For years, the two leaders of the Russian Orthodox Church with whom Pope Francis met by videoconference on March 16 — Kirill, Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus’, and Metropolitan Hilarion, the Church’s chief ecumenical officer — have worked to buttress Vladimir Putin’s efforts to reconstitute a simulacrum of the Soviet Union in the name of a Russkiy mir (“Russian world”). Kirill and Hilarion’s efforts have run the gamut from falsifying the history of eastern Slavic Christianity to the virtual beatification of President Putin as a figure providentially ordained to save the world from Western decadence and “liberalism.” Most recently, Kirill blasphemously blessed a war of aggression with holy icons.
This shameful enterprise has now been forthrightly rejected by some 500 Orthodox scholars throughout the Eastern Christian world, in a Declaration on the “Russian World” Teaching.
The Declaration unambiguously deplores the “Russian world” ideology as “a form of religious fundamentalism” that is “totalitarian in character.” Orthodox believers who espouse this ideology cease to be members of the “Church of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Apostles, the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, the Ecumenical Councils, and the Fathers of the Church.” In a word, the “Russian world” is a “heresy,” and from that “vile and indefensible” heresy have sprung “the shameful actions of the Government of Russia in unleashing war in Ukraine with the connivance of the Russian Orthodox Church.”
The Declaration goes on to “condemn…and reject” six pseudo-theological facets of “Russian world” ideology:
First, the signatories deplore “any teaching that seeks to replace the Kingdom of God, proclaimed and inaugurated by Christ…with a kingdom of this world, be that Holy Rus’, Sacred Byzantium, or any other earthly kingdom. “
Second, the signatories “firmly reject all forms of government that deify the state (theocracy) and absorb the Church, depriving the Church of its freedom to stand prophetically against all injustice.” They also “rebuke all those who affirm caesaropapism,” which subordinates obedience to Christ to obedience to a “leader vested with ruling powers and claiming to be God’s anointed, whether known by the title ‘Caesar,’ ‘Emperor,’ ‘Tsar,’ ‘or ‘President.’”
Third, the signatories deplore as antibiblical and heretical “any teaching that attributes divine establishment or authority, special sacredness or purity to any single local, national, or ethnic identity,” or that divinizes “any particular culture.”
Fourth, the signatories reject the demonization of those who are “other” and flatly condemn “any Manichean and Gnostic division that would elevate a holy Orthodox Eastern culture and its Orthodox people above a debased and immoral ‘West.’”
Fifth, the Declaration summons Orthodox believers to exercise authentic Christian responsibility for public life while calling out the hypocrisy of Russian churchmen: “We rebuke those who pray for peace while failing to actively make peace, whether out of fear or lack of faith.”
And finally, the Declaration demands that Russian Orthodox leaders be truth-tellers after the mind of Christ. Those who refuse to “speak the truth or actively [suppress] the truth about [the] evils that are perpetrated against the Gospel of Christ in Ukraine” condemn themselves as cowards, liars, or both. The signatories also “condemn all talk of ‘fratricidal war’” or the “repetition of the sin of Cain, who killed his brother out of envy” if any such use of biblical imagery does not “explicitly acknowledge the murderous intent and culpability of one party over another” — in other words, Russia’s unwarranted assault on Ukraine.
Putin’s savage war has altered so many things on the world political stage that its effects on Eastern Christianity may be overlooked. The sea-change that may be underway there is of great importance, however, for two reasons.
For more than a decade, Russian imperial bullying has been paralleled by the bullying of other Orthodox communions by the Patriarchate of Moscow, as it seeks hegemony in the Orthodox world. But because of his pusillanimous actions since the invasion of Ukraine on February 24, Patriarch Kirill’s moral authority is now at the sub-basement level. As Putin’s missiles have shattered Mariupol’, Kirill’s acquiescence in barbarism has shattered Russian Orthodoxy’s campaign to be first among Orthodox equals.
The Declaration on the “Russian World” Teaching also opens important ecumenical possibilities, especially in fostering a dialogue on social doctrine between Orthodoxy and Catholicism. Through the Putin/Kirill dyad, the ancient Byzantine notion of a “symphony” between Church and state has once again led to the Church’s corruption, as Russian Orthodoxy plays chaplain to the czar. The signatories of the Declaration understand that. The door is therefore open to a creative ecumenical conversation on Church, state, society, culture, and economy in the future.
One hopes the Vatican eventually grasps this.
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Compared to the threat posed by the current Marxist assault on truth promulgated by the west and the Vatican, Putin and the orthodox church is just another schoolyard bully and we are the black plague.
