This material was created within the joint project of the Sophia Brotherhood and the German foundation Renovabis titled “Contemporary Ukrainian Orthodoxy: Breaking Myths for the Sake of Reconciliation Among Orthodox in Ukraine and the Consolidation of Ukrainian Society.” The Sophia Brotherhood may not share the views of the authors, and certain opinions expressed by members of the Brotherhood within the framework of the project may not represent the consolidated position of the Sophia Brotherhood.
Tetiana Derkach, religious publicist (OCU)
The Ukrainian church crisis has reached such a dead end that it seems it can no longer be resolved without external intervention. And such intervention exists – but, by a strange twist, it looks more like pouring gasoline on a fire than wise and influential mediation. The UOC has repeatedly sent signals to Local Churches that it would like the situation discussed at a pan-Orthodox gathering. The OCU is clearly not interested in any external mediation it would perceive as pressure or interference in the internal affairs of another Local Church – namely, its own. The Ecumenical Patriarch – the only one who can initiate and convene such a gathering – is bound by the remarkably ill-conceived and counterproductive decision of the UOC leadership to break canonical communion with him, in retaliation for the Tomos granted to the OCU.
And what of the other Local Churches? They are now demonstrating the triumph of confederative ecclesiology, which has reached its peak of development thanks to the tireless work of the Russian Orthodox Church. Global Orthodoxy has turned into a sort of “BRICS” that prays to the idol of multipolarity while in reality serving only one player – the ROC.
In fact, the Orthodox world, which so pompously commemorates its primates in the diptychs, has failed the test of humanity and Christian principle – and not for the first time. Even the diptychs themselves are now unique to each Church. Members of this “club” are crossed out or added supposedly “in the interests of the Church” – but in reality, under the influence of either some recently broken crockery or the most expedient political interests. No one truly feels the Universal Orthodox Church as the one Body of Christ. Yes, from time to time, speakers of Local Churches send out into the void some stern statements, reproduce in revolting ecclesiastical bureaucratese words of support quoting Scripture, and simulate deep pain at troubles in some “Sister Church.” The rhetoric goes: if one member of the Body suffers, the whole Body is unwell. Yet after these ritual soundwaves, nothing happens. The sick body must be healed – but in practice, the “tied hand” just gives a thumbs-up to the broken foot, or the blind eye winks at the shattered spine.
What could Local Churches actually do if, let us imagine, their primates stepped out of their comfort zones and did gather in Istanbul (or elsewhere) to “resolve” the Ukrainian question? With great probability, each would start pulling the blanket toward itself, mentally calculating how many perks it could bargain for its own Church through “mediation.” And if there are no direct gains in sight, the bargaining would begin with the main beneficiaries of a settlement of the Ukrainian church crisis – namely, either Constantinople or Moscow – all under a thick layer of rhetoric about upholding the primacy of the canons. Sadly, the direct interests of the Ukrainian Churches themselves would not even be in third place for these “moderators.” The result could well be that Ukrainians are forced to silently accept a “compromise solution” that merely cements the schism in the Ukrainian Church and society, leaving the problem for the next generation of state leaders (each successive generation handling the church crisis worse and more incompetently than the last). It is no secret that church bureaucracy sees only the past as a starting point: the solution is to return to the way things were – and all will fall into place. The fact that running minced meat backward through a grinder only makes it finer seems to trouble no one. Thus, the conclusion: the grinder is full of “enemies of Orthodoxy” who prevent the healing of the wounds of the Body of Christ.
We must state plainly: this generation of church functionaries has a critically low level of emotional intelligence and is incapable of producing creative, non-linear solutions that would serve the glory of the Orthodox Church and God. If the confederates truly cared for the interests of the UOC, they would not be so stubbornly pushing Metropolitan Onufriy into the arms of Patriarch Kirill, only inflaming among UOC faithful a morbid, incurable anxiety. They would have the courage to admit that the kyriarch acted toward the Church under his authority not as a father, but as a hireling and a robber, and that his decision to support the genocide of Ukrainians will have catastrophic consequences for all Orthodoxy unless a shared moral judgment is rendered. This is precisely the case “if your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life maimed or crippled than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into eternal fire” (Matt. 18:8).
It would seem that the World Orthodox Confederation is following the path of all Yalta–Potsdam international-legal institutions, which tried to oppose the force of revanchist dictatorship with the force of bureaucracy—and proved incapable of stopping the aggressor. In truth, the entire Confederation is itself part of that Yalta–Potsdam deal that emerged after the Second World War as a global system of compromises to prevent a new war. But the shelf life of the “rules-based order” has already expired. And as the old international system falls apart, so too will the reassembly of global Orthodoxy take place. The real question is: what principles and values will form the foundation of the new system? The answer depends on which centers of power the leaders of the Local Churches will orient themselves toward.
