Andreas Broeckmann on Fri, 8 Apr 2022 08:05:56 +0200 (CEST)


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Re: <nettime> Further on Russian Orthodoxy vs Ukraine


On the topic of the Orthodox Church, it is worth taking notice of the slightly confusing fact that there are three separate religious units involved:

- the Russian Orthodox Church [RPTs]
- the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate [UPTsMP]
- the Orthodox Church of Ukraine [PTsU]

Within this constellation, there had already been tensions, which are now coming to a head: there are parishes of the UPTsMP cutting ties with the Moscow Patriarchate and joining the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, and even more remarkably, the parish of the Russian Orthodox Church in Amsterdam has also split from Moscow. (There must be similar discussions in RPTs and UPTsMP parishes all over the world, I presume.)

[... and since, as Kelaidis notes in the article that Michael forwarded, the Patriarch's "office was just a few centuries ago (a blink of the eye in the memory of the Christian East) located not in Moscow, but Kyiv", the idea of a 'return to Kyiy' might develop traction - not only for Russian crusaders to 'liberate' their 'Kiev', but also for Orthodox Christians to abandon the Moscow Patriarchate in favour of the less belligerent Kyiy Patriarchate, bringing about a new schism and perhaps another, yet-non-existent unit, the 'Russian Orthodox Church of the Kyiy Patriarchate'.])

Patriarch Kirill of Moscow is clearly part of Putin's propaganda battle; but the actual influence of the church and church leaders on the Russian population, on the Russian military ranks, and on individual soldiers, is disputed, and might also be subject to change. Kirill is presumably not only making new friends...

Some links:

https://www.dw.com/en/ukraine-war-the-role-of-the-orthodox-churches/a-61063614

https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/thanks-to-russia-ukrainians-swell-ranks-of-kyiv-patriarchate/

https://www2.stetson.edu/religious-news/220329b.html

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/13/russian-orthodox-church-in-amsterdam-announces-split-with-moscow

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Orthodox_Church


Am 07.04.22 um 21:55 schrieb Michael Benson:
Concerning the role of Orthodoxy in the war over Ukraine, I just wanted to pass this link on, from the interesting online publication RD, or Religion Dispatches (FAQ: Is RD a religious publication? Answer: No. It's not. Q: Then why do you have "religion" in your name? A: Because it’s a magazine _/on_/ religion. It's the subject our writers cover):

https://religiondispatches.org/the-russian-patriarch-just-gave-his-most-dangerous-speech-yet-and-almost-no-one-in-the-west-has-noticed/
by Katherine Kelaidis

<snip>

But then, about halfway through, the sermon took a turn for the shocking and dangerous. It was at about the point that he acknowledged where he stood: in a cathedral built not so much for the glory of God as for the glory of Russian military might. Here the Patriarch said he had come to address the leaders of their Russian forces, and through them, their troops. He reminded the assembled congregation of Vladimir Putin’s favorite propaganda point in this war: that Russia was fighting fascism in Ukraine just as it had in the Second World War.

And then the Patriarch, whose office was just a few centuries ago (a blink of the eye in the memory of the Christian East) located not in Moscow, but Kyiv, offered up a version of history that simply erases Ukraine from the map. Kirill blames “various forces” (i.e. outsiders, including—one would imagine—the West) that emerged in the Middle Ages for what he regards as a false division between Russia and Ukraine. In fact, he doesn’t even acknowledge there are such people as Ukrainians, referring to all involved parties (including, perhaps, one could speculate, Belarusians) as “Holy Russians.”

<snip>

Patriarch Kirill’s sermon on the Sunday of St. John Climacus does no less than refuse to acknowledge the distinction between Russian and Ukrainian culture and identity, and it denies Ukraine’s right to exist as a sovereign nation, both historically and in the present. Furthermore, it legitimizes the ongoing violence as necessary and even, perhaps one could argue, holy.

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