The Orthodox Option? Er, Not So Fast!

When I wrote the old blog on subjects like "continuing" Anglicanism, I ran into contextual distractions, including a supposed Orthodox option for people dissatisfied with Episcopalianism, or indeed novus ordo Catholicism. The poster child for this option is Rod Dreher:

Raised a Methodist, he converted to Roman Catholicism in 1993, and subsequently wrote widely in the Catholic press. Covering the Catholic Church's sex abuse scandal, starting in 2001, led him to question his Catholicism, and on October 12, 2006, he announced his conversion to Eastern Orthodoxy. At the time, Dreher had argued that the scandal was not so much a "pedophile problem", but that the "sexual abuse of minors is facilitated by a secret, powerful network of gay priests", known as the "Lavender Mafia"

Various correspondents over the years have urged this option on me, but as far as I can tell, the option isn't popular, there are certainly accounts from people who feel burned by it, and my guess is that its attraction is mainly that it's esoteric, glitzy, and perhaps less demanding than Roman Catholicism, although like Dreher, its advocates at least endorse conservative values.

But the Russo-Ukraine War is exposing serious divisions in the movemeent. Via the Jerusalem Post,

Until 2018, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church was officially part of the Russian Orthodox Church. Indeed, as noted by many surveys, a large majority of Ukrainians are Orthodox Christians.

However, the relationship between Ukraine's and Russia's Orthodox churches changed in 2019 when Bartholomew I of Constantinople, the current ecumenical patriarch and essentially the head of the Orthodox Church, recognized the independence of the Ukraine Orthodox Church.

This does not mean the church is entirely independent and unconnected to Orthodoxy, as that is not how the church works. Rather, it would essentially be equal to the many other Orthodox churches.

The Orthodox Church functions as what is essentially a group of churches where the archbishops do not technically report to anyone higher – a type of church known as autocephaly. The ecumenical patriarch is considered "primus inter pares," meaning "first among equals," but he has no real authority over the other churches.

In other words, it's the Anglican model (although more correctly, the Anglicans follow the older Orthodox model). The ecumenical patriarch is somewhat like the Archbishop of Canterbury, although there have been many splinter groups of Anglicans who no longer are "in communion" with the Church of England and thus do not recognize whatever authority the Archbishop of Canterbury carries, which is nugatory, even among his own English bishops and priests. The story continues,

The problem lies in how the Russian Orthodox Church claims authority over Ukraine as a whole, and as such, they have been greatly opposed to the establishment and subsequent recognition of Ukraine's Orthodox Church.

The head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Epiphanius I of Ukraine, has been vocal in his opposition to the Russian invasion, saying that "the spirit of the anti-Christ operates in the leader of Russia" and said that killing Russian invaders was not a sin.

By contrast, Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Kirill has called for unity in the Orthodox church, but specifically "our united Orthodox Church represented in Ukraine by the Ukrainian Orthodox Church headed by His Beatitude Onuphry," referring to the head of the Moscow Patriarchate-controlled Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

This is causing what is apparently a historic schism. According to Reuters,

Russian Patriarch Kirill's full-throated blessing for Moscow's invasion of Ukraine has splintered the worldwide Orthodox Church and unleashed an internal rebellion that experts say is unprecedented.

Kirill, 75, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, sees the war as a bulwark against a West he considers decadent, particularly over the acceptance of homosexuality.

He and Putin share a vision of the "Russkiy Mir", or "Russian World", linking spiritual unity and territorial expansion aimed at parts of the ex-Soviet Union, experts told Reuters.

. . . "Kirill has simply discredited the Church," said Rev. Taras Khomych, a senior lecturer in theology at Liverpool Hope University and member of Ukraine's Byzantine-rite Catholic Church. "More people want to speak out in Russia but are afraid," he told Reuters in telephone interview.

. . . Ukraine is of visceral significance to the Russian Orthodox Church because it is seen as the cradle of the Rus' civilisation, a medieval entity where in the 10th century Byzantine Orthodox missionaries converted the pagan Prince Volodymyr.

. . . Kirill, who claims Ukraine as an indivisible part of his spiritual jurisdiction, had already severed ties with Bartholomew, the Istanbul-based Ecumenical Patriarch who acts as a first among equals in the Orthodox world and backs the autonomy of Ukraine's Orthodox Church.

"Some Churches are so angry with Kirill over his position on war that we are facing an upheaval in world Orthodoxy," Tamara Grdzelidze, professor of Religious Studies at Ilia State University in Georgia and a former Georgian ambassador to the Vatican, told Reuters.

Due to the creation of a new autocephalous Orthodox church in Ukraine, we're beginning to see individual dioceses and parishes moving from the Russian church to the new Ukrainian one, just like what we've seen for several decades among Anglicans. At the same time, we're seeing situations like the Russian church seceding from the world "church", which is turning out to be about as meaningful as one or another Anglican group seceding from the Anglican Communion. In other words, the Orthodox are turning to the same schism on which they founded themselves and starting to behave just like Protestants.

As to Rod Dreher's complaints about the "lavender mafia", it seems to me that in the decades since the pedophile scandal first broke, the US bishops in particular have brought that matter under control, with US cardinals being held accountable -- while the Russian Orthodox Church, which includes 100 million of 280 million Orthodox worldwide, now has serious problems over matters like blessing war crimes that go well beyond a lavender mafia.

Indeed, it's often recognized that the Russian Orthodox Church has existed at the sufferance of the Russian state since 1917, and since that time, its clergy has been fully penetrated by the organs of Russian state security.

So just what flavor of Orthodox is Rod Dreher? In this recent piece, he isn't entirely clear. He says,

All this should cause Catholics who favor integralism to think hard about the wisdom of closely uniting Church and State. When the Church becomes a de facto arm of the State, people will hold it responsible for State decisions.

All of a sudden he's giving Catholics advice? Gee, thanks! Isn't the point, though, that the Catholic Church isn't an arm of the US government, though it is in Russia, and due to the US First Amendment will never be such in the US? Maybe he and I will agree, say, that the Catholic Church isn't ready to appoint an Archbishop of Mars. We'll need to agree on more before I can take him seriously.

Is he maybe thinking of returning to the Church? Well, maybe, as long as it agrees not to be part of the US government, I guess, but so far, he also hasn't tried either Christian Science or LDS. I'd give him time for those.