Tag Archives: Decentralisation

Breaking through the Glass Ceiling of the Empires: Why Autocephalies are Now Inevitable

The most intensely centralised, that is, imperialistic, Christian establishment that ever existed was – and is – Papal Rome. Opposition to it began immediately after it had been institutionalised by its schism in the eleventh century (See The Formation of a Persecuting Society: Power and Deviance in Western Europe 950-1250 by R.I. Moore). There followed violent Papally-sponsored military genocides – the so-called ‘crusades’ – massacres, inquisitions, invasions and hatreds all over Europe. In the sixteenth century the previously outwardly imperialist edifice of Rome came tumbling down in appalling wars and violence against those who protested against it, who were aptly called Protestants.

The second imitation of this centralised establishment came in the ‘Second Rome’, which meant Greek Orthodox in Constantinople. Through their imperialist centralisation, they had encouraged the splits from the Church of the Copts, Syrians and Armenians. Its centralised control intensified in the second millennium, in Russia and then the Balkans, notably in Bulgaria, and continues today in its attempts at centralisation in Czechoslovakia, Macedonia and, above all, in the Ukraine, with wild threats to take away independence from all others. Its imperialistic actions have now created a foolish and unnecessary schism with those far bigger than themselves, those who claim to be the ‘Third Rome’.

This ‘Third Rome’ is Moscow, Russia, where Imperialist centralisation created the ‘Old Ritualist’ schism in the seventeenth century and continues, though they were obliged in the last century to concede autocephaly (independence) to the Orthodox Churches in Poland, Czechoslovakia and a group in North America. Now, as a result of its almost control freak insistence on centralisation, it is going to be obliged to decentralise more seriously, firstly to the Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Carpatho-Russia (with Austria-Hungary), the Baltics, Central Asia, and then to Western Europe, North America, Latin America and Oceania, although here this will be in collaboration with other Local Orthodox Churches.

Thus, this process of decentralisation or autocephalisation was made inevitable by the imperialist centralisation of each centre, which all claimed to be a ‘Rome’. None of them, strangely enough, claimed to be a ‘Second Jerusalem’, which is the centre of the Christian Faith, whereas Rome was always the enemy of the Faith. The fact is that the treatment by all three Romes of others of a different ethnicity as second-class citizens (or third-class citizens in many cases) has inevitably led to the desire for independence. The First Rome created the desire for independence among the Germanic peoples, the Second Rome among Non-Greeks, and the Third Rome among Non-Russians. There are no surprises here.

Church life has for 2,000 years been characterised by centralising forces and decentralising forces. Thus, the first Orthodox Christians lived scattered, decentralised, living in what was in fact autocephaly, in Ephesus, Corinth, Colossae, Galatia, Philippi, Thessaloniki, Rome etc. Then in the fourth century came the imperial period and there emerged the centralising forces of the five Patriarchates, the ‘Pentarchy’ of Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem. In the last two centuries, the last four very depopulated centres have been falling apart. In the last 150 years, we have with the fall of empires seen the number of Autocephalous Churches double, going from eight to sixteen.

These new Churches are in Greece, Romania, Bulgaria, Poland, Czechoslovakia, America, Albania and Macedonia. With the geographical spread of the Orthodox Church, the foundation of even more Local Churches is going to become inevitable. As a result of the centralising forces, the decentralising forces have taken over. People feel oppressed by the centralisation of the old centres, which still cling on to power. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. It is Newton’s Third Law. Romanising/Papalising centralisation has lost. We no longer live in the Imperial period, initiated by Constantine. Since 1917 we have been living in the post-Constantinian period. The glass ceiling is breaking.

For centralisation, the limiting of control to small cliques, entails corruption. These cliques are formed by love of money and power. In the case of the First Rome, this was corruption and domination by pedophiles and other perverts (any visitor to the Vatican can see the pedophilia from the frescoes), and financial corruption. In the case of the Second and Third Romes, firstly backstabbing homosexuality leads to blackmail, and secondly the love of luxury leads to bribery. All this creates a glass ceiling which ensures that spirituality, pastorship and competence are excluded and are replaced by bureaucracy, careerism and narcissism. And rule without the Holy Spirit is no rule at all.

