Editorial of the “World”. The feast of Orthodox Easter, celebrated this Sunday, April 24, does not come at the most harmonious time for the churches of this confession. Inevitably, Russian aggression against Ukraine, the cradle of Slavic Christianity and an important breeding ground for priests, also does damage to relations between clergy.
Kirill, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, is a pillar of President Vladimir Putin’s regime – it’s no secret – and echoes his rhetoric extensively about Russia being a bulwark of traditional Christian values misguided by the West. . But the Patriarch’s fiery support for Russia’s military offensive in Ukraine since February, including statements surprisingly virulent for a churchman, has caused dissension in the ranks of world Orthodoxy. Kirill justifies the invasion of Ukraine by its size “metaphysics” ; for him, it is an operation against the “forces of evil” hostile to the unity of the Russian people and of the Church.
If the patriarch was the only one to carry, in the name of the Church, this speech of another age during the first five weeks of the offensive, he has recently made the bishops give voice, no doubt to galvanize followers who do not all share his enthusiasm for the“special military operation” of President Putin in Ukraine.
This mobilization of the Russian religious hierarchy offends the Ukrainian Orthodox. These are divided into two Churches, one placed under the authority of the Moscow Patriarchate, and the other, the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, which refuses it; following the annexation of Crimea and the occupation of Donbass by Russia, she obtained in 2019 that the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew, the primus inter pares of the fourteen heads of the canonical Orthodox Churches, grants him autocephaly, that is to say independence vis-à-vis Moscow. At the end of February, the synod of bishops of Ukraine asked Kirill to intervene with the Russian power to put an end to the war, obviously without success.
Momentarily infrequent
At the same time, the Patriarchate of Moscow works discreetly with the European chancelleries so that the sanctions against the Russian regime spare the property and the representatives of the Russian Church abroad. Kirill is very keen to escape the diplomatic isolation that plagues Vladimir Putin; it is precisely this lever that the leaders of other religions should pull to put pressure on the Kremlin. If Mr. Putin and his entourage have become pariahs, there is no reason that the patriarch Kirill who supports him so actively should be entitled to preferential treatment.
Does the head of the Russian Orthodox Church have a place, for example, in the World Council of Churches? The question is legitimate. Just as legitimate are the questions about the advisability of a meeting between Pope Francis and Patriarch Kirill, scheduled for 2022 after their first meeting, in Cuba, in 2016.
This project, to which the pope is very attached, has not been abandoned despite the war in Ukraine: on April 3, the head of the Catholic Church again indicated “work there”. But he has just suspended plans to meet Kirill in June in Jerusalem because, he said on April 22, he could have “lead to a lot of confusion”. Even if he avoids attributing the war to Russia by name, the pope condemns it day after day. Kirill’s unconditional support for Vladimir Putin made him, at least momentarily, infrequent, even for Francis.