universal. There is still a prejudicial reading of one another. Constantinople’s granting the Orthodox Church of Ukraine the tomos of autocephaly, which constitutes for the OCU the possibility of being received into inter-Orthodox communion, is regarded by the Russian Orthodox Church as an abuse of undue primatial prerogatives and as an interference in the canonical territory of another Church, which has deepened a situation of schism instead of healing it. On the other hand, the

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concern of the Patriarchate of Moscow to safeguard the rights and integrity of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in communion with Moscow, is interpreted as Russian imperialism, dictated by a political agenda. The status of autonomy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church inside the Moscow Patriarchate, and the possible evolution towards an autocephaly, are issues that still await careful study. In this crisis, the voice that has remained silent is perhaps that of the subject which is most directly concerned—the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. There is however another level where the jurisdictional conflict can find a solution: the exchanges at the spiritual and pastoral level, which played an important role in the communion between the churches already in the first millennium, as Erickson has shown. Putting pastoral concern back at the center, and enhancing the role of the laity, as Lidia Lozova and Tetiana Kalenychenko note in their contribution, can help the churches to find a creative solution to the situation of division. The plea for a pastoral-participative renewal of the pan-Orthodox practice of synodality formulated by Ioan Moga also moves in this direction. The different contemporary liturgical practices in the UOC and OCU, presented by Nadieszda Kizenko, do not necessarily imply contraposition and exclusion, but might be considered as complementary. In liturgical celebration, each is called to do all, and only, that which is his due: the bishop to preside; the presbyters to concelebrate; the deacons, the choir, and the people to participate accordingly, so that the worship of the whole People of God be harmonious and unified. Similarly, in the complex search for an ecclesial solution to the ecclesial divisions in Ukraine, which have branched out into world Orthodoxy, each Christian is called to do all and only what is incumbent upon them according to their charism and responsibility. In particular, scholars, historians, theologians, canonists, Christian intellectuals, are asked for the greatest intellectual honesty and all possible effort to unravel those tangles that make inextricable—on the canonical and ecclesiological level—the current rupture of communion between the Orthodox Churches in Ukraine. It is their duty to defuse the potential for conflict inherent in inveterate preconceptions and prejudices, historical, canonical, cultural, and even theological; it is their duty to promote new ideas inspired by the Gospel. In light of the Ukrainian crisis, we need to rethink our idea of “unity” in Orthodoxy (Evgeny Pilipenko), to reshape our approaches to ecclesiology (Thomas Bremer).

3. What Can we Hope for? Christians are called to be always ready to answer to anyone who demands from them an accounting for the hope that is in them (1 Pet. 3:15). Which hope is to be answered for by Christians in Ukraine?

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The Ukrainian crisis is an occasion for Christian witness, reserved not only for individuals, but such that it challenges the Ukrainian Churches themselves. The first step is perhaps to put aside a prejudicial reading of the position of the other, as dictated by political reasons, and try instead to see in the other Church its authentic pastoral concern and care for Christian witness, sharing a spiritual treasure for the transfiguration of all. In this sense, important are the recommendations that various authors, sympathetic to the path of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, address to this Church to deepen the formation of the clergy, to cultivate the monastic dimension, and to welcome a plurality of voices in its womb. The more dialogue characterizes the very being of a Church—dialogue between clergy and laity, between bishop and clergy, between faithful and civil society—the easier dialogue and reconciliation with other Churches will be. The other Churches look at the problem of the division between the Churches in Ukraine with concern and attention. In particular, the Holy See has shown a neutrality in the controversy between Moscow and Constantinople that is not indifference or disinterest, but rather participatory attention and concern. In this sense, the decision to continue the official dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Churches should not be seen as a dig against the Russian Orthodox Church. Obviously, the absence of a partner representing more than half of the world’s Orthodoxy from the table of such an important theological dialogue to some extent downsizes its importance. However, the ecumenical dialogue between Catholics and Orthodox, which focuses on the meaning of the exercise of primacy and synodality in the second millennium, can help and can be helped by the search for a newfound concord among the Orthodox Churches. Most probably, the reconciliation between the different Orthodox Churches in Ukraine requires a creative solution and a new interpretation of the ecclesiology of the first millennium. The development of the phenomenon of autocephaly, as has been noted, has already caused an innovation with respect to the ecclesiological framework of the first seven ecumenical councils; and yet this theological reinterpretation cannot be said to be complete, even in the light of the historical developments of the Ukrainian case. The de facto coexistence of different Orthodox Churches in the same canonical territory requires a thorough rethinking of the territorial principle as well, of the relations between local Churches and primacy, at the regional and universal level. An intra-Orthodox solution of this problem can only help the dialogue with the Catholic Church and can offer all Churches a new way to address the problem of combining local values and specificities with a universal vocation in a globalized and secularized world. Thomas Bremer makes the bold proposal to abandon a narrow territorial criterion to foster communion between different Churches in the same place; the notion of local Church and universal Church cannot but be renewed. At the same time, the Eucharistic understanding of ecclesiology can