The New Age of Sovereignty

You always knew who the goody was and who the baddy was in the cowboy films of the mid-twentieth century. The goody always wore a white hat, the baddy a black hat. Simple. This reflected the Cold War mentality of the time. The Capitalists were good, the Communists were bad. It was all an oversimplified world of good versus evil, right versus wrong, ‘with us or against us’, as per Bush. It was a simple, bipolar, dualist, Manichean world of black and white. It was not of course reality, which is usually lighter or darker grey.

In reality, although nobody liked the tyranny of Communism, especially those who lived in Communist countries, the paradoxical tragedy was that after the fall of Communism, the world became unipolar. In other words, the US and its Western vassals could brook no rivals. It was the ‘spoiled brat syndrome’ – ‘I am the only one’. ‘Hegemony’, that is, supremacy and domination over all, became the order of the day. But hegemony and bossy control freakery do not work – ask any Californian bishop who has tried to impose it.

However, as the whole world, except for the Western, now knows, neither a bipolar world (Capitalist versus Communist), nor a unipolar world (Western), work. Rule by one or two always leads to despotism. The solution is a multipolar world, which breaks the tyranny of the monopoly of one and the warring opposition of two. This is the realm of the Holy Trinity. Sadly, the West wants either unipolar or else bipolar, the ‘democratic’ (West) versus the ‘autocratic’ (East). This is the heretical nonsense of Manichaeism.

The fact is that the Western Establishment oligarchies are certainly autocratic, they ignore and despise their ‘deplorable’ peoples. ‘plebs’, as in France, the UK and Germany, all governed by minority governments. For the people are the greatest threat, as we saw from the very unexpected (for the elites) results of the referendum on Brexit and the recent US election. They were not unexpected for the people. As for the pro-Western CIA-sponsored dictatorships in the Arabian Peninsula, Latin America and Asia, are they not autocratic?

But the most autocratic of them all is the Kiev regime, which has banned other political parties, critical media, sent all opposition to the firing squads, prisons and torture chambers of the dreaded Secret Police, and is now even banning the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. On the other side, India is the world’s largest democracy. And President Putin can easily win any election, in the same way as the very popular political leaders of China and Iran. Some people like such ‘autocratic’ governments – the more the better, they say.

As long as the Western elites and their venal media criminalise or ‘hitlerise’ a dialogue with ‘cancelled’ Russia (though they talked to the USSR and China during the Cold War), the only end to NATO’s anti-Russian war in the Ukraine is Russian victory and their total defeat. And that will not be long now. The Western elite never cared about Ukrainians, or any other Non-Western people, it just used them as proxies, so their own troops did not have to die. However, this does not mean that the Russians are not guilty of mistakes.

For one thing, as President Putin has openly admitted, there was the continual Russian naivety with regard to Western politicians from 1989 on. The Russians actually thought they were dealing with honest people, viz the Minsk Accords. And then there has been the problem of the hangover of the old Soviet centralisation. After 1991, the Russian Federation failed to give the real Ukraine (the north-western half, not the Russian southern and eastern half), autonomy and to respect its culture and language, authentically Ukrainian.

It was the usual condescending Great Russian chauvinism and imperialism, dating back to the pre-Soviet times of the Imperialist Establishment, which says that if you are not Russian, you are a third-class citizen. This is the same attitude as in the Russian emigration, pre-Soviet and post-Soviet, towards all Non-Russians. This imperialist attitude of both many Russians (and many Americans – they have that in common) meant that the US conquered very venal Kiev in 2014 for a paltry $5 billion. But look at the miserable results.

The scale of the events in the Ukraine is that of a Shakespearian tragedy. The main role was performed by the CIA-hired and very overpaid actor and comedian Zelensky, who firsthad to improve his English, learn Ukrainian and be reclothed in khaki sweatshirts for the role. Like Caesar, expect Zelensky to be betrayed and stabbed by Brutus. The Ides of March are near. President Putin is waiting for free Ukrainians to take power, perhaps with Trump’s backing. Then banned peace talks can start and the European elite can resign.

