Church battle could weaken Putin's power in Ukraine

Ukrainian bishops on Saturday are choosing a leader for a new national church that will sideline their current Moscow-based patriarch, a move that could weaken Russian President Vladimir Putin's power in the country.

کد خبر: ۸۶۰۶۵۵

تاریخ: ۲۴ آذر ۱۳۹۷ - ۰۹:۴۰

The organization of an independent Ukrainian Orthodox Church comes amid a simmering war between Ukraine and Russia, which annexed Crimea in 2014. Russian Orthodox priests in Ukraine, who have reported to Moscow for centuries, have downplayed Putin's role in the fighting.

It's not clear who Ukrainians might elect to take over for the incumbent leader, but sidelining him would end a relationship that has empowered Russian leaders in Ukraine since the 17th Century.

The late Patriarch Alexy II, was reportedly identified in Soviet archives as a KGB asset. His successor, the incumbent Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill, also is widely suspected of "being a KGB agent, KGB-connected," one Baltic diplomat told the Washington Examiner.

“This is the understanding [based on] the way the Russian Orthodox Church tries to support Russia’s aggression,” the diplomat said on condition of anonymity.

It's not clear who Ukrainians might elect to take over for Kirill, but sidelining the Moscow patriarch would end a relationship that has empowered Russian leaders in Ukraine since the 17th Century. Patriarch Kirill’s predecessor, Alexy II, was reportedly identified in Soviet archives as a KGB asset.

A shift in the leadership of the Orthodox Church could make it much harder for Putin to execute the “hybrid war” tactics that allowed Russia to seize valuable swaths of Ukraine without launching a conventional military invasion. Those tactics involved cyberattacks and the deployment of Russian special forces who fought in unmarked uniforms, which allowed Russia to portray the clash as an example of Ukrainian persecution against ethnic Russians.

“The Russian government has been using and will continue to use the Russian Orthodox Church as a geopolitical tool,” a senior State Department official told the Washington Examiner in a recent interview. "The Ukrainian people have a right to self-determination in religious affairs.”

“There's no doubt that the Russian Orthodox Church was one of the main tools in the toolbox of Kremlin," the Baltic diplomat said.

Moscow for decades has stressed the importance of the historic cultural and religious unity of the Ukrainian and Russian people. The Russian Orthodox Church, and Patriarch Kirill personally, has played “a key role” in that effort since the 1990s by “reviv[ing] an imperial ideology that viewed Russia as the protector of all things eastern,” according to a leading expert on Ukrainian Orthodox history,

“Ukraine is absolutely key to this Russian world ideology,” Valparaiso University’s Nicholas Denysenko told the Washington Examiner. “Russia views Ukraine as [committing] an act of betrayal ... The church has played a very important role in capitulating to being an ideological source or font for the conducting of this hybrid war.”

Russia has alleged that Ukraine's move for an independent church is part of a Western plot.

“The idea behind this is obvious — another step in tearing Ukraine from Russia, not just politically, but also spiritually,” Russian Foreign Ministery Sergey Lavrov said in October.

Kirill himself has been fighting the effort to create an independent church. In a letter to the United Nations, he blasted the "gross interference" of Ukrainian officials into the church, and said they were trying to use the church to advance their own "political goals."

The fight for control of the church has played out since Crimea was annexed in 2014. Bishops poised to lead the new Ukrainian church have blamed Russia for the violence, while Moscow-aligned clerics have not.

The Security Service of Ukraine recently raided a Russia-backed monastery in Kiev, and alleged Friday that the monastery leaders were working with Russian officials to "organize provocations" around the weekend vote.

Some are bracing for possible violence from Russia if an independent Ukrainian church tries to establish itself, especially if Russian bishops resist.

“If it gets bad enough, if they can't contain it, that could open the door for Russian intervention, which they could call peacekeeping,” Denysenko said.

The Kremlin has hinted this outcome is possible.

"Russia, of course, as it defends the interests of Russians and Russian-speakers, as Putin has always said, in the same way ... defends the interests of the Orthodox Christians,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in October.

The State Department declined to make a prediction about what might happen.

“The Russian government has no shortage of options and ideas for how to escalate conflict vis a vis Ukraine,” the senior State Department official told the Washington Examiner. “We're monitoring the process very closely. We know the upcoming points on the calendar when matters like these are being discussed.”