Orthodoxy in Two Manifestations?
The Conflict in Ukraine as Expression of a Fault Line in World Orthodoxy
Summary
Excerpt
Table Of Contents
- Cover
- Title
- Copyright
- About the author
- About the book
- This eBook can be cited
- Table of Contents
- Abbreviations
- Preface
- Introduction: Orthodoxy in Two Manifestations? The Conflict in Ukraine as Expression of a Fault Line in World Orthodoxy (Thomas Bremer, Alfons Brüning, Nadieszda Kizenko)
- I. Orthodoxy: Global and Local
- Territorial Organization of the Orthodox Church: Historical and Canonical Background to a Current Crisis (John H. Erickson)
- The Patriarchal and Synodal Act of 1686 in Historiographical Perspective (Vera Tchentsova)
- II. Conceptualizations
- The Social Concept of the Russian Orthodox Church and the Social Ethos of the Ecumenical Patriarchate: A Comparison of Central Aspects (Heta Hurskainen)
- Toward an Orthodox Social Ethos? Socio-Ethical Negotiations in Ukrainian Orthodoxy (Regina Elsner)
- The Russian Orthodox Church and the Russkii Mir (Kathy Rousselet)
- “Kyivan Christianity” and the “Churches of the Kyivan Tradition”: Concepts of Distinctiveness of Christianity in Ukraine before and after 2019 (Alfons Brüning)
- III. Ecclesiological Issues
- Conciliarity in Ukrainian Orthodoxy (Nicholas Denysenko)
- Synodality as Syncephaly? A Plea for a Pastoral-Participative Renewal of the Pan-Orthodox Practice of Synodality (Ioan Moga)
- The Idea of “Unity” in Orthodoxy (Evgeny Pilipenko)
- Contemporary Liturgical Practices in the UOC and OCU and their Implications (Nadieszda Kizenko)
- Church and Exclusivism in Ukrainian Orthodoxy (Sergii Bortnyk)
- The Role of the Laity: Some Observations from Inside (Lidiya Lozova and Tetiana Kalenychenko)
- The New Orthodox Church in Ukraine: Ecumenical Aspects and Problems (Pavlo Smytsnyuk)
- New Approaches in Ecclesiology? Reflections Induced by the Ukrainian Crisis (Thomas Bremer)
- IV. Church, State and Society
- The Place of the Church in Society: Provider of a Moral Code? (Elena A. Stepanova)
- The Ascetical as the Civic: Civil Society as Political Communion (Aristotle Papanikolaou)
- Church and State in Orthodox Christianity: Two Versions of Symphonia (Nathaniel Wood)
- Afterword (Adalberto Mainardi)
- List of Contributors
- Series Index
Abbreviations
AUOCC |
(All-)Ukrainian Orthodox Church CommiWtee |
CEC |
Conference of European Churches |
EP |
Ecumenical Patriarchate (Constantinople) |
KP |
Ukrainian Orthodox Church – Kyivan Patriarchate |
MP |
Moscow Patriarchate |
OCU |
Orthodox Church of Ukraine |
ROC |
Russian Orthodox Church |
SC |
Bases of the Social Concept (Russian Orthodox Church) |
SE |
“For the Life of the World” – Towards a Social Ethos of the Orthodox Church |
UAOC |
Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church |
UCCRO |
(All-)Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations |
UGCC |
Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church |
UOC |
Ukrainian Orthodox Church |
UOC-KP |
Ukrainian Orthodox Church – Kyivan Patriarchate (or KP) |
UOC-MP |
Ukrainian Orthodox Church – Moscow Patriarchate (or UOC) |
UOCC |
Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Canada |
WCF |
World Congress of Families |
WCC |
World Council of Churches |
Preface
The manuscript of this volume was finalized in November 2021; formatting of the text was finished in January 2022.
The articles included in this book were conceived in an academic context and atmosphere in the best sense, where the analysis of concepts, together with efforts to understand, and possibly reconcile, various viewpoints and approaches is ultimately supposed to contribute to the bridging of gaps and elimination of prejudices. Our Ukrainian colleagues readily joined us in this effort.