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offer a solution to the problem not at the diplomatic or jurisdictional level, but at the level of the concrete grassroots ecclesial community. The pastoral nature of the problem of the Churches in Ukraine will likely stand again in the foreground. Looking back at the historical journey of Orthodoxy in the last century, Ioannis Zizioulas casts a glance full of gratitude and hope for the future: “The Orthodox Church has many reasons to be grateful to God. We have never been politically powerful, except perhaps in Byzantium or in some contemporary nation where there is an Orthodox majority. But even in those cases, we have voluntarily developed institutions such as monasticism to remind ourselves that the Church does not belong to this world. In general, the days of suffering and humiliation far outnumber those of glory and power.”1 The understanding of the mystery of the Church that has accompanied Catholic reflection since the Second Vatican Council has been enriched by comparison with Orthodox theology and by theological dialogue with the Orthodox Churches. The Catholic Church cannot but be grateful for this gift of grace. The current situation of non-Eucharistic communion among the Orthodox Churches constitutes a suffering for the Catholic Church and for the entire Christian world. It is a suffering that has led to a slowdown in ecumenical dialogue, but which must push at the same time to prayer, to the invocation of the Spirit of communion upon all the Churches. Prayer expressed in the sharing of suffering and in the agreement of questions is the first urgent and necessary step so that wounds may be healed, oppositions may be transcended, and past and present divisions may give way to communion, which is the Lord’s gift par excellence to his Church. May all the Orthodox Churches state a new together with their lives what has been stated in the Message of the Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church to the Orthodox people and to all people of good will: “The Church does not live for herself. She transmits the witness of the Gospel of grace and truth and offers to the whole world the gifts of God: love, peace, justice, reconciliation, the power of the Cross and of the Resurrection and the expectation of eternal life. […] Our Church lives out the mystery of the Divine Economy in her sacramental life, with the Holy Eucharist at its center.”

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Metropolitan of Pergamon John D. Zizioulas, The One and the Many: Studies on God, Man, the Church, and the World Today, ed. G. Edwards (Alhambra, CA: Sebastian Press, 2010), 390.