There needs to be a New Ukraine, sovereign, independent, free of NATO and the EU – which are not going to survive anyway. And as a Sovereign Nation it must have its own autocephalous or independent Church. Ordinary Ukrainians, unlike their greedy oligarchic elites – usually Non-Ukrainians – have been the sacrificial lambs of both American and Soviet Imperialism. Hopefully, President Putin can persuade the Church in Moscow to abandon centralism and give autocephaly to all Russian Orthodox in territories outside the Russian Federation.

This may mean that before Trump’s inauguration in seventy days’ time the Russians will advance towards the Dnieper, taking from four to seven more Ukrainian provinces, including the Black Sea Coast, so joining up with Transdniestria. The territories outside the Russian Federation, where Russian Orthodox live, would need autocephaly, meaning a Church of the New Ukraine and a Church of the Baltics. All the other Diasporas, as well as Moldova, would have to come to an agreement with the other canonical Orthodox there.

Imperialism has always been a problem. It bankrupted the seventeenth-century empires of Spain and Portugal, of eighteenth-century France and of nineteenth-century Britain, each time the bankruptcy taking place in the century after greatness. Imperialism caused two ‘World’ (European) Wars. Now in the twenty-first century, Imperialism has bankrupted the USA. We believe that the Russian Federation has learned from the bankruptcy of the equally Imperialist USSR. The administration of the Russian Orthodox Church must learn that too.

We have entered the new Age of Sovereignty. Sovereignty is what multipolarity means, where one nation is balanced out by the others and no-one can become too powerful. All defend their own and each other’s interests, as the UN should have done. Away with the old Imperialism of unipolarity, World Dictatorship, and the bipolar Imperialisms of two rival blocs, everyone else crushed between them. We have entered the world of Sovereign Nations. Imperialism caused two World Wars and has nearly caused a Third. Enough is enough.

The Coming Synod in Moscow: An Example to the Vatican?

Introduction

The Synod of the Patriarchate of Moscow will meet in just a few days’ time. Of the many issues the Synodal members will have to decide is that of possible autocephaly for the Orthodox in Moldova. As we know, Metr Vladimir of Moldova has asked for autocephaly in order to overcome the problems in his country. He fears either that the Moscow Patriarchate will be banned in Moldova or else that his flock will transfer en masse to the Patriarchate of Bucharest. This is difficult for Moscow. This thorny problem is, however, only the tip of the iceberg.

In the last century the Patriarchate of Moscow granted autocephaly to Orthodox in Poland, Czechoslovakia and to Carpatho-Russians in Northern America (the ‘OCA’). Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union into fifteen different republics 32 years ago, it has not given autocephaly to anyone. It seems to us that the granting of autocephaly to Orthodox who live in now independent republics is long overdue.

Thus, we would suggest that Orthodox in the Ukraine (all those on territory under the political control of the government in Kiev), Moldova, and the three Baltic States (Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia) should all receive autocephaly, but not be allowed a Diaspora presence (see below). This would mean that the Orthodox in Belarus would remain in their Exarchate, as they have not requested autonomy (as they have in Japan and China), let alone autocephaly.

However, if this Synod in Moscow were to become a Synod of Decentralisation, that is, of Autocephaly, Autonomy and Exarchate, we would suggest that perhaps further decentralisation should take place:

Why not give up the remaining thirty or so Moscow parishes in North America and give them to the OCA, on condition that the whole Autocephalous Church there be renamed the NAOC – the Northern American Orthodox Church? (Northern America being the USA, Canada, Greenland and a couple of dependent islands). Local bishops and parishes of the American Synod (called ROCOR)in Northern America should be informed that they must in time, say, over the coming five years, obey the Patriarchal Synod and also join, or else fall out of communion.

Thus: Three New Exarchates, making Four Autocephalous Churches: The Ukrainian, the Moldovan, the Baltic and the Northern American.

Why not grant the Western European Exarchate Autonomy, merging that Exarchate with the Archdiocese of Western Europe? With autonomy would come long-overdue internationalisation and the organisation’s indispensable acceptance by Non-Russian nationalities. This Autonomous Western European Orthodox Church would also include all bishops and parishes of the Ukrainian, Moldovan and Baltic Orthodox Churches. Local bishops and parishes of the American Synod (ROCOR) in Western Europe should be informed that they must in time, say, over the coming five years, obey the Patriarchal Synod and also join, or else fall out of communion.