The war launched on Ukraine by the Russian Federation on February 24, 2022, has brought cardinal changes to the original context and atmosphere. The voices of some Orthodox leaders have tried to justify this war, or even to endow it with pseudo-religious meaning and motives. But this war is simply a crime. A crime cannot have any hidden or overt religious justification, and there is little, if any, possibility for dialogue, academic or otherwise, between scholars of Christianity committed to peace and those misusing Christian teaching for the justification of an aggressive war, which violates all standards of international law established for decades.
Here too, then, is new a fault line in Orthodoxy, which already has been noticed with concern. The war, and its repercussions among the churches, will display, and already have displayed, their effects in world Orthodoxy.
The fault line addressed in our volume is another one. There can be, and hopefully will be in new circumstances, a dialogue between adherents of different theological or historiographical concepts of whatever label and categorization, be that “liberal,” “traditional,” “conservative,” or something else. This dialogue can take place once it is clear that it is supposed to happen on the ground of shared basic ethics and scholarly convictions and principles. Among the most important of them are mutual respect and the condemnation of violence.
At this moment, we can only hope that the articles in this volume retain their value for future encounters and exchange of thoughts, in a safe, recovered, and flourishing Ukraine, and beyond.
The idea for this book arose shortly before summer 2020. We would like to express our gratitude to all our authors for reacting promptly to our requests, for submitting their excellent contributions, and keeping the occasionally short-term deadlines.
We also must express our thanks to the student assistants of the Ecumenical Institute, University of Münster, and to Dr. Sebastian Rimestad, Weimar, for their valuable help with the formal corrections and the formatting of the manuscript.
←9 | 10→Finally, we are indebted to Prof. Vasilios N. Makrides, Chair of Religious Studies (Orthodox Christianity) at the University of Erfurt, for his readiness to include our manuscript in this book series.
Münster/Nijmegen/Albany – March 15, 2022
Thomas Bremer, Alfons Brüning, Nadieszda Kizenko
Introduction: Orthodoxy in Two Manifestations? The Conflict in Ukraine as Expression of a Fault Line in World Orthodoxy
Thomas Bremer, Alfons Brüning, Nadieszda Kizenko
The conflict around the emergence of a Ukrainian autocephalous church, from summer 2018 onwards, has led to a split in world Orthodoxy into two main camps. One camp is represented by the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, which edited the tomos, the deed granting autocephaly and includes three more autocephalous churches which have recognized this act. The other is the Patriarchate of Moscow, which severely opposed the new ecclesial structure in Ukraine and regards it as schismatic. Some churches have made statements supporting Moscow’s position, others keep by now a neutral position. Although Ukraine is the focus and the cause of this conflict, the argument has exposed deeper fault lines within world Orthodoxy. Many of them are not purely theological by nature. Beyond dogmatic or ecclesiological issues, these fault lines pertain to questions such as church and state, church and society, social ethics, secular historical narratives or the use of history respectively. Such fault lines are not exclusive to Ukraine, despite displaying some Ukrainian peculiarities, different from other regions which have their own. These fault lines need to be identified and addressed; otherwise, the Ukrainian issue cannot be solved but remains on the level of a factual argument.
In its reaction, Moscow broke sacramental communion with the See of Constantinople and prohibited its believers from receiving the sacraments from the other side; after three more Orthodox churches recognized the autocephalous Church in Ukraine in 2019 and 2020,1 Moscow reacted in the same way. Constantinople refrained from responding in equal terms, and still allows its believers to join services in the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) and to take the sacraments there. The Patriarch of Moscow does not commemorate the first hierarchs of those four churches anymore, whereas they do commemorate him when they celebrate liturgy. Nonetheless, in administrative and ecclesiastical terms the split is a manifest reality.
