Moscow vs. Constantinople: An Orthodox Fracture with Major Consequences

First Things ^ | Sep 2018 | George Weigel

[CondoleezzaProtege]

While Catholicism has been embroiled in a crisis of sexual abuse and episcopal malfeasance reaching to the highest levels of the Church, Eastern Orthodoxy may be on the verge of an epic crack-up with major ecumenical and geopolitical consequences.

The Ecumenical Patriarchate in Constantinople has indicated that it is considering a proposal to recognize the autocephaly, or independence from Moscow, of Ukrainian Orthodoxy. The Moscow Patriarchate has responded with fury.

First, the Moscow Patriarchate is terrified. Moscow's claim to be the “third Rome” would be gravely imperiled. Russian Orthodoxy would shrink drastically by the loss of the large Orthodox population in Ukraine, and the Moscow Patriarchate’s claim to a kind of de facto hegemony in the Orthodox world would be badly damaged.

Second, Russian Orthodoxy, continuing a long, unhappy tradition of playing chaplain-to-the-czar (whatever form he takes), has provided putatively religious buttressing for Vladimir Putin’s claim that there is a single Russkiy mir (“Russian world” or “Russian space”), which includes Ukraine and Belarus. And in that “space,” Ukrainians and Belarussians are little brothers of the Russians, the true inheritors of the baptism of the eastern Slavs in 988. That is a falsification of history. Yet it has underwritten Russian imperial claims for centuries, and it continues to do so today.

A reunited and independent Ukrainian Orthodoxy centered on Kyiv (site in 988 of the baptism of Prince Vladimir and the tribes that eventually became Ukrainians, Russians, and Belarussians) would empirically falsify what serious historians have long known is a dishonest narrative. Moscow and Russia are not the sole inheritors of the baptism of the eastern Slavs, and Russian imperial claims (like those that have underwritten the invasion and annexation of Crimea and the Russian-sponsored war in eastern Ukraine) rest on a false story.

[ETL]

Sorry, this needs to be on any thread involving the Russian Orthodox Church...

From the Russian Orthodox Church's website...

WCC welcomes meeting of Pope Francis and Patriarch Kirill for unity and peace

12 February 2016

Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, general secretary of the World Council of Churches (WCC), has issued a statement on behalf of the Council hailing the historic meeting of Pope Francis, pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church, and Patriarch Kirill, primate of the Russian Orthodox Church.

The two leaders met on 12 February in Havana, Cuba.

The Russian Orthodox Church is the largest member church in the WCC..."

https://www.oikoumene.org/en/press-centre/news/wcc-welcomes-meeting-of-pope-francis-and-patriarch-kirill

_______________________________________________________

Catch that? The Russian Orthodox Church is the largest member of the World Council of Churches! (WCC)

That is all you need to know to understand that it is a sham operation. Reverend Wright’s fake church United Church of Christ (UCC) is also a member. In fact, his (communist) “Liberation Theology” was concocted by the KGB.

The Russians must laugh their butts off at how easily westerners can be tricked and deceived.

The Russian Orthodox Church is a member of the (communist) World Council of Churches:
https://www.oikoumene.org/en/member-churches/russian-orthodox-church
____________________________________

From David Horowitz's FrontPageMag.com/DiscoverTheNetworks.org:
Profile: WORLD COUNCIL OF CHURCHES (WCC)

• Long-time proponent of Liberation Theology
• Infiltrated by the KGB during the Cold War
• Funded Marxist insurgent groups throughout the world
• Calls for capitalism’s “reform” according to socialist principles

  [lots more at link...]

  http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=7514

  _______________________________________________________

  From David Horowitz's FrontPageMag.com/DiscoverTheNetworks.org:
  Profile: LIBERATION THEOLOGY

  “...liberation theology’s real creator was the Soviet Union’s foreign intelligence and domestic security agency, the KGB.

  Patriarch Kirill, who today heads Russian Orthodox Church, secretly worked for the KGB under the code name “Mikhailov” and spent some 40 years promoting liberation theology.

  Ion Mihai Pacepa, the highest-ranking Soviet-bloc official ever to defect to the West, writes: “Liberation theology has been generally understood to be a marriage of Marxism and Christianity.

  What has not been understood is that it was not the product of Christians who pursued Communism, but of Communists who pursued Christians....

  Its genesis was part of a highly classified Party/State Disinformation Program, formally approved in 1960 by KGB chairman Aleksandr Shelepin and Politburo member Aleksei Kirichenko, then the second in the party hierarchy after Nikita Khrushchev.”

  Adds Pacepa: “In 1971, the KGB sent Kirill — who had just been elevated to the rank of archimandrite — to Geneva as emissary of the Russian Orthodox Church to the World Council of Churches.... Kirill/Mikhailov’s main task was to involve the WCC in spreading the new liberation theology throughout Latin America.