Thus: One New Exarchate, making Three Autonomous Churches: The Western European, the Japanese and the Chinese.

Why not create one single Exarchate for the Metropolia of Kazakhstan and the Metropolia of Central Asia? Why not create an Exarchate for all parishes in Latin America, from Argentina through Central America to Mexico? Why not suggest creating an Exarchate of Oceania, based on the Russian parishes in Australia (at present under the American Synod)?

Thus: Two New Exarchates, making Five Exarchates: The Belarussian, the Kazakhstan and Central Asian, the African, the South-East Asian and the Latin American. And one new potential Exarchate for the future.

Conclusion

Such a Synod in Moscow would surely set an example of decentralisation to the current Roman Catholic ‘Synod on Synodality’, which is, among other immense problems of its own, also grappling with its historic and spiritually deadening problem of centralisation, caused by Papism.

The Crisis in the Russian Orthodox Church: Where Are They Going?

Add more evils upon them, O Lord; add more evils upon them that are glorious upon the earth.

Isaiah, 26, 15 (Septuagint)

1917

In February 1917 the Russian Empire was overthrown. Almost automatically, Georgian Orthodox saw their Church recover its canonical status as the ancient Autocephalous (Independent) Georgian Orthodox Church, of which they had so long been deprived by Russian Imperialist politics. As well as this, certain Non-Russian territories of the former Russian Empire were ceded and became permanently independent parts of the new States of Poland and Czechoslovakia. In the ecclesiastical sphere, eventually two completely new Autocephalous Churches were formed out of the old Russian Imperial Church, the Church of Poland and the Church of Czechia and Slovakia, in which countries there were and still are considerable numbers of Orthodox.

As for the few mainly very Lutheranised Orthodox in newly-independent Finland, after 1917 they formed a group of parishes, which chose to be under the Patriarchate of Constantinople, as indeed they still are. As well as this, all of Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and territories that belonged to western Belarus, the far west of the Ukraine and the Romanian-speaking area known as Moldova or Bessarabia were ceded. However, all of these were forcibly returned to the USSR as a result of Soviet occupation and then liberation from Nazism between 1939 and 1945, in what was a de facto partial reconstitution of the old Empire by the imperialist Stalin.

Between 1917 and 1945 the Orthodox in Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Moldova had encountered various difficulties and political and ecclesiastical changes involving the Patriarchate of Constantinople or, in Moldova, the Patriarchate of Romania. However, by the end of the Second World War their territories all ended up as parts of the USSR, the successor to the Russian Empire, and ecclesiastically were once again put under the Russian Orthodox Church.

1991

Almost exactly seventy-five years later, at the end of 1991, the multinational but highly centralised USSR split into fifteen independent republics. However, only two Local Orthodox Churches existed in those fifteen new countries: the Russian and the Georgian. Thus, the former still had jurisdiction in thirteen different countries outside the new Russian Federation, where there lived millions of Russians but also representatives of other nationalities who were also Orthodox.

It is our view that the Russian Church should have followed the political decentralisation granted by political Moscow to the new countries. Thus, ecclesiastical Moscow should have granted ecclesiastical independence to the Orthodox in those new countries, as indeed some senior Russian figures said at the time. We believe that in this way five new Autocephalous Churches would have been carved out of the Russian Church. These would have been the Ukrainian, the Belarussian, the Moldovan, the Central Asian (covering the five countries of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan) and the Baltic (covering the three countries of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia). (As so few Orthodox lived in the last two new independent countries, Armenia and Azerbaijan, there was only a need there for a few dependency churches under Russia or Georgia).

If this had been done, there would no longer have been one single multinational Russian Orthodox Church, but a new family of seven Sister-Churches: the Russian (by far the largest), the Ukrainian, the Belarussian, the Moldovan, the Central Asian, the Baltic (and the already existing Northern American, called the OCA). These would have come on top of the already existing two Autonomous Churches of Japan and China, later joined by the three much more recent Russian Exarchates in Western Europe, South-East Asia and Africa, perhaps already granted Autonomy. Thus, there would today have been formed a family of Seven Autocephalous and Five future Autocephalous Churches, Twelve Churches in all.

