Russia's Problem Is A Problem For Orthodoxy

I've noted here now and then that there's a schism within the Russian Orthodox Church, the largest Orthodox denomination, arising from the dissolution of the Soviet Union but recently exacerbated by the Russo-Ukraine War. The Wikipedia entry on the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) says,

Prior to May 2022, the Primate of the UOC-MP was the most senior permanent member of the ROC's Holy Synod and thus had a say in its decision-making in respect of the rest of the ROC throughout the world. On May 27, 2022, the UOC declared its independence from the Moscow Patriarchate due to Patriarch Kirill's support of the invasion of Ukraine. Before its decision for full independence, more than 400 parishes had left the Moscow Patriarchate as a consequence of the invasion.

Most recently Patriarch Kirill has tied the Orthodox faith directly to fighting in Ukraine:

While celebrating the Divine Liturgy on Wednesday at the Zachatyevsky Monastery, which is traditionally considered the oldest convent in Moscow (a historically dubious claim), the Patriarch begins his sermon by recalling, not the birth of the Holy Mother, but the birth of the Fatherland at the Battle of Kulikovo.

. . . He declares that while retreat might be possible from worldly things, it’s impossible to retreat “from faith,” a powerful line, now a standard in his sermons, which draws an equivalency between Russian aggression in Ukraine and defending and living the Orthodox faith.

He then goes on to once again erase Ukraine from the historical map, saying that the people ought to pray that “Holy Russia would be reunited.” As he’s made clear before, Ukraine is not, to his mind, an independent nation, but a rogue territory within Russia. And keeping Ukraine as part of Russia is a sacred obligation. It’s also apparently what victory looks like for the Virgin Mary (she does get a shout out at the end).

Reading about individual parishes leaving a denomination reminds me of the "continuing Anglican" and related movements to leave the US Episcopal Church, and it's simply a bad sign, since it means an inevitable loss of prestige for the denomination as a whole, both the parent body and its contentious children. In the case of Russia, it ties the denomination to an unpopular war. During the Viet Nam war, most Christian denominations or people claiming to represent them were publicly against US policy, which on one hand protected the denominations from loss of face when the war went badly.

On the other hand, both the government and the denominations were also protected by the US constitutional ban on establishment of religion, so that no denomination of any stripe was forced to defend the government. The problem for Russian Orthodoxy is that it has been an agency of the Russian state in one form or another since 1721 under Peter the Great. In many ways, the Russian Orthodox Church's history in the 18th century echoed the history of the Church of England, with the government seizing monastic lands and influencing church governance.

Catherine even made sure that the salaries of all ranks of the clergy were paid by the state instead of the Church, resulting in the clergy effectively becoming employees of the state.

Even after 1917, while the communist government seized church valuables and for a time executed priests, religion was never fully abolished, and by the time of the 1941 German invasion, Stalin came to see the church as a convenient ally in the war. Thus Russian Orthodoxy has been tied to the state and specific state policies, including war, ever since the establishment of modern Russia. It's recognized that both Patriarch Kirill and his predecessor were KGB agents during the Soviet period:

Forbes reported on February 20, 2009 that, "Kirill, who was the Metropolitan of Smolensk, succeeds Alexei II who died in December after 18 years as head of the Russian Church. According to material from the Soviet archives, Kirill was a KGB agent (as was Alexei). This means he was more than just an informer, of whom there were millions in the Soviet Union. He was an active officer of the organization. Neither Kirill nor Alexei ever acknowledged or apologized for their ties with the security agencies."

The difficulty for Russian Orthodoxy is that even through the disruptions of the 20th century, the denomination has continued as an agent of the Russian state, and the patriarch at this point is still a convenient puppet of the Russian autarch. It doesn't help that Russian Orthodox clergy have been not just state employees, but KGB agents, which compromises both their motives and their standing as ministers to the faithful.

In his recent sermon, Kirill tied Russian Orthodoxy to a founding event of the Russian state, the Battle of Kulikovo (1380). The problem for Russia generally is that its impending loss in Ukraine is bringing to mind other key historical events like the First (1410) and Second (1914) Battle of Tannenberg, which have also been cited as turning points in Russian history, and with them, Russian Orthodoxy.

This is also a problem at the core of Western right-wing support for Russia in the war, since many such supporters favor Putin for promoting conservative values in Russia, as opposed to Western countries that support Ukraine, when those governments also pursue policies that undermine sexual morality. The difficulty will increasingly be that Putin will lose prestige as events continue to develop, while at the same time evidence emerges of Russian policies that are nearly as destructive in Ukraine as either Hitler's or Stalin's.

While I was an Episcopalian, and since then as well, I noticed an incresing trend among their clergy especially to affect Orthodox forms -- for instance, to refer to the Virgin Mary as the Theotokos -- in an effort to borrow Orthodox prestige as the prestige of Anglicanism faded. I don't think that strategy will last much longer.