Ukraine’s split from Russian Orthodox Church puts a dent in Putin’s image

Vladimir Putin suffered one of his biggest defeats in the long war for Ukraine this week. It came not on the battlefields of Donbass but in the venerable offices of Patriarch Bartholomew I, the archbishop of the city still known in the Orthodox Christian world as Constantinople.

In a decision fraught with geopolitical consequences, Bartholomew – the closest thing the Orthodox world has to a pope – declared on Thursday that he intended to recognize the independence of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, ending centuries of deference to the Russian Orthodox Church...

This is far more than a shuffling of church papers. In granting what’s known as autocephaly to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Bartholomew has thrown the weight of his office behind Ukraine’s long struggle to free itself from Moscow.

Bartholomew’s move also tore a large hole in Mr. Putin’s image as the leader of the world’s 300 million Orthodox Christians. It’s an image the Russian President has carefully cultivated through his country’s confrontation with the West...

Even Mr. Putin’s place in Russia’s history books is smudged by Thursday’s announcement. The leader celebrated at home for reclaiming Crimea – which Russia seized and annexed from Ukraine in 2014 – has now seen the Russian Orthodox Church lose millions of followers as an almost direct result.

Concerns quickly spiked about how Mr. Putin might respond to the decision. “In the event that the events which are developing take the course of illegal activities, then of course, just as Russia defends the interests of Russians and Russian speakers – and Putin has spoken about this many times – Russia will defend the interests of the Orthodox,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters in Moscow Thursday.

“Moscow wants that there would be resistance. We, Ukrainians, don’t want resistance,” (Patriarch) Filaret said in Kiev.

This is a kind of a historic divorce.

Russians have always viewed the Ukrainians as part of the same culture, sharing the same origination story - the Kievan Rus. Within the Soviet Union, only Ukrainians and Byelorussians (Belarus, “White Russians”) were really considered to be Russians themselves.

The very word “Ukraine” translates as “on the edge”, meaning those on the frontier, facing the other peoples.

The splitting of the Church is a really deep thing, in historical terms, and symbolic terms. In the Orthodox world, every Nation has its own Church, which unifies the people into one body of Christ on Earth. This spiritual separation from the Russians is really kind of epic.

This is a kind of a historic divorce.

The very word “Ukraine” translates as “on the edge”, meaning those on the frontier, facing the other peoples.

Ukraine had been used as a term for their own territory by the Ukrainian Cossacks of the Zaporozhian Sich since the 16th century, and that the conflation with okraina "borderlands" was a creation of tsarist Russia.

Pivtorak (2001) argues that there is a difference between the two terms ukraina україна "territory" and окраїна okraina "borderland" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Name_of_Ukraine

I always had the impression that the Russians considered the Ukrainians to be part of them, much more than Ukrainians did.

In fact, I’ve heard Ukrainians emphasize they were decidedly NOT Russians...

Just so, splitting off of Ukrainians from the Russian Orthodox Church will make Russians feel more isolated in the World, like the are losing a close friend or family member.

It would not have happened without Putin waging war against Ukraine. No one was fooled by his use of “little green men”, not wearing their Russian uniforms.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.