Instead

Instead, we have seen what was once a multinational Russian Church increasingly becoming a national and indeed nationalist Church. Russian flags, unheard of before, are more and more often to be found inside Russian churches. For example, in 2020 a huge new Orthodox Cathedral of the Russian Armed Forces was opened in Patriot Park outside Moscow, alongside the aviation museum of the Kubinka air base and a tank museum. This Cathedral can only be called nationalist in its design, which some have called ‘Stalinist baroque’ and even ‘sinister’, and some of its militarist frescoes involving the Red Army are highly controversial and for many very shocking. However, apparently all this is fully acceptable to the once independently-minded, émigré-founded Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (ROCOR).

Worse still, on 15 August this year, the most recent of ten new monuments and statues of Stalin was unveiled in the city of Velikie Luki near Pskov. This was blessed by priests, one of whom is alleged to have declared that Stalin was great ‘because he had created so many martyrs’. The priests who did this have been rebuked for not having a blessing from their bishop to do so (only because of this?). However, what is even more worrying is that men with such values could have been ordained to the priesthood in the first place. They compare very badly to that pious Ukrainian priest in Moscow who was recently, quite uncanonically and shockingly, ‘defrocked’ for refusing to pray for Russian victory in the Special Military Operation in the Ukraine and instead of that praying for peace. We had thought that all should pray for peace, leaving the rest to God.

It seems as though the whole Russian Church has today been reduced to nationalist politics and centralised ‘protocols’, rules and regulations. We can only imagine the protests that would now be flooding in from the senior bishops of the old Moscow Patriarchate, like Metropolitan Antony Bloom in London or Archbishop Basil Krivoshein in Brussels. They must be spinning in their graves, seeing the utter rejection of the Gospel values they lived for and wrote about and the total destruction and renunciation of all their efforts to create multinational Orthodox missions. Indeed, after a lifetime of devotion to the Moscow Church, Archbishop Basil’s nephew, Nikita, now writes and acts against Moscow nationalism and its Church. It is hardly surprising.

Far Worse Still

However, all of this is as nothing compared to the Church wars that have been triggered elsewhere outside the Russian Federation since the Russian Patriarch Kyrill endorsed in no uncertain terms the eighteen-month-old Russian Special Military Operation in the Ukraine. Last year he even stated that those Russians fighting against Ukrainians, many of the latter Orthodox, and dying in battle, would go to heaven as martyrs, rather like jihadis. So far, some 400,000 Ukrainian soldiers and at least 40,000 Russian soldiers have been killed in this Operation.

This is exactly the opposite of the example of Bishop (later St) Nicholas of Tokyo. After Japan had treacherously attacked Russia in 1904, Bishop Nicholas ordered his Japanese Orthodox priests to pray for the armed forces of Japan (not at all the same as praying for their victory) and himself retired into seclusion to weep and pray, refusing to take part in any public activities. Surely Patriarch Kyrill, officially Patriarch of both Russian and Ukrainian Orthodox, as well as many other nationalities, should have done the same? Who can rejoice at war?

The result is that most Orthodox in the Ukraine, as well as many in Moldova and Latvia, some in Lithuania, Estonia, Western Europe and North America, and even a few in Belarus and the Russian Federation itself, have left the Russian Church. Orthodox in the Ukraine have declared that they are ‘fully independent’ of Moscow and Orthodox in Latvia have been declared to be autocephalous and both are acting so, not commemorating Patriarch Kyrill. Now, the usual completely unChristian ‘anathemas’ and uncanonical ‘defrockings’ are flying around. (Defrocking takes place for acts against morality, not for acts against immorality, though try telling immoral bishops that…).

Typical is the example of the very aggressive and highly controversial Bishop Markell of Baltsy and Falesht in Moldova who has declared the usual, that anyone who leaves the Moscow Church (in this case, for the Romanian Church) is automatically defrocked and ‘has no grace’. As a result, many more Moldovans are leaving him and the Moscow Church in disgust, and he has lost several churches and properties with their income, which seriously concerns him. As a result, the already isolated Russian Church, already out of communion with the Greek Churches, is on the point of falling out of communion with the Romanian Church too. Where are they going? Insanity appears to have seized them.