Interesting. Bullies usually threaten and manipulate into getting their own way, while the plague results in physical devastation. Do you want to take another swing at your metaphoric (and sophomoric) comparison.
The people of eastern Ukraine deserve to be defended from and relieved of the dispossession and murder they were subject to for 8 years from their countrymen, since about 2014. A true and sincere ecumenism would have spoken up earlier. The “ecumenism” mentioned above, is an hypocrisy on that account; and also hypocrisy on account of all kinds of vaunted imputations on Russia and other embellishment -to exclude Russia and the eastern Ukraine people. It is an hypocrisy on a third count, as it implicitly defends an aggression from the west that wants to promote and multiply evils it calls “good”. And in so far as its members would have been supporting the violence during the eight preceding years, against the eastern Ukraine people, it is hypocrisy again on a fourth count. But I can think of a fifth count of hypocrisy, that would involve mentioning the name of Bartholomew, who insists on being this kind of shepherd in alliance with the same forces that have destroyed basic life in the Middle East and elsewhere, so many times over, in their own name and quite recognizable. How shameful.
Point 6 is an outright rebuke of Pontiff Francis (and his Secretariat of State Eminence Parolin), where they quote the very words of Pontiff Francis, who outrageously called the Russian invasion of Ukraine “a fratricidal war.”
Mr. Weigel ends by hoping that “the Vatican” grasps the meaning of this six part statement.
Observers may suppose this is all just more of the same misguided and ham-fisted behavior by the increasingly insular and disoriented “Vatican,” meaning Pontiff Francis and Eminence Parolin and “the savants” of the super-charged Secretariat of State.
Observers may also ponder more deeply the dire consequences that may ensue from our hierarchs and denizens of “the Vatican” under the current circumstances, where it is a publicly known that powerful governments hostile to the Gospel and other good things are not simply “at risk” of being blackmailed, but are now and have been since at least 2018 completely vulnerable to being blackmailed, because of their “excursions” on “amorous” electronic “hook-up” apps.
This is serious business, and Ed Condon and JD Flynn of “The Pillar” are giving the evidence, and have staked their reputations as Catholic journalists on this crisis. Read it here:
https://www.pillarcatholic.com/p/location-based-apps-pose-security?s=r
This statement is right on but it is also necessary to make a more universal declaration which would include the actions of people in the West such as Donald Trump who was going the same and using fundamentalist Christians (catholic and protestant) to promote political triumphalism. As Christian’s we must be in the world but not of the world. Political and geographical boundaries do not define us.
The Declaration on the Russian World teaching may be the most important stance by Orthodox Christianity in centuries. Russia has long been condemned to a belief that God is only the God of Russia. Russian Orthodoxy has been under the thumb of a schizophrenia that on the one hand saw Christianity as Christ and the apostles intended while at the same time saw Christianity as the establishment of a state God. This makes for a very awkward situation for the citizens of Russia where some very good faithful people are loyal to Christ while others use religion as a means for the state to control the people.
History appears to repeat itself. Weigel speaks of “the virtual beatification of President Putin as a figure providentially ordained to save the world from Western decadence and liberalism. Most recently, Kirill blasphemously blessed a war of aggression with holy icons”.
Repeated is the history of Saint Alexander Nevsky, a prince and military leader who inflicted a decisive defeat on the Teutonic Knights in the battle on the Ice 1242 ending German incursion into Russia. Later Swedish incursion.
Alexander Yaroslavich Nevsky served as Prince of Novgorod, Grand Prince of Kiev and Grand Prince of Vladimir. Alexander was canonized as a saint of the Russian Orthodox Church by Metropolitan Macarius in 1547.
Russian Orthodoxy is a true national Church intimately related to independence from the Tartar East and European West. While Russian invasion of Ukraine is condemnable an honest appraisal of Ukraine modern history and the Obama, Pres Biden political, immoral, financial incursion into ukraine and the overthrow [the Maidan affair] of its legitimately elected government.
If Catholicism is ever to be reconciled with the Russian Orthodox Church and the Russian people it must reevaluate Russia in context of a long history of identification with a state does does indeed depend on faith in Christ as a means of unity and patriotism as did the Tsars and the Marxist Communists who later ruled. Stalin, murderous despot as we know during his Great Patriotic War revived Russian Orthodoxy. Must we condemn this as hypocrisy or must we reconsider what was at stake. The Nazi extermination of undesirables including all Slavic peoples besides Jews.
Whether it was German Catholic Teutonic Knights, Protestant Sweden, or Muslim Tartars their Church was the undergirding of resistance and survival. It’s a lack of moral intellectual vision to comprehensively vilify Russia. If one were forced to choose between Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin as the sole world leader for the future of the world, a true, honest evaluation would not for this writer be an easy judgment.
