The Post-Soviet Russian Orthodox Church by Katja Richters

Author:Katja Richters [Richters, Katja]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781138816824
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2014-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

Third, the continuing denial of autocephaly and Filaret’s ousting from the metropolitanate reveal that the Moscow Patriarchate’s political culture prevented it from paying sufficient attention to the appeal of nationalism in the 1990s. After his departure from the UOCMP, Filaret created the UOC–Kiev Patriarchate which has a nationalist character as it conducts its services in Ukrainian, enjoyed the support of Ukraine’s nationalistically minded first President Leonid Kravchuk and claims to be the country’s national church.89 The UOC–Kiev Patriarchate’s steady growth reflects the population’s interest in a national variant of Orthodoxy that the UAOC cannot quench. By joining it the clerics also expressed their dissatisfaction with the ROC. The Russian hierarchy evidently underestimated the power of the Ukrainian idea, as it had hoped that Filaret’s dismissal would solve the Church’s problems rather than create new ones. It thus indicated its acceptance of the Soviet concept that national identities would fade away with the creation of a communist society. It still has not rid itself of this unrealistic assumption as it keeps insisting that the Ukrainian schismatics should return to the Moscow Patriarchate.90

Finally, the way in which the ROC has managed to preserve the allegiance of its Ukrainian staff since 1992 also allows lessons to be drawn about its political culture. As the vast majority of the Orthodox clerics in Ukraine remain affiliated to the UOCMP it must have developed effective mechanisms for retaining their loyalty. Filaret’s ungracious dismissal and the anathema that was later pronounced on him can be interpreted as the Moscow Patriarchate’s attempt to deter any potential imitators by suggesting that they would suffer a similar fate. However, since the priests have the opportunity to join either the UOC–Kiev Patriarchate or the UAOC if they become dissatisfied with the UOCMP, its hierarchs need to provide them with positive incentives rather than threats to prevent them from doing so.

As already hinted at above, its canonicity attracts a number of priests to the Muscovite church. Although they might identify strongly with the independent Ukraine, this has not yet translated into their religious work in which they have so far observed the Orthodox canons. This highlights that its monopoly on the canonical Ukrainian Orthodoxy is a very valuable asset for the Moscow Patriarchate. Consequently, the UOCMP’s spotless canonical status is regularly emphasised by its leadership. Furthermore, inertia, historical or cultural affinity stimulated by the Third Rome theory or other factors also seem to play a role in some clerics’ continuing loyalty to the ROC.91 However, all of these impulses have been undermined by the Russian Church’s controversial reunification with the ROCOR, as the above-mentioned criticism of this event has demonstrated.

Apart from this, evidence suggests that certain rules are less rigorously enforced in Ukraine than in Russia, so that the UOCMP’s priests have more freedoms than their Russian peers. Throughout the 1990s, Ukrainian Orthodox clerics have been standing in local, regional and federal elections with various degrees of success.92 In Russia, Gleb Iakunin was defrocked for doing just this, but none of the

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