On the Possible Reconfiguration of the Russian Orthodox Church

Foreword: Russia and the Ukraine in Conflict

The possible military, economic and geopolitical consequences of the conflict in the Ukraine are much discussed. But what can we say of the ecclesiastical consequences? Both Russia and the Ukraine are ethnically more or less identical, both have majorities which are nominally Russian Orthodox Christians, so that both are dependent on the same Russian Orthodox Church, centred in Moscow. And yet a military conflict is under way between the two countries and there are many in the Ukraine who now do not want to recognise any administration in Moscow, even stating that the Russian Orthodox Patriarch should be tried for war crimes. Let us look at the general background to this situation.

Introduction: The Orthodox Church and Geopolitics

The Orthodox Church is a Confederation or family of 14 universally recognised Autocephalous (= fully independent) Local Churches, with some 200 million adherents in all. Each Local Church is led by a Patriarch, Metropolitan or Archbishop, depending on its size. With 142 million members, over 70% of the total, the Russian Orthodox Church is by far the largest of these Local Churches, followed by the Romanian (19 million), the Greek (10 million) and the Serbian (8 million). The remaining 19 million Orthodox belong to the other 10 very small Local Churches, each numbering on average about 2 million members. Although these Churches are based in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, several of them have ‘diasporas’, that is, emigrant minorities and missions, often going back several generations, in Western Europe, North America, Australia and outside their Eurasian homelands. These diasporas number millions.

Most of these smaller Local Churches are precisely that – local, that is, national. Thus, it is extremely rare, for example, to find a Non-Albanian member of the Albanian Orthodox Church or a Non-Georgian member of the Georgian Orthodox Church. The largest exception is the Russian Orthodox Church, which is multinational, with over sixty nationalities inside and outside the Russian Federation. Indeed, well over a quarter of all Russian Orthodox churches and clergy are to be found in the Ukraine, even though the Russian Orthodox administrative centre is in Moscow. That administration, known as ‘The Moscow Patriarchate’, is led by its Patriarch, whose title is ‘of Moscow and All Rus’ (‘Rus’ meaning the East Slav lands).

For well over a century, the Western Powers, with their State-controlled religions, have been trying to control the Orthodox Church. This has followed the well-worn model of how the USA came to control Roman Catholicism after the Second World War, protestantising or secularising it at the Second Vatican Council between 1962 and 1965. Then, in 1978 it helped appoint the Polish Pope Woytila (‘John-Paul II’) to undermine the Soviet Union and in 2013 Jorge Bergoglio (‘Francis I’) to impose its post-Christian agenda. As for the Orthodox world, in 1948 the US State Department took over the small, politically weak but ancient Church of Constantinople in Istanbul, and has ever since tried to use it to manipulate the internal affairs of the whole Orthodox Church and ‘vaticanise’ it too.

It is in this context that the multinational nature of the Russian Orthodox Church is not only a strength, but also a weakness. For some Russian Orthodox living outside the Russian Federation and Belarus, ‘the Moscow Patriarchate’ administration, appears to be simply a department of the Russian State. This is nothing new. It happened during the pre-Soviet period and notably the Soviet period, when anti-Soviet Russian Orthodox immigrant groups, now variously called ROCOR, the OCA, the Paris Archdiocese, as well as Ukrainian and Belarusian jurisdictions, broke away from the enslaved Church administration held hostage in Moscow.

The pressure to split from the Mother-Church came and comes not only from the people, but also from political pressures from States under which Russian Orthodox have lived. We can see this very clearly in the USA, where émigré groups have been infiltrated, creating bishops, in fact CIA assets. In the UK, Germany and France a similar pattern can be observed. This movement is spreading to the hostage Russian Orthodox episcopate in the Russophobic Baltic States, Moldova and above all in the Ukraine, where several, large-scale splits have occurred, with millions leaving the jurisdiction of the Russian Orthodox Church. How can such nationalist splintering effects be avoided by Moscow?

Against Splintering

Unlike the Church of Constantinople in Turkey, which is financially dependent on politicised Greek Americans, the Russian Church is free of systematic US interference. However, as we have said, it does have its own internal traitors and they are US assets. Moreover, the Russian Church also has its own issues, all of which go back to the westernisation of Russia which began intensively 300 years ago, though all these issues have much worsened since 1917. These issues are: Russian nationalism (which undermines the ethos of a multinational Church), centralisation, bureaucracy and corruption.