A very disappointing article.
The premise of the author appears to be to leave moral teaching and discussion of God entirely within the context of the secular authorities.
Putin has many flaws, as all of us do.
And the authoritarian model of government, which incidentally, has been adopted by all of the BRIC and is the dominant form of government in the world is not suited for the USA.
But to say that the contemporary Western idea of Christianity as the hand maiden of secularism with no role in society but to provide private charity is not inspiring, either.
Three or four generations raised under Communism leaves Russian Christianity weak and docile with respect to the State.
We should be working toward more ecumenism, helping the Russian Orthodox navigate its new status and re-thinking our own relationship as a people of Faith with an ever more intrusive and morally demanding State as the EU and the USA governments push us from a post-Christian into an anti-Christian era in the West.
Russian Christianity was a lapdog of the state long before communism … and they have liked it, as long as the state did their hard work of evangelizing for them using Cossacks instead of persuasion.
‘ There are some monks who just love Russian money ..’ – on Mount Athos ..
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/dec/14/ukraine-russia-tensions-reach-greeces-holy-mount-athos
The complex issues with regards to the varying loyalties there too , a place that inexplicably admits Muslims , not Catholics and women , pointing to the deep , deep political roots , in equating the Kingdom with worldly power, ? going as far back as the Photian schism ..
How much of such wealth could have been targeted against The Church , pushing agendas amidst the people , in places such as Germany .. other very vocal voices taking much pride in sounding very ‘ orthodox’, except for some truly orthodox areas ..
The influence of all that wealth in the vast media empires ..including in the Disney movies and such too – that can esp . target families ..
The Consecration occasion – may same serve to bring The Light into all areas through the hands and Heart of The Mother ,to undo the darkness conveyed down through the centuries as we thank God that the Holy Father, having been prudent and compassionate in many areas all through the Papacy has been well gifted with the charity and prophetic charism that many are in need of – Mount Athos on down ..
To Mr. Weigel:
His Excellency the Patriarch blessed a war of liberation against the degenerate John Courtney Murray “West.” The signatories to the so-called “Declaration on the ‘Russian World’ Teaching” are therefore heretics. The holy emperor, whether known as Tsar or otherwise, stands as the katechon ordained by Christ Himself, as recognized by St. Paul. The cowards and/or liars here, generally all live near the Potomac River.
Putin as “holy emperor?” Please open a window — the fumes are getting to you.
A product of Public Orthodoxy. But of course…
The fact that Babylon on the Potomac is in full sway does not in any way invalidate the criticisms of those in the Russian Church supporting this criminal adventure by Putin Ukraine. Those Churchmen will have much accounting to do, in this world or the next. A proper thought for them to meditate on.
The Russian Church has taken its stance — whether it is correct or not, one will not be able to assess if one merely accepts the “evidence,” “arguments,” and standards given by the unipolar American Empire, which serves its own interest. All clerics will have much account to do.
My post had nothing to do with the propaganda being put forth by the American Empire, but theocon Weigel’s selective use of that heterodox (by Orthodox standards) rag Public Orthodoxy.
On Sunday, May 21, 2O17 the reliquary containing the bones of St. Nicholas were brought on loan from Italy to the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, in Moscow. President Putin visited the reliquary on Wednesday, May 24, 2O17. He kissed it, while a full choir sang, and crossed himself a number of times, reverently, in full view of the cameras. The following Monday, (the 29th), all hell broke loose in Moscow, when the worst storm in over a hundred years hit the city.
“Sixteen people were killed when a severe thunderstorm hit Moscow and the region around the Russian capital on Monday, officials say.
“Hundreds of trees were toppled, and about 15O people needed medical help.
“It was the deadliest storm in the city for more than 1OO years, Russia’s Interfax news agency reported.”
During the national convention of Evangelical Lutherans during November, 2OO9, in Minneapolis, the steeple of the historic Lutheran church was knocked from its mooring during a storm, and landed in the parking lot next to the convention center.
On Good Friday, in April, 2O11, a powerful tornado struck St. Louis County. Windows were blown out of the airport, and jet liners were shoved sideways. While dozens of people viewed Mel Gibson’s movie “Passion of Christ” in a nearby church in Ferguson, Missouri, a hole was ripped in the roof of the building. Meanwhile, during 7 PM Good Friday Mass at the Holy Spirit Catholic Church, in Maryland Heights, Missouri (St. Louis County), attendees witnessed the 4O-foot-high steeple fly past the windows.
It is time to preach that our neighbors and brothers are charged with seeking to know God.