  In 1975, the KGB was able to infiltrate Kirill into the Central Committee of the WCC — a position he held until he was “elected” patriarch of Russia, in 2009.

  Not long after he joined the Central Committee, Kirill reported to the KGB: ‘Now the agenda of the WCC [World Council of Churches] is also our agenda.’”

  http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/viewSubCategory.asp?id=2990
  ____________________________________________

  August, 2006

  

  North Korea Builds an Orthodox Church

  The first-ever Russian Orthodox church will open in Pyongyang, North Korea this weekend.

  It’s an odd project considering that freedom of religion exists almost exclusively on paper in the closed communist country.

  North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il is supposed to be a communist atheist.

  So why has he made promoting the Russia Orthodox Church his latest pet project?

  On August 13, the country’s first Orthodox church is to be opened in the capital city of Pyongyang.

  Russian Metropolitan Bishop Kyrill, second in command within the Church after the Patriarch, will travel to Pyongyang to christen the new house of worship. ...”

  http://www.spiegel.de/international/kim-jong-il-and-religion-north-korea-builds-an-orthodox-church-a-431310.htm

[CondoleezzaProtege]

Tomorrow (or sometime today depending on time zone) is a moment of reckoning.

From Turkey, the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople (aka: the de-facto leader of Eastern Orthodoxy) will announce decision regarding Ukrainian Orthodox Church’s right to split from Moscow.

[CondoleezzaProtege]

Though this report says decision on Ukrainian Autocephaly will be made ‘when the time comes’

https://www.unian.info/society/10293771-decision-on-tomos-for-ukraine-church-to-be-taken-when-the-time-comes-member-of-constantinople-synod.html

[CondoleezzaProtege]

It’s official!

The Associated Press in Istanbul reports:
“Orthodox Church to move forward with Ukrainian Independence”

https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/orthodox-church-move-forward-ukrainian-independence-58438163

[AdmSmith]

This is an indication of the relations:

A short but very curious video clip emerged showing what appears to be an official part of the meeting of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I and Russian Patriarch Kirill held in Constantinople on the issue of granting the Ukrainian church a tomos on autocephaly – the move Moscow fiercely opposes.

The clip shows a moment when a tray full of glasses with drinks was offered by a Russian delegation official across the room. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian local Orthodox Church Facebook community pointed out a striking detail they spotted in the video. When one of the security operatives from Kirill’s delegation started offering drinks, he first approached the Russian Patriarch, and when the latter reached out to take one of the glasses from the tray, another security guard rushed to guide Kirill’s hand away from a particular glass he intended to take, helping the Patriarch make a choice.

watch the video:
https://www.unian.info/politics/10245285-who-was-supposed-to-get-the-glass-video-from-constantinople-talks-raises-questions-amid-novichok-fears.html

[AdmSmith]

This https://www.patriarchate.org/-/communiq-1 will have big impact. There are three different Orthodox bodies in Ukraine: the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyivan Patriarchate,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_Orthodox_Church_%E2%80%93_Kiev_Patriarchate
and the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_Autocephalous_Orthodox_Church
and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church tied to Moscow
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_Orthodox_Church_(Moscow_Patriarchate)

Expect clashes over possession of major monasteries and increased attacks by Russia in Ukraine.

[lightman]

Orthodox Ping!

Save Thy people, O Lord,
and bless Thine inheritance.
Grant victory to Thy Church over her enemies,
and protect Thy people by Thy Holy Cross!

[Zionist Conspirator]

Wow . . . both the "ancient, unchanging and unchangeable" Roman Catholic Church and the "ancient, unchanging and unchangeable" Eastern Orthodox Church are circling the drain. What's that about the serenity and peace outside the chaotic world of Protestantism?

And the only chrstians who remain faithful and untouched are the universally despised American Fundamentalist Protestant "trailer trash!"

So tell us again how old your religion is??? (Psst . . . I know one that's older.)

[AdmSmith]

Not easy for Lukashenko https://belarusdigest.com/story/influential-or-influenced-the-belarusian-orthodox-church/
when the Russian Orthodox Church will assess the situation at its next session, due on October 15 in Minsk (Belarus)

http://tass.com/society/1025626

[AdmSmith]

In North Korea, freedom of religion exists only in name, and the reasoning behind Kim's current favoring of the Orthodox religion remains unclear. What is known is that the dictator first came up with the idea of building the church on trip to Russia in a 2002 during which he visited an Orthodox house of worship.