As we have said, on top of these we now have the conflict in the Ukraine. This has caused division in the Russian Orthodox Church, not only among westernised fringe members of the Church, some of whom belong to an American-based marginal group called ‘Public Orthodoxy’, but above all in the Ukraine itself, as well as in the Baltics, Moldova and Western Europe. Although some of these divisions may be nationalistic or of the spiritually feeble politically correct variety, they are nevertheless very real and above all long-term, sometimes going back well over a century.

For instance, in the Ukraine itself a third of the canonical (let alone uncanonical) episcopate today refuses to commemorate the Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kyrill at services, seeing in him an enemy of the Ukrainian people. For their people, even the word ‘Moscow’ in the title ‘Moscow Patriarchate’ is a dirty word and they see the Patriarch not as a representative multinational figure, but as a corrupt nationalist stooge of an enemy Russian government. Below we make suggestions which might be of use in finding solutions to these critical problems.

First of all, there is the very name ‘the Moscow Patriarchate’. Given how Western aggression has pushed the Russian Federation to embrace Asia and sometimes made the Russian Church favour relations with traditional Islam (and traditional Non-Christian religions in general) over relations with non-traditional secularist Roman Catholicism and Protestantism, some have suggested that the Russian capital itself could be moved from the megalopolis of Moscow. The new capital would be the Urals city of Ekaterinburg, on the very frontier of Europe and Asia. This city is also marked by the historic events surrounding the martyrdom of Tsar Nicholas II and his Family in 1918.

If that happened, the present ‘Moscow Patriarchate’ would have to be renamed ‘The Patriarchate of Ekaterinburg and All Rus’. However, this is for the moment a purely imaginary discussion. It is our suggestion that the administration of the Patriarchate of Moscow might rather be moved some thirty miles to the north-west of Moscow, to the historic, seventeenth-century monastery complex and patriarchal residence of New Jerusalem (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Jerusalem_Monastery#:~:text=History%20The%20New%20Jerusalem%20Monastery%20was%20founded%20in,its%20name%20from%20the%20concept%20of%20New%20Jerusalem). This would give the Patriarchate the new title of ‘The Patriarchate of New Jerusalem and All Rus’. This would avoid any Soviet connotations of the title ‘Patriarchate of Moscow’. Also totally unrealistic? Perhaps. However, we also have a solution other than renaming or ‘rebranding’.

The Solution of Autonomisation

At present the Russian Church is divided administratively into Autonomous (self-governing, but not fully independent) Churches, Exarchates and Metropolias. The difference between these administrative terms is the level of independence from the Centre, with an Autonomous Church being much more independent than an Exarchate and an Exarchate much more independent than a Metropolia. Each of these administrative divisions is composed of a number of dioceses, each of which is in turn headed by an archbishop (more senior) or a bishop (more junior), under each of whom there is a network of parish and monasteries.

In order to overcome the fourfold problems we mentioned above, Russian nationalism, centralisation and hence bureaucracy and hence corruption, we suggest that the whole multinational structure of the Russian Church be decentralised into regional Autonomous Churches. This would do away with the intermediate ‘Exarchates’ and keep Metropolias as structures only inside the Russian Church and inside each new Autonomous Church. Two such Autonomous Churches already exist – the Russian-founded Japanese and Chinese Orthodox Churches. These two are and must be autonomous because they are in the territories of different states. Why not be consistently logical and do the same elsewhere?

What we are suggesting is that this principle of Autonomous Churches be extended to replace the present Exarchates and Metropolias in Non-Russian territories. Only the heads of Autonomous Orthodox Churches, although still part of the Russian Orthodox Church, would actually commemorate the Russian Orthodox Patriarch. (This would avoid the present political tensions and conflicts about his commemoration). Thus, the following new Autonomous Orthodox Churches could be founded:

The Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

Replacing the present ‘Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate’, this would cover the territory of the new Ukraine. True, the latter’s borders are yet to be established, but it would surely include at least the nine central provinces of the present, Communist-created Ukraine. The seven provinces of the west of the present Ukraine, in Galicia and Transcarpathia (eastern Carpatho-Russia), might join, or rather return to, other countries politically, such as Belarus, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania. Ecclesiastically, local Orthodox there might join the Belarussian (see below), Polish, Czechoslovak and Romanian Local Orthodox Churches. Church autonomy in the new Ukraine would surely help lead to the collapse of present anti-Moscow nationalist and schismatic groups there.