On the other hand, the particularities of the Orthodox ecclesiastical landscape allow for inconsistency in dealing with this general rupture. Some of the autocephalous Orthodox churches have disapproved of the new Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) and joined the Russian Church in its rejection of the autocephaly, ←11 | 12→though not breaking communion with the churches that have recognized the new Church.2 In other cases, local synods have issued cautious statements attempting to keep some kind of neutrality; others yet have attempted to seek a solution. This leads to an odd phenomenon. At the local level, communion often continues between members of churches which have officially positioned themselves in favor of, or against the OCU, and therefore joined opposite camps—while at the level of the patriarchates almost all contacts have ceased. Most churches are in communion with both Constantinople and Moscow even though these two are not in communion among themselves. Therefore, the split—already often called a schism—concerns not only Orthodoxy in Ukraine but runs through the entirety of Orthodox Christianity. And the reason for it is not just a concrete act or the rejection of it, namely granting autocephaly to the OCU or denying it, but rather the fact that there is different perceptions and positions in central issues within Orthodoxy which have not been addressed.
Thus, the current situation is not a complete surprise. The argument is not only about whether there can be a Ukrainian autocephalous church, and who is entitled the right to grant this (or any) autocephaly. It is also about what the features of such a church are supposed to be in the world of the 21st century,3 and where it would position itself, or, more generally, what the features of Orthodoxy are supposed to be.
The very question of autocephaly is not new for the Orthodox world. It has a different nature in the early 21st century than it had in antiquity, or in the 15th century, or during the 19th century, when so many of today’s national churches gained theirs. Exploring circumstances in terms of (geo-)political developments and societal situation, historical experience and its current articulation and the like, which accompany the emergence of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine and its search for a place in both the Orthodox world and Ukrainian society, is among the aims of this volume. Observers of the current developments have repeatedly noted that, despite multiple historical experiences, Orthodoxy to date does not have clear-cut and commonly accepted canonical pathways towards autocephaly.4 The paths towards ecclesial independence were largely conditioned by the respective historical circumstances. The fact that most churches which became autocephalous after antiquity have prior to that been a part of the Ecumenical ←12 | 13→Patriarchate, which therefore was the first in the canonical order and the “mother church” at the same time, makes it even more difficult to develop a theory of gaining and granting autocephaly. So does the fact that several autocephalies were granted twice, by different churches, due mostly to changed political circumstances.
The current conflict, far from representing just a single jurisdictional disagreement concerning a locally and thematically limited issue, illustrates also more general differences which have their repercussions in other parts of the Orthodox community in the conditions of a globalized world. Indeed, they may relate to problems relevant not only for Orthodoxy, but for World Christianity as a whole. The relationship between the local church and the respective worldwide community is an issue that does not concern only Orthodoxy but also other churches. Here, the question is relevant what “church unity” means. The Ukrainian case shows that the claim to be one in faith is not enough for keeping a community together.
The tensions between the different schools of thought were apparent already earlier. The 2016 “Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church” on Crete, the long road which had led to that event, the eventual absence of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) and of three other churches, made the differences in the Orthodox world obvious. The conflict about the Ukrainian autocephaly, therefore, is strangely autocatalytic; it is one, and perhaps just another, concrete manifestation of large-scale virulent Orthodox Christian disagreements, while its outbreak reinforces already existing differences, which could not be healed before.
This larger perspective is essential to adequately address the Ukrainian case. The Ukrainian conflict is unlikely to be solved unless controversial issues are understood and addressed on a more general level. While it is still basically true that the different Orthodox churches inside Ukraine and elsewhere continue to agree in all central theological questions and principles, such as apostolic tradition, dogma, liturgy, mysteries, and the like, the Orthodox community is now nonetheless threatened by a real and lasting division.
Stating this paradox makes clear that the controversial issues which are in the background can also not be reduced to “external” matters or mere questions of “politics” which would leave the allegedly pure and untouched sphere of faith and theology undisturbed. It is still ultimately theological issues which are currently at stake. Beyond just outward events and local confrontations, the conflict touches upon matters central for the role and position of Orthodox Christianity in the world of the 21st century. Among those central problems are ecclesiology in a global age, the relation to “the secular world,” human rights and Christian morality, church and state, and church and civil society. Much has to do with the way in which the modern, globalized, pluralistic world is being perceived, understood, and conceptualized. A larger part of Orthodox Christianity in the European East still struggles to overcome the shadows of the Communist past, experiencing the ←13 | 14→challenges of the post-communist era. Others perceive current developments more as a challenge in a secular, perhaps even post-secular age, when roles and positions of religion in society and politics are generally being redefined. The latter position can frequently be seen among Orthodox who live in Western, traditionally non-Orthodox countries. These two perspectives on occasion interact and can appear in quaint combinations. Perhaps, as some of the articles of this volume show, this is also the case in current day Ukraine, among others. Certainly, there is no clear understanding what “secular” means, and that (and how) it needs to be distinguished from “secularism.” Dealing with these challenges, on the other hand, provokes to reflect in a new way on “tradition.” For Orthodox Christianity in particular, the role of (Christian) tradition has always been a main point of reflection, with the important distinction between “Tradition” and “traditions” on the one hand, and a new predilection for “traditional values” in some churches on the other hand.