List of Contributors Sergii Bortnyk, Professor at the Kyiv Theological Academy, Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Kyiv, Ukraine Thomas Bremer, Professor of Ecumenical Theology and Eastern Churches Studies, Faculty of Catholic Theology, University of Münster, Germany Alfons Brüning, Chair “Eastern Orthodox Christianity, Human Rights, Peace Studies,” PThU Amsterdam, Lecturer in Eastern Christianity (Eastern Europe), and Director of the Institute for Eastern Christian Studies, Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands. Nicholas Denysenko, Emil and Elfriede Jochum Professor and Chair, Valparaiso University, Indiana, USA Regina Elsner, Researcher, Centre for East European and international Studies (ZOiS), Berlin, Germany John H. Erickson, Peter N. Gramowich Professor of Church History, emeritus, and former Dean, St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary, Crestwood, New York, USA Heta Hurskainen, Senior Researcher of Systematic Theology, School of Theology, Philosophical Faculty, University of Eastern Finland, Joensuu, Finland Tetiana Kalenychenko, sociologist of religion, dialogue facilitator, co-founder of European Center for Strategic Analytics, coordinator at Dialogue in Action initiative, Kyiv, Ukraine Nadieszda Kizenko, Professor of Russian History, University at Albany (SUNY), USA Lidiya Lozova, Project Coordinator, ETHOS department in “Spirit and Letter” Research and Publishing Association, and Researcher, St. Clement’s Center “Communion and Dialogue of Cultures,” Kyiv, Ukraine Adalberto Mainardi, monk of Bose at Cellole, San Gimignano, Italy Ioan Moga, Assistant Professor for Orthodox Theology (Systematics) at the Faculty for Roman Catholic Theology, University of Vienna, Austria Aristotle Papanikolaou, Professor of Theology, Archbishop Demetrios Chair in Orthodox Theology and Culture, and Director, Orthodox Christian Studies Center, Fordham University, New York, USA Evgeny Pilipenko, Lecturer, Ss Cyril and Methodius Institute of Post-Graduate Studies, and Senior Editor, Church-Scientific Centre “Orthodox Encyclopaedia,” Moscow, Russia Kathy Rousselet, Research Professor, Sciences Po, Centre de recherches internationales (CERI), CNRS, Paris, France Pavlo Smytsnyuk, Director, Ecumenical Institute of the Ukrainian Catholic University, Lviv, Ukraine

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List of Contributors

Elena A. Stepanova, Principal Research Fellow, Institute of Philosophy and Law, Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Ekaterinburg, Russia Vera Tchentsova, Senior Researcher, Institute for South-East European Studies of the Romanian Academy, Bucharest, Romania, and Associated Member, Research Project “Orient et Méditerranée,” Paris, France Nathaniel Wood, Associate Director, Orthodox Christian Studies Center, and Managing Editor, Journal of Orthodox Christian Studies, Fordham University, New York, USA

Erfurter Studien zur Kulturgeschichte des Orthodoxen Christentums Herausgegeben von / Edited by Vasilios N. Makrides

Band

1

Vasilios N. Makrides (Hrsg.): Religion, Staat und Konfliktkonstellationen im orthodoxen Ostund Südosteuropa. Vergleichende Perspektiven. 2005.

Band

2

Klaus Buchenau: Kämpfende Kirchen. Jugoslawiens religiöse Hypothek. 2006.

Band

3

Angelos Giannakopoulos: Tradition und Moderne in Griechenland. Konfliktfelder in Religion, Politik und Kultur. 2007.

Band

4

Kristina Stoeckl: Community after Totalitarianism. The Russian Orthodox Intellectual Tradition and the Philosophical Discourse of Political Modernity. 2008.

Band

5

Nicolai Staab: Rumänische Kultur, Orthodoxie und der Westen. Der Diskurs um die nationale Identität in Rumänien aus der Zwischenkriegszeit. 2011.

Band

6

Sebastian Rimestad: The Challenges of Modernity to the Orthodox Church in Estonia and Latvia (1917–1940). 2012.

Band

7

Łukasz Fajfer: Modernisierung im orthodox-christlichen Kontext. Der Heilige Berg Athos und die Herausforderungen der Modernisierungsprozesse seit 1988. 2013.

Band

8

Alexander Agadjanian: Turns of Faith, Search for Meaning. Orthodox Christianity and PostSoviet Experience. 2014.

Band

9

Thomas Heinzel: Weiße Bruderschaft und Delphische Idee. Esoterische Religiosität in Bulgarien und Griechenland in der ersten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts. 2014.

Band 10

Mihai-D. Grigore: Neagoe Basarab – Princeps Christianus. Christianitas-Semantik im Vergleich mit Erasmus, Luther und Machiavelli (1513–1523). 2015.

Band 11

Vasilios N. Makrides / Jennifer Wasmuth / Stefan Kube (Hrsg.): Christentum und Menschenrechte in Europa. Perspektiven und Debatten in Ost und West. 2016.

