Keyword: ukraine
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When Russian president Vladimir Putin celebrated the annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, he claimed the disputed peninsula was “spiritually” inseparable from Moscow. But Mr Putin’s military intervention is now threatening to undermine the “Russian world” beyond Moscow’s borders that he sought to protect. An arcane canonical dispute has become a geopolitical flashpoint after Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, the Istanbul-based spiritual leader of Orthodox Christianity, said on Thursday that he intended to grant full recognition to a breakaway church in Ukraine that split from the Russian patriarchate in the early 1990s. The Russian church has warned it may...
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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...
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Patriarch Bartholomew I -- considered the leader of roughly 300 million Orthodox Christians, or "first among equals" of Eastern Orthodox clerics -- to "proceed to the granting of autocephaly to the Church of Ukraine" marked a clear step closer to another remarkable break from Moscow and its reach into Kyiv's affairs. After taking a moment to say a prayer, Natalia, a retired schoolteacher and parishioner of St. Volodymyr's, told RFE/RL that her previous prayer -- for her church to be legitimized by the Ecumenical Patriarchate and broken free from Russia -- had been answered. The push for independence, "was our...
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Moscow, October 12, Interfax - A member of the Moscow Patriarchate Synodal Biblical-Theological Commission, Archpriest Andrey Novikov, has reacted to Constantinople's decisions on Ukraine by proposing a number of countermeasures. "In view of the secession of the former Patriarchate of Constantinople from the Church, the Russian Orthodox Church [should] create dioceses and parishes on Turkish territory, including Istanbul," Father Andrey wrote on his Facebook page on Friday. A pan-Orthodox council could be held in Moscow to depose Patriarch Bartholomew and members of his Synod, he wrote. He also suggested severing eucharistic communion with the Patriarchate of Constantinople and "anathematizing the...
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Ukraine has secured approval from the global head of Orthodox Christianity to create its own Church independent of Russia’s patriarchate. Russian Patriarch Kirill said last month that his church would break ties with the Istanbul-based patriarchate. Such a separation would “catastrophically undermine the unity of global Orthodoxy..." The threat was echoed by Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk. “We the Russian Church will not recognise this autocephaly, of course, and we will have no other choice but to sever ties with Constantinople." The question of whether the new Ukrainian Church will take over the Moscow Patriarchate’s property in the country is another...
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The head of global Orthodox Christianity has decided to grant Ukraine its own church independent of Russia’s patriarchate, in a politically charged move that defies sharp warnings from Moscow. The decision is a victory for Ukraine in a wider struggle against Russia that encompasses Moscow’s 2014 annexation of Crimea and its continued support for separatists fighting against Kiev in the east of the country. But it has been condemned by Russian officials, who have warned it threatens to trigger the biggest Christian schism in a millennium. While both Ukraine and Russia share the same orthodox Christian roots that date back...
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MOSCOW - Vyacheslav Gorshkov, who teaches the catechism at a Kiev cathedral, was among the majority of Orthodox Christians in Ukraine who had reconciled themselves to the fact that their church answers to the Russian Orthodox patriarch in Moscow. No longer. Mr. Gorshkov does not want to break with the faith, but does want to split with the Russian Orthodox Church, incensed by what he sees as the Kremlin using the church as an instrument of its old imperial control. He is among the majority of the faithful hoping that Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, the spiritual leader for the estimated...
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While Catholicism has been embroiled in a crisis of sexual abuse and episcopal malfeasance reaching to the highest levels of the Church, Eastern Orthodoxy may be on the verge of an epic crack-up with major ecumenical and geopolitical consequences. The Ecumenical Patriarchate in Constantinople has indicated that it is considering a proposal to recognize the autocephaly, or independence from Moscow, of Ukrainian Orthodoxy. The Moscow Patriarchate has responded with fury. First, the Moscow Patriarchate is terrified. Moscow's claim to be the “third Rome” would be gravely imperiled. Russian Orthodoxy would shrink drastically by the loss of the large Orthodox population...
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Kostyantynivka, an industrial city of roughly 80,000 in Ukraine's east, sits not only a little more than a rocket shot from the front lines of the simmering war between the Ukrainian Army and Russia-backed separatist forces. It is also one of many at the center of a politically charged spiritual conflict that is pitting Eastern Orthodox Christians against each other and setting the stage for a religious schism of historic proportions. The dispute at hand centers around granting the Ukrainian Orthodox Church autocephaly, or the right to be ecclesiastically independent. The designation would strike a serious blow to the heart...
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Russia Derangement Syndrome: Syria Edition by David Archibald 6 August 2018 The road to hell is paved with good intentions. So it has been with US involvement in Syria. To provide a context to that involvement, let’s start part way through the story with the self-immolation of a Tunisian vegetable vendor on December 17, 2011, driven to despair by harassment from petty officials. That spark set off the Arab Spring. A number of Arab regimes changed; some remained resilient. That wasn’t good enough for David Cameron and Nicholas Sarkozy, the then leaders of the UK and France respectively. Their armed...