The Belarusian Orthodox Church

This would replace the present Exarchate of Belarus and cover the territory of Belarus.

The Moldovan Orthodox Church

This would replace the present local structure and cover the territory of Moldova, minus Transdnestria, added to it by Stalin, which would certainly choose to become part of the Russian Federation.

The Baltic Orthodox Church

This would group all Orthodox in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Autonomy here might well be the end of the present sectarian grouping in Estonia under the US-run Patriarchate of Constantinople, as well as quelling pressures from Russophobic Baltic State politicians for the local Orthodox to be more independent of Moscow. In Lithuania they are even attempting to ban the Moscow Patriarchate wholesale and a schism is already in progress.

The Central Asian Orthodox Church.

This would group the five million or so Orthodox in the five ‘stans’ of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

The North American Orthodox Church

This would cover the territories of the USA, for the moment including Alaska and Hawaii, and Canada. It could finally regroup the three present groups of Russian origin, as well as of other Orthodox origins, in English-speaking North America. By ending the old structures of the ‘Orthodox Church in America’ or ‘OCA’ (after over 50 years still not accepted as canonically autocephalous, or fully independent, by most Local Orthodox Churches) and of the rather sectarian American Synod called ‘ROCOR’, combining them with the parishes under the present Moscow Patriarchate in North America, a long-awaited move towards unity would take place.

The Western European Orthodox Church

This would replace the present Western European Exarchate, which includes Russian Orthodox in many countries in Western Europe, but would be extended to include Russian Orthodox in Germany, Austria, Hungary, the Scandinavian countries and Finland. It would also provide the structure to integrate the canonical elements of the Western European churches of the American ROCOR (see above) and of the Paris Archdiocese. The latter two organisations are both left over from the post-1917 period and perhaps lost their relevance after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. It is time to recognise this and for them to become parts of an Autonomous Local Church here.

The South-East Asian Orthodox Church

This would replace the present South-East Asian Exarchate, which includes countries as diverse as Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Indonesia, South Korea and the Philippines.

Now we come to even more adventurous possibilities – perhaps to come in the more distant future:

The African Orthodox Church

This would replace the present Exarchate of Africa – if that controversial Exarchate is to be continued.

The Orthodox Church of Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean

Based in Mexico City, this new structure would provide an opportunity to unite all present missions in this area.

The South American Orthodox Church

Based in Brazil, this new structure would provide an opportunity to unite all present missions on this Continent.

The Orthodox Church of Oceania

Based in Sydney, this new structure would provide an opportunity to unite all present missions in Australia, New Zealand and the islands of Oceania.

The South Asian Orthodox Church

This would provide such a new structure to unite all present missions in India, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan.

Conclusion

Such decentralisation would bring the total number of Autonomous Orthodox Churches within the Russian Orthodox Church to fifteen, up from the present two. It is our thought that if some such decentralisation is not allowed, then various groups will break off from the Russian Church altogether. It is in order to avoid any further divisions or splintering, promoted either by nationalism or by geopolitics, that we put forward this suggestion of decentralisation, that is, the right to diversity within Russian Orthodox unity.

Of course, perhaps none of the above will happen and it will be up to other Local Churches to carry out missionary work. As we have said many, many times before over the decades, all is conditional. Suicidal and anti-missionary tendencies are clearly present in the Russian Church and maybe others will have to take up the beacon of missionary Orthodox work outside the Russian Federation, Belarus and the south-eastern Ukraine. Some, like the Patriarchates of Constantinople (especially in North America and Australia), Bucharest (especially in Western Europe) and Antioch (especially in South America), are already doing so. The future of the now highly politicised Russian Orthodox Church will remain in the balance, as long as it continues to place raison d’etat above the canons. Time will show us.

Orthodox England

events 'blog