Militarily, the Ukraine is collapsing. In the east Russian forces are advancing some miles almost every day, as former Kiev strongholds, undermanned and underequipped, fall. In the north, the NATO-planned operation to ‘invade’ Russia through the southern tip of the province of Kursk with up to 15,000 elite troops (2,000 of whom are Polish, American, British and French, but wearing Ukrainian uniforms) is turning into a bloodbath. Over 4,000 of those troops are already dead or seriously wounded. Many others have surrendered. That was a last act of desperation, a last chance to do something big. It too has failed, as the NATO-led Ukrainians are outmatched and outgunned in every was.
Two and a half years ago, all that Russia wanted was a neutral Ukraine and human rights for its Russian inhabitants. The USA forbade that. And slowly the USA escalated this war, arming and training Kiev troops. Even only a few weeks ago, Russia was still prepared to open peace negotiations with Kiev. Other BRICS countries were encouraging this. That is over. Now NATO, not the Ukraine, has invaded Russia. The Kursk Operation was NATO-planned, NATO-trained, NATO-equipped and NATO-financed. Here there are echoes of Napoleon’s multinational Western invasion of Russia in 1812 and Hitler’s equally multinational invasion of Russia in 1941. When will the West stop invading Russia? After each previous invasion from Western Europe, Western Europe was entirely reshaped. Here is the future for it. As for the Ukraine, it no longer has any future as such.
Meanwhile, there is also chaos in the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. Seeing these words, some will say: ‘No news here, it always is in chaos’. The confusion comes from the existence of so many pseudo-Orthodox Churches – here, clearly, I am not referring to the many US-founded Baptist/Pentecostalist sects in the country, which have no pretence of being Orthodox. Apart from the very few actual Roman Catholics, who are very traditional and more or less condemn the Second Vatican Council as heretical (and who have in the past contacted me), there are the not very many ‘Greek Catholics’. Neither Greek, nor Catholic (!), they are better known as Uniats, as they vaguely pretend to be Orthodox, but think like very old-fashioned, very right-wing and very anti-semitic Polish Catholics.
Then come those who call themselves ‘Ukrainian Orthodox’. There is the tiny group around the long since defrocked ‘Metropolitan’ (or is it Patriarch?) Filaret of Kiev. Nobody, not even Constantinople or his own children (both with Metr Onufry), takes this money-greedy (ex-?) Communist criminal seriously. Then comes the ‘OCU’, (‘the Orthodox Church in the Ukraine’), a group of clerically-dressed thugs and defrocked clergy who have stolen many churches from the actual Ukrainian Orthodox Church and whose favourite instruments are not liturgical, but angle-grinders and bolt-cutters. Their ideology appears to be Neo-Nazi, though they do convince a few patriotic but unchurched Ukrainians that they are actually Orthodox. After all, they were founded by the Patriarchate of Constantinople under American orders and greased with millions of US dollars, now nearly six years ago. Now using the Catholic calendar for their services, no serious Orthodox takes them seriously.
There is in reality only one real, internationally recognised and canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church. 95% + of Ukrainian Orthodox belong to it, despite vicious persecution by the Neo-Nazi Ukrainian State. Its ruling hierarch is Metropolitan Onufry of Kiev and All the Ukraine. It is this Church which has today been banned by the Rada, or Parliament, in Kiev (269 votes for, 29 votes against). So much for American-sponsored freedom and democracy in the Ukraine. America is the new atheist Soviet Union, it seems. However, the law must be signed by the President, after which it can only be enacted after thirty days. Now things are moving quickly to stop this.
Constantinople warned the Ukrainians not to pass this law. Constantinople now knows that the OCU is fake and that the only real Church is the one Kiev wants to ban. Kiev has just disobeyed. Of course, Constantinople in itself has no power. But behind it stands the USA. The local Greek Archbishop there, Elpidiforos, who four years ago had his photograph taken with Biden, whom then he praised and told everyone to vote for, is now seen with Trump. Trump is much less keen on the Ukraine. His Catholic Vice-Presidential running-mate, Senator Vance, is a supporter of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church. Everybody knows that probably the next US President, if still unassassinated, will be Trump, and that he is fed up with giving money to subsidise everything in the Ukraine, which without US dollars would have gone bankrupt years ago.
Moreover, everybody knows that Patriarch Bartholomew is now aged 84. Archbishop Elpidiforos is very keen to succeed him. As also is Metropolitan Emmanuel (Adamakis). The former has taken against the Ukrainian OCU, the latter very much did the dirty work to found it. Now a delegation from there is going to Kiev, as they wanted to before. (Let us hope that the dreaded SBU Kiev Secret Police, will not assassinate them). Constantinople is very keen for it not to be seen as the instigator of a law to ban the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church. Given the failure of its OCU fantasy, it may at last be ready to repeal its statute (‘tomos’ in Greek) which founded the OCU and re-establish relations with Metropolitan Onufry’s canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church and the rest of the Orthodox world, from which it has isolated itself.
Having implemented its OCU gaffe six years ago, this would be a convenient let-out (in American English ‘off-ramp’) for Constantinople. If Constantinople states that it was lied to by the OCU, it can unrecognise it. If it were sensible it could even offer Metr Onufry autocephaly for his Church. That would put the Moscow Church, of which the Ukrainian Orthodox Church is de jure, but not de facto, a part, and to which for over thirty years it refused to grant autocephaly, in a tight corner. Of course, it may will not do this. Instead, some say that Constantinople wants to open up yet a new ecclesiastical structure in the Ukraine, an Exarchate, under the notorious and hated Archbishop Job (Getcha). That would be a great pity, because it now has an opportunity to improve relations with Moscow and embarrass it for Moscow’s uncanonical incursion into Greek-claimed Africa.
Our former friend, the former press secretary of the ever-memorable Patriarch Alexis II and journalist, Sergei Chapnin, who once came to our house, is heading for Constantinople now. We may hear more in the coming days. As the old Russian saying goes: ‘The circus left town, but the clowns stayed behind’.