Ecclesiology has been a central issue in 20th century ecumenical dialogues, but mostly in terms of apostolic succession, the relationship between ministry and the community, and the relationship between synodality and primacy. Orthodoxy has stated its position in these questions clearly. The actual shape of the Christian Church, however—what it actually looks like, and what it should look like—is obviously an issue for internal Orthodox disputes under the conditions of modernity, which is under-addressed. Modernity, on the other hand, brings about themes like church and state, church and nation, church and society, which are not part of “classical” ecclesiology, but stand in the background of modern realities. Among the terms engaged to come to a feasible concept are such like canonical territory, or civilization, next to episcopal, synodal, or lay-centered approaches.
There have already been controversies concerning such themes and problems throughout the entire Orthodox community for some time, mostly among theologians, but also among church leaders. It is perhaps important to emphasize that the whole spectrum of current positions is present in all churches and often runs contrary to such outward divisions as that between Moscow and Constantinople. There is not one simple fault line between two camps. We deal rather with blurred boundaries and flexible transitions between a variety of positions. It is not a question of this or that autocephalous church, it is a question of positions within Orthodoxy.
So what we have to deal with is the question of local and global Orthodoxy, the conceptualizations of the questions, the concrete forms of ecclesiology which are an expression of the different positions, and the relationship to secular structures, i.e. to the state and to society. These deliberations form the framework for this volume, which is accordingly structured in four parts. It does not intend to “resolve” the problem, or to decide who is “right” and who is “wrong.” It rather aims at shedding more light on the general differences and larger dimensions of disagreement behind the Ukrainian conflict, which, as said before, appears as both ←14 | 15→expression and reinforcement of already existing controversies. While Ukraine therefore forms a central subject of this volume, it is not the only one. There is an obvious need to go a step further. In addressing the conflict concerning Ukrainian autocephaly and the emergence of the OCU, one by now can already rely upon a number of studies thoroughly describing the chain of events leading to the current situation, or various contributions outlining the argumentation of each side.5 Our volume therefore also does not want to narrate well-known events and stories once again.
In order to achieve this goal, we will firstly have a glance at questions of general character. On the global level, John H. Erickson discusses the question of the territorial structure of the Orthodox Church. He does that in a historical perspective which reveals that the idea of “territory” is the central ecclesiological issue. He also shows that for Orthodox Christians, attachment to by-gone empires and imperial structures may have limited their field of vision and their capacity for adaptation in a post-imperial world. Finally, he offers suggestions for moving beyond the present de facto schism between the churches. Addressing both questions of ecclesiology and historical memory, Vera Tchentsova deals with the divergent interpretations of the events in 1686, which eventually ended in a transfer of jurisdiction over the Kyiv Church from Constantinople to Moscow. The crucial point stands in the appropriate understanding of the procedure of liturgical commemorations of patriarchs as explained in the documents of 1686. Addressing this specific point in historiography offers the opportunity to follow and assess the evolving views on the transfer of the diocese of Kyiv from the 19th century till the current political debate and to identify the scholarly rationale at play behind the today’s divergent historical narratives.
The second part of this volume addresses the theological concepts, which lie behind the divergent positions. A first competition of concepts concerns the relatively new field of Orthodox social ethics. The Russian Orthodox Church has published in 2000 a document on social ethics, and the Ecumenical Patriarchate followed in 2020. Heta Hurskainen discusses both documents in a comparative perspective and analyzes how Orthodoxy approaches the challenges of our time in very different ways, which is connected to theological presuppositions that can be found in the two Churches. How questions of social ethics are discussed in Ukraine today, beyond the relationship between state and church, is the topic Regina Elsner addresses which presents in a certain way a concretization of the respective documents. The country is characterized by the emergence of a vibrant civil society since the 1990s, a context of confessional pluralism, and a search for identity between pro-European and pro-Russian tendencies, which has generated ←15 | 16→an exceptional discourse about socio-ethical issues. Her paper examines the socio-ethical engagement of Ukraine’s Orthodox churches and the impact of local actors since the country’s independence.
Next to divergent interpretations of particular historical events—like the Union of Brest or the change of jurisdiction from Constantinople to Moscow in 1686 (as analyzed in the mentioned contribution by Vera Tchentsova)—Ukraine has become, or always been, an arena for competing grand narratives, in which Orthodox Christianity plays a central role. Some years ago, the Russian government and the Orthodox Church alike promoted the idea of a “Russian World” (Russkii Mir), a kind of civilizational understanding of the world. Kathy Rousselet in her contribution explores the different steps in the development of this concept, its function between religious identity and geopolitical application, and its current role. Although the concept in church circles has suffered a certain setback in connection with the annexation of Crimea through the Russian state, and has rarely been referred to since then by Russian hierarchs, it is, according to Rousselet, far from obsolete. It still retains the function of identifying a Russian cultural sphere, which goes far beyond the borders of the Russian Federation as a state, and can be compared to other—notably, post-colonial—concepts like the Commonwealth or the French francophonie. Alfons Brüning investigates a kind of alternative concept, namely the idea of a “Kyivan Christianity,” which has evolved over the last decades by a subsequent merger of earlier Greek Catholic (“Churches of the Kyivan tradition”) and Orthodox diaspora concepts. However, just like ancient ideas of “Holy Russia,” the imagination of a distinct face of Christian religion in the Kyivan lands has a longer pre-history, and is currently adjusted to modern needs. Perhaps similar to the “Russian World,” the concept operates with several basic patterns, but beyond that is a matter of discourse rather than offering clear-cut definitions in every respect. Also the narrative of a distinctive Ukrainian, “Kyivan” form of Christian religion over time has changed its accents and dissociative potential. Whereas in former periods dissociation from Poland and Roman Catholicism often played a dominant role, in current debates the emphasis on distinctiveness from Russian narratives is clearly prevailing.
In its third part, this collection of papers deals with the theological side of the problem. Given that in theology (in the narrower sense) there are no differences between the churches involved, it is mostly on ecclesiology. Here, too, the churches have slightly different approaches. Nicholas Denysenko analyzes the significance of synodality in Ukrainian Orthodoxy which has its beginnings much earlier than in the 1990s, namely in the autocephaly movement in the early 1920s. He describes the development of the synodal idea throughout Ukrainian history and reflects of the possible significance of synodality for Ukrainian Orthodoxy in the future. The global level of synodality is addressed by Ioan Moga. He first discusses the concrete application of synodality on the basis of statutes in several autocephalous churches of mechanisms of conflict regulations. In a second step, ←16 | 17→he opens the perspective of a “theology of synodality” which would understand synodality as a communicative event.
The events in Ukraine ask the question about unity—what does it mean, how can it be achieved? Evgeny Pilipenko brings the issue of church unity into the broader theological context within the Orthodox tradition based on the biblical Revelation. In modernity, the idea of unity has been refracted in the theological quest; so he discusses the systematic coverage of the most important principles by Orthodox theologians and presents the perspectives that have been outlined for ecclesial thought and practice. An important aspect in which the church unity becomes concrete is liturgy. The Orthodox churches in Ukraine already have in some regard different liturgical uses. Nadieszda Kizenko researches how the OCU changed liturgical elements, above all by dropping those who refer to Russia, and thus displayed her loyalty to the Ukrainian cause—therefore one cannot speak of a proper liturgical reform but rather of an adaption. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) mostly sticks to the conventional use as it does not see liturgy as the main field to express church allegiance. The situation of two churches in the country also leads to the question of exclusivism which is discussed by Sergii Bortnyk. His article addresses a multi-layered problem. Exclusivism can rely to the issue of salvation—is there salvation only in a concrete church, or can it be attained also without belonging to this church? But exclusivism, once more, does not have only theological implications and consequences. It can also refer to the position of a church in society, and its relationship to the state. Bortnyk’s contribution, therefore, also analyzes the respective documents of the Orthodox churches in Ukraine and also statistical data from 1989 to the present day. Exclusivism, furthermore, also pertains to historical memory, insofar as a fundamentally different attitude of the UOC and the OCU (or its predecessors) to many historical events can be observed.
