(Bartholomew I and Putin)
With the oficial announcement of creation of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate on January 5th this year, the Russian Orthodox Church lost canonical (religious) jurisdiction over the Ukrainian territory after 332 years. In 1686, the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople had placed then Kyiv Patriarchate under the Moscow's authority, expanding canonical territory of the latter. At the time, what is now known as "Ukraine" had a territory very diferent than today. Constantinople revoked this inclusion in the Announcement of October 11th last year.
Without a direct religious influence, both the Russian Church and the Russian government has lost much of their ability of culturally and politically influence the Ukrainian population. As we recurrently see, Patriarch Kirill and President Putin often appear in public together and have a very similar discourse when it comes to define the country's identity, a task that the Kremlin has taken for itself and uses as one of its political and ideological foundations.
This political and cultural link between Church and State in Russia makes the power an element of action and reaction to events involving the religious sphere.
According to Paul Goble, the Western countries don't understand the Russia's reaction to events of such magnitude as the current religious quarrel. For Moscow, it means to give up its historical imperial role. The creation of the Ukrainian Church dimembered from the Russian Church means the retraction of the Russia's role in the world, and directly on the neighboring peoples. Since Putin can do nothing about it, at least not directly, Goble's expectation is a much more negative action than that waited by the West and the neighboring countries, which generally underestimate a Russian reaction. The takover of the Crimea and the start of the war in Ukraine in response to the protests of 2013-14 that overthrew Yanukovich, Moscow's political ally, is the most evident example of this.
(Capture of Ukrainians sailors, in smaller boats, on November 25th of last year, in the Black Sea.)
There are other elements which can contribute to a Russia's aggressive reaction and that apparently have nothing to do with the religious issue. The conflict in Ukraine may be an environment and the justification of this reaction. In a paper published on February 1st, political scientist Andreas Umland points to a possible unraveling of the conflict, which has the potential to move from the Donbas region to the Azov Sea, which bathes ports of Mariupol and Berdyansk, important for eastern Ukraine. The capture of 24 Ukrainian sailors by the Russian navy on the Kerch Strait last November 25th signals this possibility. Umland cites four factors for this possible geographical shift of the conflict: the lack of West's reaction to the Kerch Strait crisis (12 days after the article, a US Senate bipartisan commission has done a legislation to apply new sanctions on Moscow due, among other things, to this crisis), the absence of international monitoring organizations in the Azov Sea, the viability of the new Kerch Strait Bridge inaugurated by Russia in May 2018 (too much expensive and underutilized), and the precarious drinking water service in the Crimea.
If Goble is right, the Russia's strong annoyance due the creation of the new Ukrainian Church may be a fifth factor, not properly geopolitical, but as motivator for an aggressive reaction by the Kremlin.
But some actions would be in progress. According to the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) (also reported by the Religious Information Service of Ukraine, an inter-religious profile agency), Russian spies and security services from Donbas would be recruiting Ukrainians to arson churches run by Orhodox priests who left the Ukrainian Church of the Moscow Patriarchate to join the new Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate. In return, they would receive U$ 2.000 for the service. The agent should film the action to prove the attack and then would have the money deposited into his bank account. The SBU states to have aborted the recruiting of an Ukrainian. This would be an action not only to intimidate the territorial expansion of the Kyiv's Church, but also to punish those who would be "traitors" according to the Kremlin.
The country inherited from Soviet Union the instrumentalization of the Russia Church for its foreign policy. Church and State work together in this matter, in which the Church becomes a beneficiary of the political order created by the State. An example is the Crimea itself, where the only Ukranian Church's parish, in Simferopol, is at risk of losing operating permission for not adapting to Russian legislation. According to the law, religious groups can only own properties with a register with the State, what the Ukrainian Church could not do, since the country it represents doesn't recognize the Crimea as part of Russia. Another case was the ownership of the St. Nicholas Cathedral in Nice, France, by the Russian state, in January 2010. In 2007, the Kremlin had filed a lawsuit in French court alleging that the ownership of the cathedral by the exiled community from Revolution of 1917 has expired after 99 years. With the case won, Russia received, in addition to the building, around 300 rare religious icons. This kind of procedure is a way of promoting the Russian culture abroad and expanding what Moscow calls the "Russian world".
(Rare wooden church in flames in Gorlovka, eastern Ukraine, on August 8th, 2014. This is representative of the religious effects of conflict and tension between churches and governments.)
If Goble is right, the Russia's strong annoyance due the creation of the new Ukrainian Church may be a fifth factor, not properly geopolitical, but as motivator for an aggressive reaction by the Kremlin.
But some actions would be in progress. According to the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) (also reported by the Religious Information Service of Ukraine, an inter-religious profile agency), Russian spies and security services from Donbas would be recruiting Ukrainians to arson churches run by Orhodox priests who left the Ukrainian Church of the Moscow Patriarchate to join the new Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate. In return, they would receive U$ 2.000 for the service. The agent should film the action to prove the attack and then would have the money deposited into his bank account. The SBU states to have aborted the recruiting of an Ukrainian. This would be an action not only to intimidate the territorial expansion of the Kyiv's Church, but also to punish those who would be "traitors" according to the Kremlin.
The country inherited from Soviet Union the instrumentalization of the Russia Church for its foreign policy. Church and State work together in this matter, in which the Church becomes a beneficiary of the political order created by the State. An example is the Crimea itself, where the only Ukranian Church's parish, in Simferopol, is at risk of losing operating permission for not adapting to Russian legislation. According to the law, religious groups can only own properties with a register with the State, what the Ukrainian Church could not do, since the country it represents doesn't recognize the Crimea as part of Russia. Another case was the ownership of the St. Nicholas Cathedral in Nice, France, by the Russian state, in January 2010. In 2007, the Kremlin had filed a lawsuit in French court alleging that the ownership of the cathedral by the exiled community from Revolution of 1917 has expired after 99 years. With the case won, Russia received, in addition to the building, around 300 rare religious icons. This kind of procedure is a way of promoting the Russian culture abroad and expanding what Moscow calls the "Russian world".
Another Russia's possible action would be by judicial procedure, not in Ukraine, but in Turkey. The PhD in law and director of a research institute in Moscow, Igor Ponkin, lists a series of crime that Bartholomew I, the Ecumencial Patriarch of Constantinople, would have commited by nullifying the decision of the Synodal Letter of 1686 (and by publishing the Tomos of autocephaly of the Ukrainian Church on January 5th, that the author doesn't analyze). Bartholomew (whom Ponkin calls by the civil name Dimitrios Arhondis, disqualifying him for the position) would have made a false annulment of the old decision, stating that the current legal language is innocuous in relation to the terminology of the time. Ukraine, that at the time didn't exist as such, also had a very difrerent territory. Ponkin accuses the Patriarch of serious crimes under the Lausanne Treaty of 1923, and the Constitution and Penal Code of Turkey, where he lives, suggesting a criminal action against him. Bartholomew would be violating nine articles of these three laws, among them promoting a social convulsion in a foreign country from Turkey, incitating inter-religious hatred (in Ukraine and Turkey), and promoting a war between Russia and Ukraine. The Ponkin's position is clear: Bartholomew would not be a legitimate Patriarch, and it would be up to Turkey (in line with Russia) to take the appropriate legal measures.
While Russia doesn't act explicitly on the religious issue, analysts keep speculating its possible reactions. Based on recent history, we will still see what the Kremlin will do to compensate the lost position.
* Published in Portuguese on February 26th, 2019.
