On the topic of the Orthodox Church, it is worth taking notice of the
slightly confusing fact that there are three separate religious units
involved:
- the Russian Orthodox Church [RPTs]
- the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate [UPTsMP]
- the Orthodox Church of Ukraine [PTsU]
Within this constellation, there had already been tensions, which are
now coming to a head: there are parishes of the UPTsMP cutting ties with
the Moscow Patriarchate and joining the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, and
even more remarkably, the parish of the Russian Orthodox Church in
Amsterdam has also split from Moscow. (There must be similar discussions
in RPTs and UPTsMP parishes all over the world, I presume.)
[... and since, as Kelaidis notes in the article that Michael forwarded,
the Patriarch's "office was just a few centuries ago (a blink of the eye
in the memory of the Christian East) located not in Moscow, but Kyiv",
the idea of a 'return to Kyiy' might develop traction - not only for
Russian crusaders to 'liberate' their 'Kiev', but also for Orthodox
Christians to abandon the Moscow Patriarchate in favour of the less
belligerent Kyiy Patriarchate, bringing about a new schism and perhaps
another, yet-non-existent unit, the 'Russian Orthodox Church of the Kyiy
Patriarchate'.])
Patriarch Kirill of Moscow is clearly part of Putin's propaganda battle;
but the actual influence of the church and church leaders on the Russian
population, on the Russian military ranks, and on individual soldiers,
is disputed, and might also be subject to change. Kirill is presumably
not only making new friends...
Some links:
https://www.dw.com/en/ukraine-war-the-role-of-the-orthodox-churches/a-61063614
https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/thanks-to-russia-ukrainians-swell-ranks-of-kyiv-patriarchate/
https://www2.stetson.edu/religious-news/220329b.html
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/13/russian-orthodox-church-in-amsterdam-announces-split-with-moscow
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Orthodox_Church
Am 07.04.22 um 21:55 schrieb Michael Benson:
Concerning the role of Orthodoxy in the war over Ukraine, I just wanted
to pass this link on, from the interesting online publication RD, or
Religion Dispatches (FAQ: Is RD a religious publication? Answer: No.
It's not. Q: Then why do you have "religion" in your name? A: Because
it’s a magazine _/on_/ religion. It's the subject our writers cover):
https://religiondispatches.org/the-russian-patriarch-just-gave-his-most-dangerous-speech-yet-and-almost-no-one-in-the-west-has-noticed/
by Katherine Kelaidis
<snip>
But then, about halfway through, the sermon took a turn for the shocking
and dangerous. It was at about the point that he acknowledged where he
stood: in a cathedral built not so much for the glory of God as for the
glory of Russian military might. Here the Patriarch said he had come to
address the leaders of their Russian forces, and through them, their
troops. He reminded the assembled congregation of Vladimir Putin’s
favorite propaganda point in this war: that Russia was fighting fascism
in Ukraine just as it had in the Second World War.
And then the Patriarch, whose office was just a few centuries ago (a
blink of the eye in the memory of the Christian East) located not in
Moscow, but Kyiv, offered up a version of history that simply erases
Ukraine from the map. Kirill blames “various forces” (i.e. outsiders,
including—one would imagine—the West) that emerged in the Middle Ages
for what he regards as a false division between Russia and Ukraine. In
fact, he doesn’t even acknowledge there are such people as Ukrainians,
referring to all involved parties (including, perhaps, one could
speculate, Belarusians) as “Holy Russians.”
<snip>
Patriarch Kirill’s sermon on the Sunday of St. John Climacus does no
less than refuse to acknowledge the distinction between Russian and
Ukrainian culture and identity, and it denies Ukraine’s right to exist
as a sovereign nation, both historically and in the present.
Furthermore, it legitimizes the ongoing violence as necessary and even,
perhaps one could argue, holy.
# distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
# <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
# collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
# more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l
# archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
# @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject: