Source: The Moscow Times By Ksenia Luchenko The celebration of Orthodox Christmas in both Russia and Ukraine on Jan. 7 provided ample evidence of what the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War has called Russia’s weaponization of religion in its propaganda war against Ukraine. Just as Ukraine’s 2013 Maidan Uprising was seen by Vladimir Putin as a personal affront, the 2018 creation of an independent Ukrainian Orthodox Church to replace the Moscow-aligned Ukrainian Orthodox Church Moscow Patriarchate, has not been forgiven by the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, who was left fearing a domino effect should other regional churches seek to break…
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Source: Religion News Service Contentious issues of church polity have been exposed by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February. By Meagan Saliashvili (RNS) — Nearly 400 Orthodox Christian theologians from 44 countries convened in the largest international conference of its kind in Greece on Thursday (Jan. 12) to discuss “Nicaea-sized” questions facing the Eastern Orthodox Church amid war and bitter division. Some of the most contentious issues at the Mega-Conference of the International Orthodox Theological Association, meeting in Volos, have been exposed by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February, which exacerbated a split between a newly independent Orthodox Church of Ukraine…
Source: Eurasia Review by Paul Goble Patriarch Kirill’s “theology of war” which seeks to justify acts of genocide in Ukraine is leading to the collapse of the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate as it has existed since Stalin restored that structure during World War II, Sergey Chapnin says. Indeed, the former deputy editor of the Moscow Patriarchate’s publishing house who has broken with the ROC MP and now is a senior fellow at Fordham University’s Orthodox Christian Studies Center says, what is going on “most clearly resembles” an act of suicide by the Moscow church (theins.ru/opinions/sergei-chapnin/258086). Many Russian…
Source: The Wall Street Journal Zelensky seeks to weaken a key source of Russian influence as heavy fighting continues By Yaroslav Trofimov KYIV, Ukraine—Ukraine’s government moved to curb the activities of the Orthodox Christian denomination historically linked to Moscow, aiming to cut off the most important remaining source of Russian cultural and religious influence in the country. President Volodymyr Zelensky announced the move as deadly battles continued along the front line, with Russia making small advances near the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, which has re-emerged as a major focus of the war. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church, canonically linked to the Moscow Patriarchate, is one…
Source: Public Orthodoxy by George Demacopoulos In 1095, Pope Urban II told a large gathering of knights in Southern France that it was their responsibility to avenge the Islamic conquest of the Holy Land (he did not mention that the conquest had occurred nearly 500 years earlier). Urban’s sermon led to the First Crusade, and it forever changed the dynamics between Western Europe, Eastern Christianity, and the Islamic world. From a Christian theological perspective, Urban introduced an entirely novel—some might say heretical—way of thinking about the relationship between Christian piety and violence. Near the end of his sermon, Urban declared, “Set out on…
Source: Public Orthodoxy by Emil Saggau This spring, the Serbian Orthodox Church (SOC) sealed significant and important deals, which has solidified and strengthened the SOC’s position. The first “deal” in May turned the Macedonian Orthodox Church (MOC), formally the Ohrid Archbishopric, into a canonical church, which ended around 50 years of estrangement between the SOC and MOC. The second one in July was between the SOC and the Montenegrin government, which granted the SOC privileges in Montenegro and closed almost twenty years of uncertainty between the two parties. These deals are not just a sign of the new diplomatic strength of…
Source: Orthodox Times Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew once again expressed his condemnation of the war that began with the invasion of Ukraine by Russia. Speaking at a press conference on the conference of Orthodox youths in Turkey organized by the Ecumenical Patriarchate in early September, the Patriarch said that “I have expressed the position of the Ecumenical Patriarchate since the beginning of this painful war. I said that it is unjustified and unacceptable.” He continued: “His Beatitude the Patriarch of Moscow said that it was a holy war and tried to justify it and explain it in spiritual and religious terms.…
Source: Public Orthodoxy by Andrew Louth The Christian world as a whole—and the Orthodox world, in particular—has been horrified by the invasion of Ukraine by the armed forces of Russia. It seems to be a distressingly indiscriminate campaign, in which thousands have been killed—young soldiers, men, women, and children—as well as hospitals, schools, homes, monasteries, churches destroyed, with millions of refugees fleeing from their homes and livelihoods. From the beginning, his Holiness, Patriarch Kirill, has spoken out in support of the military operation in Ukraine, using the same mealy-mouthed expression as President Putin to obscure the truth that a sovereign…
Source: National Catholic Register The Russian Orthodox Church will send a delegation to the congress, but Kirill will not go. CNA Staff Vatican August 25, 2022 Patriarch Kirill of Moscow will not attend an interreligious summit in Kazakhstan in September, where it was hoped he would meet with Pope Francis to discuss a peaceful resolution to the six-month-long war in Ukraine. The Pope will travel to the Central Asian nation for the VII Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions in the city of Nur-Sultan on Sept. 13-15. The Russian Orthodox Church will send a delegation to the congress,…
Source: Religion News Service Why those removed from the world should refrain from declarations on marriage and family. By John Chryssavgis (RNS) — In the Orthodox Christian world, few places are better known or more lovingly venerated than Mount Athos, the 10th-century Greek monastery legendarily dedicated to the Virgin Mary. Composed of 20 citadels scattered over a peninsula of exceptional beauty in northern Greece, boasting magnificent manuscripts and icons, Athos is home to some 2,000 monks. Among them, as in every society, there are saints and sinners, sane and strange. I have visited countless times and have been blessed to engage…
Source: Religion News Service While the Orthodox Church of Ukraine’s letter is addressed to the Ecumenical Patriarch, the letter speaks to concerns for the entire global Orthodox Christian community. By Marika Proctor (RNS) — Metropolitan Epiphanius, the head of the independent Orthodox Church of Ukraine, has issued a letter to Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, “first among equals” of Orthodox Christian leaders, asking Bartholomew to call Patriarch Kirill, leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, a teacher of heresy for his theological backing of the Ukraine war and deprive Kirill of his right to lead the Russian church. The letter was approved at a meeting of…
Source: Christian Network Europe (CNE) News The Orthodox Church of Ukraine has called on patriarch Bartholomew to condemn Moscow patriarch Kirill for supporting the Russian invasion of Ukraine. With the approval of the synod of his bishops, Metropolitan Epiphanius wrote a letter to the head of world orthodoxy, the patriarch of Constantinople, to condemn Kirill for heresy and schism. The letter, available to the Catholic German daily Die Tagespost, reads that the patriarch should “review and condemn at a pan-Orthodox level the activities of the Moscow Patriarch Kirill Gundyaev and the ethnophyletic and racist doctrine of the Russian world”. Epiphanius accuses…