The next year, he sent four young men from the newly established North Korean Orthodox Committee — all of whom had worked for the North Korean intelligence service — for spiritual training at the Orthodox Seminary in Moscow. During a crash course, the men were taught to become servants of the Church. There, they exchanged their dark suits with Kim's insignia for priests’ robes. Following their visit to the seminary, the freshly baptized Christians, who had previously known nothing but the personal ideology of Kim Jong-Il and his father, were sent to the far eastern Russian city of Vladivostok for practical experience. Fyodor Kim, one of North Korea's new Orthodox deacons, admitted that it had been “very difficult” to adopt the Orthodox religion. But he didn't have much choice: the “Dear Leader” had already made the decision to build the church.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/kim-jong-il-and-religion-north-korea-builds-an-orthodox-church-a-431310.html

[ETL]

Thanks. Will read later.

[AdmSmith]

1) The Russian Orthodox Patriarchate of Moscow has cut ties with the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew I, claiming his recognition of an independent Orthodox Church in Ukraine departed from Orthodox Christian norms . .

Patriarch Bartholomew’s plan to create a single, self-governing Church in the Ukraine, led by its own patriarch, is motivated by a desire to unify the country’s 30 million Orthodox Christians. The Russian Church sees the move as an infringement of its jurisdiction and authority.

There are about 300 million Orthodox Christians worldwide. The Orthodox Church split from the Catholic Church in 1054.

Read more: http://churchlife.nd.edu/2018/10/18/the-orthodox-schism-under-western-eyes/

2) Vladmir Solovyev, “Russia and the Universal Church,” published 1888:

https://twitter.com/CaptPeabody/status/1052008803988848641

[AdmSmith]

source:http://www.bible.ca/orthodox-church-autocephalous-hierarchy-organization.htm

[AdmSmith]

Here is the full text: Vladimir Solovyev, “Russia and the Universal Church,” 204 pages

http://www.strobertbellarmine.net/books/Solovyev—Russia_Universal_Church.pdf

[AdmSmith]

The Russian church on Monday said that it could no longer continue being in “Eucharistic communion” with the Istanbul religious body. This means that Russian Orthodox believers can no longer take communion with people from other branches of the church.

https://www.businessinsider.com/putin-power-damaged-by-in-split-with-orthodox-church-over-ukraine-2018-10

[AdmSmith]

Igor Girkin https://twitter.com/girkingirkin the most publicly prominent among the first wave of Russian commanders of the Kremlin campaign in eastern Ukraine during spring and summer 2014.

“My personal bodyguard was exclusively made up of monks from the Sviatohirsk Cave Monastery, right down to the last man,” said Girkin during his recent interview. “There were not so many of them. Nevertheless, they were there.” The Sviatohirsk Cave Monastery, also known as the Sviatohirsk Lavra, is a monastery complex in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine loyal to the Russian Orthodox Church.

Girkin’s comments will further strengthen the widespread belief within Ukrainian society that the Russian Orthodox Church is intimately involved in the Kremlin attack on Ukraine. Priests of the Russian Orthodox Church stand accused of everything from harboring weapons and blessing fighters to serving in the ranks of the Kremlin’s military formations.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian Orthodox priests loyal to the Moscow Patriarchate have refused to provide burial services for Ukrainian soldiers killed in the conflict and have shunned public memorials honoring the fallen. This has dramatically undermined the spiritual authority of the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine, leading to the defection of entire congregations from the Moscow to the Kyiv Patriarchate and forcing millions of Ukrainians to question how they can continue worshipping in a church that aligns itself with their nation’s enemies. By highlighting the dangers posed by continued Russian Orthodox influence in the country, it has also made the creation of an international recognized independent Ukrainian Orthodox Church a matter of national security.

http://bunews.com.ua/society/item/kremlin-hybrid-war-commander-girkin-my-bodyguards-were-all-russian-orthodox-church-monks

[AdmSmith]

The restricting of the ability of Russian Orthodox to visit Holy Sites abroad or have relics come from there to Russia has had a negative effect:

Many Russian Orthodox are furious with the Moscow Patriarchate about that and are now petitioning Kirill to annual his decision about breaking relations with the Universal Patriarchate in Constantinople.

At the very least, this shows that Patriarch Kirill’s position is not supported by everyone in the ROC; and potentially, this may lead to a situation in which some Russian Orthodox may decide that seeking autocephaly is preferable to remaining under Moscow, a drive the Universal Patriarch under certain circumstances would welcome and even support.

http://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2018/10/could-there-be-parade-of-autocephalies.html

[lightman]

The Russian church on Monday said that it could no longer continue being in “Eucharistic communion” with the Istanbul religious body. This means that Russian Orthodox believers can no longer take communion with people from other branches of the church.

False.

Moscow has broken Eucharistic communion ONLY with the Ecumenical Patriarchate (EP). The EP has NOT reciprocated.

No other Pastriarcahte has broken Eucharistic communion with either the EP or the Moscow Patriarchate.

The only other breach of Eucharistic communion existing at this time is between Jerusalem and Antioch.

[ebb tide]

In the East There Is Rupture between Kirill and Bartholomew. And the Pope Sides More with the Former