The Rev. Vasily Nachev, a priest at the Church of the Archangel Michael, in Rivne, Ukraine. He is an adherent of the Moscow Patriarchy, which is at war with a breakaway Ukrainian Orthodox church.CreditBrendan Hoffman for The New York Times
CHERNYTSYA, Ukraine — Ukraine is on the verge of opening the biggest schism in Christianity in centuries, as it breaks from the authority of a Moscow-based patriarch and this week expects to formally gain recognition for its own church, taking tens of millions of followers.
Intensifying a millennium-old religious struggle freighted with 21st-century geopolitical baggage, Ukraine’s security services have in recent weeks interrogated priests loyal to Moscow, searched church properties and enraged their Russian rivals.
“They just want to frighten us,” said the Rev. Vasily Nachev, one of more than a dozen priests loyal to the Moscow patriarch who were called in for questioning.
The new Ukrainian church is expected to be granted legitimacy on Jan. 6, the eve of the Orthodox Christmas, when its newly elected head, Metropolitan Epiphanius, travels to Istanbul to receive an official charter from the Constantinople patriarchate, a longtime rival power center to Moscow.
The prospect of a new and entirely autonomous church in Ukraine has sent Russia’s political and religious leaders into fits of indignation, even raising fears that Moscow will try to sabotage the project by force.
The Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, left, presents a holy anointing oil to Metropolitan Epiphanius, the head of the independent Ukrainian Orthodox church, at the Patriarchal Church of St George in Istanbul on 6 January 2019. Photograph: Lefteris Pitarakis/AP
The Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, who reigns in Constantinople, has a magnificent title which corresponds to almost nothing on earth. Although he represents an unbroken tradition of almost 2,000 years of Christianity, Constantinople has been the Muslim city of Istanbul since 1453 and there are now fewer than 3,000 Orthodox Christians living there. Although his title is a claim to universal authority in the church, this has been has been obviously false since the papacy broke away and took with it western Christianity in the 11th century. Adding insult to injury, the patriarchs of Moscow regard themselves as his successors in “the Third Rome”. Yet still he matters. His decision last year to recognise the Ukrainian Orthodox church as a body separate from Moscow was celebrated in his cathedral in Istanbul today. It came in the teeth of Russian opposition, and the political rift between Ukraine and Russia is now paralleled by a rift on the spiritual plane between Moscow and Constantinople and the declaration of a formal schism. (more…)
By Seth Cropsey & Douglas J. Feith, Hudson Institute
At the heart of national-security strategy is imagination. The strategist’s job is to dream up what enemies someday might do to harm us. But there’s a lot of history supporting the adage that generals forever prepare to fight the last war. After World War I, France fortified itself against a German invasion of the kind it had spent four years stalemating in the trenches. After Sept. 11, 2001, the new Transportation Security Administration focused on airport procedures to prevent a repeat of that attack. (more…)
On November 14, Dmitry Peskov the press secretary for the president of Russia, stated, “I am not a supporter of the theory that Russia is making some sort of drift to the East […] these words were said by political scientists… (more…)