Band 12

Alena Alshanskaya: Der Europa-Diskurs der Russischen Orthodoxen Kirche (1996–2011). 2016.

Band 13

Stamatios Gerogiorgakis: Futura contingentia, necessitas per accidens und Prädestination in Byzanz und in der Scholastik. 2017.

Band 14

Alexander Ponomariov: The Visible Religion. The Russian Orthodox Church and her Relations with State and Society in Post-Soviet Canon Law (1992–2015). 2017.

Band 15

Isabella Schwaderer: Platonisches Erbe, Byzanz, Orthodoxie und die Modernisierung Griechenlands. Schwerpunkte des kulturphilosophischen Werkes von Stelios Ramfos. 2018

Band 16

Georgios E. Trantas: Being and Belonging. A Comparative Examination of the Greek and Cypriot Orthodox Churches’ Attitudes to ‘Europeanisation’ in Early 21st Century. 2018.

Band 17

Julia Anna Lis: Antiwestliche Diskurse in der serbischen und griechischen Orthodoxie. Zur Konstruktion des „Westens“ bei Nikolaj Velimirovi©, Justin Popovi©, Christos Yannaras und John S. Romanides. 2019.

Band 18

Sebastian Rimestad / Vasilios N. Makrides (eds): Coping with Change. Orthodox Christian Dynamics between Tradition, Innovation, and Realpolitik. 2020.

Band 19

Vasilios N. Makrides / Sebastian Rimestad (eds): The Pan-Orthodox Council of 2016 – A New Era for the Orthodox Church? Interdisciplinary Perspectives. 2021.

Band 20

Marian P£tru: Das Ordnungsdenken im christlich-orthodoxen Raum. Nation, Religion und Politik im öffentlichen Diskurs der Rumänisch-Orthodoxen Kirche Siebenbürgens in der Zwischenkriegszeit (1918–1940). 2022.

Band 21

Thomas Bremer / Alfons Brüning / Nadieszda Kizenko (eds.): Orthodoxy in Two Manifestations? The Conflict in Ukraine as Expression of a Fault Line in World Orthodoxy. 2022.

www.peterlang.com

In 2018/19, the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople initiated the establishment of an autocephalous (independent) Orthodox Church in Ukraine. This process was met with harsh criticism by the Russian Orthodox Church and eventually led to a split in the entire Orthodox world. The contributions to this volume examine this conflict and discuss the underlying causes for it in a broader perspective. They deal with several aspects of Orthodox theology, history, church life and culture, and show the existence of a serious rift in the broader Orthodox world. This became visible most recently in the conflict over the Ukrainian Church autocephaly, yet it has a longer, and more complex historical background.

Thomas Bremer teaches Ecumenical Theology and Eastern Christian Studies at the Department of Catholic Theology, University of Münster, Germany. His research interests include Orthodoxy in Ukraine, in Russia, and in the Balkans, interchurch relations, and the role of Churches in conflict situations. Alfons Brüning is a historian and scholar of religion, and is the director of the Institute for Eastern Christian Studies, Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands. His expertise covers the religious history of Eastern Europe, confessionalism, nationalism, and modern social teaching of Orthodox Christianity. Nadieszda Kizenko is Professor of History and Director of Religious Studies at the State University of New York (Albany, USA). Her research focuses on Orthodox Church history in Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus, with special interests in confession, hagiography, and liturgy.

Th. Bremer / A. Brüning / N. Kizenko (eds.) · Orthodoxy in Two Manifestations? The Conflict in Ukraine

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ERFURTER STUDIEN ZUR KULTURGESCHICHTE DES ORTHODOXEN CHRISTENTUMS

Thomas Bremer / Alfons Brüning / Nadieszda Kizenko (eds.)

Orthodoxy in Two Manifestations? The Conflict in Ukraine as Expression of a Fault Line in World Orthodoxy

ISBN 978-3-631-88699-1

www.peterlang.com

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05.09.22 13:20