The world is rapidly sliding into post-liberal social Darwinism, which means the World Orthodox Confederation will need, more than ever, to revive the institution of “crusaders” – that is, patrons of Orthodoxy who have power, authority, and resources. They will not need to possess moral virtues, perfect Christian faith (or even belief in God), or lofty humanistic principles – since social Darwinism will not elevate aristocrats of the spirit, but their opposites. Such figures will not hesitate to court Churches by appealing to the most fundamentalist, archaic movements or revanchist ideas, thereby forcing Churches into a narrow niche where, according to the second law of thermodynamics, the only pastime of believers will be internal entropy. One pioneer in this respect was Joseph Stalin, who attempted to convene the All-Orthodox Council of 1948. He is openly emulated by the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, whom Patriarch Theophilos III of Jerusalem (according to Serbian Patriarch Porfirije) has called “the trump card of all Orthodoxy.” Another such “crusader without a cross” is U.S. President Donald Trump. Closer to our own context is Canadian-American lawyer Robert Amsterdam, whom it would be best to keep at the range of a sniper rifle in a gale-force crosswind from any church affairs. There are also hybrids of cross and wallet, like politician and businessman Vadim Novinsky, who has even been given the key to the combination lock of the social church elevator. The more turbulent the surrounding world becomes for Churches, the more various shady “fixers” of dubious origin and worldview will profit from panic. Those whom Scripture calls “mature,” who “by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil” (Heb. 5:14), will warn that such situational symbioses with “crusaders without a cross” will only lead to apostasy. But church bureaucratic structures, which have replaced soteriology with the overarching idea of self-preservation, and have made doormen and elevator operators into “guardians of the faith,” will declare such “mature” people to be enemies of Orthodoxy.
There is another nuance: what we have is a collapse within a collapse. It is not only the post-war “rules-based order” that is losing its force, but also the end of the life cycle of one of its founding powers – the Soviet empire, which in fact began the war precisely to delay its own death. The Ukrainian church crisis has found itself at the epicenter of this double collapse. As is well known, all empires begin to crumble at the peripheries. Once Russian propaganda humiliatingly called its “heartland” – Ukraine – an “outskirts,” the process of Russia’s own degradation as a “separate, unique civilization” entered an irreversible phase. By Lenz’s law, Russia, having driven itself into a closed circuit, began producing an “induced current” of its own civilizational apologetics that suppresses the very “magnetic flux” that created that civilization in the first place. The Local Churches to which the UOC so desperately appeals for help and compassion have their own “success stories” that once began with resistance to empire, but which – paradoxically – have now taken the side of the collapsing Soviet empire, artificially condemning the UOC to painful suffering.
It would seem obvious: if some Local Church suffers from wars, repression, and hardship, it should do everything possible to ensure that a sister Church does not fall into the same trouble – and, ideally, to find a hundred and one ways out of the dead end. But what do we see? No one wants to see another free and happy. We suffer – so must you. If you want our sympathy – here is a set of unbearable burdens; rattle these chains on camera from time to time so we know you are still in the program. Do you say that Patriarch Kirill blessed the Kremlin’s “holy war” against Ukraine and that this is grounds for breaking with him? But behind the Patriarch stands Orthodoxy’s “trump card,” Vladimir Putin, who spares no investment in our imitation of spiritual flourishing – so be humble. One of the harshest disappointments is realizing that “pan-Orthodox solidarity” has turned into a plastic myth with elements of passive-aggressive schadenfreude disguised as sighs.
How did it come to this? In traditional understanding, any law (including canon law) is not so much a reflection of reality as a way to order it, preventing society from sliding into archaism. Canon law, having set very high standards of church governance in late antiquity and the early Middle Ages, immediately invented a safety valve in the form of economia. But today, in the context of eschatological expectations, economia is regarded more as a sign of weakness than of Christian rationality – and the call for canonical literalism comes from those who should be erecting a monument to economia. The current reality is breathtaking in its cynicism: the Orthodox world now lives “by understandings” (po ponyatiyam). Sadly, the ROC has succeeded in imposing on the World Orthodox Confederation precisely this ponyatiye-based modus operandi, which rests on the unwritten rules of a mafia state whose useful area does not exceed that of Argentina.
Only the blind cannot see that everything from the outside is being done precisely to make the Ukrainian schism the new normal and to turn it into the point of departure for two mutually exclusive historiosophies and identities of the two competing Ukrainian Orthodox Churches. It cannot be said that the Ukrainian Churches themselves have not contributed to such a status quo, but it appears there is not a single “adult” in the pan-Orthodox room to stop these “Hunger Games.” On the contrary: the Local Churches are not opposed to receiving pleasant bonuses from supporting one side or the other.
Therefore, if Ukrainians do not want to be pawns in other people’s dirty games, they must find a consolidated solution within Ukraine itself. There is reason to suspect that legitimizing such a solution with external observers wearing compassionate expressions will be far easier than later trying to fulfill the terms of a separate “peace agreement” signed aboard the ecclesiastical Titanic.
This content was generated entirely with human intelligence.