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The Bulgarian Orthodox Church on Oct. 5 turned down a call by the Russian Patriarch to hold talks to discuss a bid by the Ukrainian church to break away from Moscow’s orbit. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church under Patriarch Filaret is leading a drive to establish a national church independent of the Russian Orthodox Church in the face of strong opposition from Moscow. Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill wrote to all branches of the Orthodox world, calling for talks to discuss the situation around church life in Ukraine. The Bulgarian Church’s Holy Synod, its top executive body, however, said in a statement...
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In wooded northern Russia, near the Finnish border, archaeological digs by a patriotic historical group are unearthing controversy. The Russian Military History Society, which was created by the Kremlin, says it is seeking the remains of Soviet soldiers who died when the region was occupied by Nazi-aligned Finns during World War II. But human rights activists allege the organisation is trying to cover up Stalin-era repressions in the Sandarmokh forest, in Karelia. “The search for the remains of soldiers from the Second World War on the site of mass executions by the NKVD...looks like an attempt to manipulate memory," Memorial...
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Nearly half of Russian youth say they have never heard of Stalin-era purges, according to a new state-sponsored survey. Conservative estimates say nearly 700,000 Soviet citizens were killed in the ‘Great Terror’ under Stalin’s rule in 1937-38. Contemporary attitudes to Stalin as a historical figure are divided in Russia, with President Vladimir Putin having said that attempts to demonize the Soviet leader were a ploy to attack Russia. Forty-seven percent of Russian respondents aged 18-24 told the VTsIOM pollster that they were hearing about Stalin-era repressions for the first time, according to the results of a survey published on Friday.
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WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Senate has adopted a resolution recognizing that Soviet dictator Josef Stalin committed genocide against the Ukrainian people in the early 1930s, when millions died in a horrific famine known as the Holodomor. The office of Republican Senator Rob Portman, who sponsored the bill, did not immediately get back to RFE/RL for comment. Asked for comment, the State Department referred to a 2017 statement that described the Holodomor as "one of the most atrocious acts of the 20th century. The "simple resolution" passed on October 3 commemorates the 85th anniversary of the famine of 1932-33. The Senate...
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As plans to establish an independent Ukrainian Orthodox Church encounter complaints from Russia, Catholic leaders hope ecumenical ties will not be affected. Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, who holds honorary primacy among the world’s 14 main Orthodox churches, plans to grant autocephaly, or independence, to Christians in Ukraine, many of whom have been linked to the Russian Orthodox Church’s Moscow Patriarchate. Calls for a single independent Ukrainian Orthodox Church intensified after Russia’s 2014 forced annexation of Crimea and military intervention in eastern Ukraine. Some observers have cautioned that Catholic-Orthodox relations could be set back by inter-Orthodox feuding. Victor Khroul, ,...
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Three boys have been killed after triggering a landmine in eastern Ukraine. The boys, aged between 13 and 15, were from Horlivka, a city controlled by separatist forces. The town's mayor, Ivan Prikhodko, wrote on social media that a 10-year-old boy is also in hospital with shrapnel injuries. Mr Prikhodko told AFP: "They found an abandoned house and were just looking for adventure. "We are constantly confronted [by the problem of mines] and I think it is something that will continue for some time." Horlivka is about 18 miles from Donetsk. The region has seen heavy fighting since the rebel...
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More than four years after they took up arms against the Ukrainian government and seized a southeastern chunk of the country, pro-Russian separatists appear no closer to their dream of making their enclaves part of Russia. More than 10,000 people were killed in the resulting war, most in that first year, and both Russian and local support for the separatists has waned as various separatist warlords competed for control of coal mining, factories, the food supply and humanitarian aid from Russia and the West. More than 2 million people have fled to central Ukraine or Russia. No Western journalists have...
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The Trump administration is right in its assessment that Russia’s naval actions in the Azov are meant to harass Ukraine-bound ships and disrupt the country’s economy. Other analysts have offered similar descriptions of Moscow’s intent. The questions now become, at what point will the harassment become intolerable for Kyiv and when that point is reached, what is Ukraine prepared or capable of doing about it?
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WARSAW, Poland. Army Gen. Curtis M. Scaparrotti says Russia already is a competitor that operates in domains “particularly below the level of war,” but in an aggressive way, noting that the Russians use cyber activity, social media, disinformation campaigns and troop exercises to threaten and bully other countries. Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014 and its actions Eastern Ukraine show their determination to continue to intimidate neighboring countries. This strategy is called a hybrid war, he said, and NATO is coming to grips with the concept. “One of the things about hybrid war is defining it. What is it?”...
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“Five years ago I’d probably never have thought about it,” said Anatoly Bilyk, 57, sipping coffee as he looked at the two churches in Kalynivka. “But after Russia attacked our country and stole territory from us; I think we need our own church now to finish building our nation.” The dispute over giving the Ukrainian Orthodox Church autocephaly, or the right to be a fully fledged church, has moved the conflict between Ukraine and Russia into the spiritual realm. Although both churches trace their history to the conversion of the medieval state of Rus in Kiev, Russia’s annexation of Crimea...
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