Pray Tell; Is It Time to Split?

 

Like most widespread religions, Christianity has done its share of factions breaking off, splintering, but most of the big breaks took place a long time ago. Catholicism, which has its own strange branches, severed from the Eastern Orthodox Church (which includes Greek, Armenian, Russian, etc.). Martin Luther and Henry the VIII did some additional withdrawals (some a tad violent) from Catholicism (“Papism” to those who despised it), and all sorts of factions appeared within that Protestant grouping, right on down to Mormonism, Jehovah’s Witnesses and the tons of various versions of evangelical reinvention… for which the United States is most famous. But trust me, there are lots of other evangelical movements around the world. A Nigerian evangelical movement, for example, has even sent missionaries to convert the heathen right here in the United States.

Persians rebelled against their Muslim conquerors by adopting a mystical faction (Shiites) of Islam, quite confounding the literalists (Sunnis), a schism that continues to foment sectarian violence in the heart of the Middle East these days. It is at the core of the current litany of surrogate wars, most recently in Yemen, pitting Shiite Iranians (who support the rebel Houthis) against Sunni Saudis (who support the incumbent Yemeni government). But the most recent major break in religious traditionalism has infected the powerful Russian Orthodox Church.

There is overlap here as the Shiite leaders of Syria (the Alawite Assad family) – who  rule a country where a mere 10% of the population shares their faith, 80% are Sunni Muslims and 10% are Christians – have effectively catered to Moscow by pledging to the head of the Russian Orthodox Church that those Syrian Christians are “protected” under the otherwise brutal Assad government. While Russia’s regional aggression may be tolerated and protected by Damascus, her actions and intentions are otherwise deeply provocative to most of the rest of the world. That Russia has backed Assad with military weapon systems and Russian soldier and pilots is not lost on the world either.

In her own theater, Moscow annexed Crimea and, using violence, espionage, subversion, providing top-of-the-line weapons to foment insurrection by “ethnic Russians” in Eastern Ukraine – weapons which were used in 2014 to bring down a Malaysian airliner with 298 people on board – seem clearly aimed at absorbing additional territory into Mother Russia. To put it mildly, things are getting pretty testy between Moscow and Kiev. Moscow wants that land!

Recently, at the Kersh Strait, Russia seized Ukrainian naval vessels, claiming the passage, which was Ukraine’s traditional passage to the Black Sea and ultimately the Mediterranean, was now exclusively under Russian sovereign control. Based on Russia’s forced possession of Crimea, linked now to mainland Russia by a new bridge, Russian claims threaten to turn Ukraine into a landlocked nation. But, you ask, why is all this in an article about breakaway religious factions?

Ah, it seems that hyper-aggressive Russian President Vladimir Putin draws great political sustenance from his ultra-close relationship with Kirill (Cyril), the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church (literally the Bishop of Moscow). He was equally close with Alexei II, the prior Patriarch. The picture above is one of many Putin-Kirill love-fest photos sprinkled across the Web. Even though Putin was part of the same KGB that persecuted adherents of the Orthodox Church during the Soviet era, there is now what to many seems to be an unholy alliance between Putin and the Church. With well over 100 million active members of the Orthodox faith in Russia, Putin has become one of the “faithful.” And Kirill is about as pro-Putin as you can get.

The Russian Orthodox Church has traditionally also been the Church for most, but not all, Orthodox Ukrainians as well. But politics has made that union increasingly difficult. “The [Eastern Orthodox] churches share the same theological doctrine rooted in the Greek Orthodoxy that broke away from Catholicism in 1054, known as the Great Schism… Almost 70% of Ukrainians describe themselves as Orthodox. Many of them hailed the historical move on Saturday.

“The Russian Orthodox Church controls about 12,000 parishes throughout Ukraine — more than twice the number of parishes of the other two Orthodox branches in Ukraine… Many congregations switched to the unrecognized Ukrainian churches in 2014 after Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the subsequent war in the east with Kremlin-backed militias.

“During his 18 years in power, Putin has brought the Kremlin closer to the church, and used Russian Orthodoxy as part of a one-church, one-country idea of nationalism. He has drawn on the conservative values of the church to contrast Russia with the decadent West’s liberalism… Many Ukrainians, including [Ukrainian President Petro] Poroshenko, accused the Russian Orthodox Church of supporting Russian aggression against Ukraine…

“Ukrainian Orthodox church leaders approved the creation of a unified church independent of Moscow on Saturday [12/15] and elected a new leader to oversee the self-governing church, a move supporters say will push Kiev further away from Russia’s influence in the region.

“Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, who has been advocating for the creation of the new church as he tries to move his former Soviet republic out of Moscow’s orbit, called Saturday’s [12/15] election ‘a key element of Ukraine’s independence’ and national security.

“‘This is a matter of our Ukrainian statehood,’ Poroshenko told the council, which was held in a closed-door synod in Kiev’s golden-domed St. Sophia Cathedral as crowds gathered in the snow-packed streets outside to await results. Poroshenko was not a voting member of the council… ‘We are finally gaining spiritual independence that can be compared to the political independence. We’re breaking the ropes that tied us to the empire,’ he said.

“The formation of the new church and the election of the new leader came two months after the foremost leader of Orthodox Christianity, Bartholomew I, the Patriarch of Constantinople, granted Kiev permission to create a self-governing church that would hold equal status to the Russian Orthodox Church in the world’s Orthodox branches. Bartholomew, who is based in Istanbul, Turkey, is considered the ‘first among equals’ of leaders in Orthodox Christianity, the second largest Christian church in the world after Catholicism.

“Moscow has vehemently opposed the creation of a separate Ukrainian Orthodox Church, saying it would split Orthodox believers in a region that has had strong religious and historical ties dating back to 988, when a Kievan Rus prince adopted Christianity.” Los Angeles Times, December 16^th.

This is the kind of story that slides into the back pages of most American news sources, but it strikes at the heart of why Russia is such a rogue state. It also amplifies why U.S. inquiries into Trump/Russian ties are so important. Putin “gives,” but Putin expects to be “given” a lot in return. At stake are both our electoral process including our free press (versus reducing U.S. sanctions against Russia)… as well as economic advantages that could be earned by the Trump/Kushner real estate cabal through a close relationship with Moscow. Little stories with massive relevance to all Americans.

              I’m Peter Dekom, and someone just turned the flame under the Ukraine-Russia dispute to high!