Tetiana Kalenychenko and Lidiya Lozova deal with the question of what the role of laypeople in both churches in Ukraine is. In the end, it is the “normal” believers, who will make the decision of which parish to attend and with which church to affiliate. The concrete experience on the ground shows that there is a broad range of approaches, like people who are Orthodox but refuse to identify with one of the churches, or initiatives for dialogue between members of the churches. Thomas Bremer discusses in his article possible ecclesiological consequences of the Ukrainian case, above all the question whether the territorial principle which is common for both the Orthodox and the Catholic churches can offer a solution for such cases. He proposes to consider a shift in the ecclesiological paradigm which would enable two churches in communion with each other to exercise jurisdiction over the same territory. Pavlo Smytsnyuk addresses the ecumenical dimensions of the establishment of the OCU, starting with the mostly positive reaction by the other Ukrainian churches. On the international level, the new situation has consequences for bilateral ecumenical dialogues (above all that ←17 | 18→between the Orthodox and the Catholic churches), but also for the multilateral ecumenical organizations like the World Council of Churches. It is to be seen whether the current crisis will become an opportunity for ecumenical dialogue, or, on the contrary, a source of further tension.
The fourth and last part addresses issues of church, state, and society in Orthodoxy. Here, too, one can distinguish at least two fundamental approaches, namely whether the Church is a part of the society, or rather stands vis-a-vis society. Elena Stepanova analyzes the ROC’s engagement in the sphere of morality in which a distinctiveness of the Russian culture and religion in comparison with Western countries is underlined. In the end, the relevant debates demonstrate the opposition of two basic strategies: interpreting morality as a set of rigid propositions (authorized by either religious or secular powers), to which an individual has to subordinate through their unchallenged recognition, or the right of a person for autonomous moral choice, as well as bearing responsibility for it. Different from what the guiding narrative of the Russian Orthodox Church and its “traditional values” discourse would suggest, also contemporary Russian society offers numerous examples for both approaches, presenting an image rather of “multiple moralities.” Aristotle Papanikolaou offers an analysis of the current situation and discusses the relationship of Orthodoxy to democracy. He shows that the rejection of pluralism is a typical feature for Orthodox churches in the post-communist world, and develops a theological pattern for political engagement, drawing from the ascetic tradition of the Orthodox Church. Finally, Nathaniel Wood considers the role of the state in an Orthodox understanding of politics, by comparing the approaches of the Ecumenical Patriarchate and the ROC, i.e. a “church with a state” and a “stateless” church. He shows how both churches have reimagined the notion of symphonia in competing ways in their respective contexts, and how they approach secularism, liberalism, and human rights.
We have asked Adalberto Mainardi to read through the whole manuscript and to wrap up the baselines of the volume, and also to show where further research is needed, in a concluding chapter. This way, we hope to achieve the main goal of our book: its starting point is that the conflict cannot be solved without an appropriate understanding of its actual nature and its dimensions. Our volume has the—perhaps both humble and ambitious—aim to contribute to such a better understanding.
←18 | 19→ ←19 | 20→1 The Church of Greece, the Patriarchate of Alexandria, and the Church of Cyprus.
Details
- Pages
- 428
- Publication Year
- 2022
- ISBN (PDF)
- 9783631887134
- ISBN (ePUB)
- 9783631887141
- ISBN (Hardcover)
- 9783631886991
- DOI
- 10.3726/b20057
- Language
- English
- Publication date
- 2022 (October)
- Keywords
- Eastern Churches Eastern Europe Theology Modernity Russian Orthodoxy Greek Orthodoxy
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- Berlin, Bern, Bruxelles, New York, Oxford, Warszawa, Wien, 2022. 428 pp., 1 fig. col.
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