Moscow Patriarchate

Vladimir Berezansky, Jr., a U.S. lawyer with experience in Russia and former Soviet republics, recalls an interview with Patriarch Alexy II in 1991. Like many Russians at the time, the Patriarch was coping with a “disorienting change” following the fall of the Soviet Empire, Berezansky writes.

At the time, he seemed overcome by the changes taking place around him, and he did not know where to begin.

“For our entire lives, we [clerics] were pariahs, and now we are being called on to do everything: chaplains for the military, ministries to hospitals, orphanages, prisons,” he said.

He even voiced regret about taking the time to travel to the United States. But he had gambled — correctly, as it turned out — that he could do more for his flock by seeking foreign assistance than by staying home to manage the Russian Orthodox Church’s destitution. His plate was full and overflowing, and he seemed keenly aware of the ironies of his situation. The Russian state was returning desecrated, gutted, largely useless ecclesiastical structures to the Orthodox church — a gesture at once desperate, empty and to some degree remorseful.

Berezansky then points to the Patriarch’s rapid rise through the Church hierarchy:

During and after the chaos of World War II, he probably could have emigrated and been numbered among the millions of so-called “Second Wave” exiles from Soviet Russia. But he chose to remain and to serve his church and people in circumstances that could not fail to compromise his own reputation.

“Our choices were cooperation or annihilation,” he told me in 1991.

And like so many other religious and cultural leaders of his generation, he repeatedly expressed regret and remorse for having accepted that Faustian bargain. Even today we continue to learn of the choices of conscience made by the famous names of that generation, including Nobel-winning German writer Günter Grass and Czech novelist Milan Kundera.

Patriarch Alexy’s legacy will undoubtedly include two elements that have been assessed negatively, and one major — indeed, overarching — achievement. In inter-church relations, his refusal to meet Pope John Paul II or his successor, Benedict XVI, was seen as churlish. Whether welcome or not, the patriarch’s position was that specific issues of contention between the Roman Catholic and Russian Orthodox churches needed to be ameliorated before any “photo op” could take place. But he consistently referred to Roman Catholicism as a “sister” church.

Read “A Transitional Patriarch” on the Moscow Times site.

Orthodox Churches have long been involved in ecumenical projects, such as the World Council of Churches, and affirm the Lord’s mandate “that they all may be one” (John 17:21). Yet, I can’t help thinking at times that the Orthodox Churches might work a little harder at unity in their own house.

For that reason, it was encouraging to follow the progress of Greek Orthodox Archbishop Demetrios’ recent visit to the Moscow Patriarchate and see Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I side by side with Patriarch Alexy II for the celebration of the baptism of Russia. The Greeks and the Russians have had some contentious moments of late, such as the controversy over who shall have jurisdiction for Orthodox Christians in Estonia.

Good background here in an AP story on the tensions between the Ukrainians and Russians:

Ukrainian officials are determined to use the events to lobby for autonomy for the local church from Russia, while the dominant Moscow Patriarchate will fight to retain influence over this mostly Orthodox country of 46 million.

For Ukrainian leaders, recognition of the Ukrainian Orthodox church as Moscow’s equal would mark a significant step in their drive to assert independence and shed centuries-long Russian influence. That effort gained strength after the 2004 Orange Revolution, which moved Ukraine away from Moscow and closer to the West.

“Ukraine is an independent state like Bulgaria or Georgia, and it is normal for it to have its own church,” said Anatoliy Kolodny, head of the religion studies department at the National Academy of Sciences. “There is nothing strange in that.”

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople, the world’s top Orthodox spiritual leader based in Istanbul, Turkey, will attend the ceremonies and could support the autonomy of the Ukrainian church, despite Russian Orthodox Patriarch Alexy II’s efforts to thwart the move.

But any sudden decision by Bartholomew could create a major split among the world’s 250 million Orthodox believers and set off fierce battles over parishes and valuable church property inside Ukraine, with some priests siding with Moscow and others with Kiev.

“Were this decision to be made today, it would lead to another schism in the church,” said Andrei Zolotov, chief editor of the Russia Profile magazine and an expert on Orthodox church affairs.

The video above from Russia Today talks about efforts “to united a divided land.” There’s a ways to go.

The Moscow Times said that police blocked “hundreds of Orthodox believers from attending a service led by Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Alexy II at a monument to St. Vladimir on the banks of the Dnepr River in Kiev on Sunday.”

Robert Moynihan, writing for Inside the Vatican, has a moving report on the world premiere of a “Requiem Concert” in Russia’s largest church, Christ the Savior, in a commemoration of the 90th anniversary of the execution of Czar Nicholas II and his family on the night of July 17, 1918.

The historical texts and music were by Bishop Hilarion Alfeyev of Vienna, Austria, head of the Russian Church representation to the European Institutions. Alfeyev also participated in the performance, reading Scriptural passages in which the sufferings of Christ seemed to foreshadow the sufferings of Christians in communist Russia. In the article “Requiem for the Romanovs,” Moynihan wrote:

No one can contemplate the bloody murder of four lovely, educated, refined, innocent girls, and their young brother, without a shudder. This sense of horror is multiplied by the sense that the children in some way represented the nation itself. The czar “incarnated” the “essence” of the Russian nation, according to the monarchical thinking of the age, and his children were thus the “future” of the nation. To see them live so vibrantly, and then see their lives snuffed out so brutally, would bring a tear to many Russian, and non-Russian, eyes, and did.

Sound, sight, and moments of silence tonight combined to create a sense of being transported back in time, back to the World War I period, of being “eyewitnesses” to acts of terrific brutality and terrible barbarism. (There were moments in the film footage showing the actual execution of prisoners by pistol shots to the head.)

So this was not simply a musical performance, but a multi-media “tour de force.”

Moynihan says that “in this performance … the Russian Orthodox Church sets forth a powerful, emotionally compelling case for public recognition on Russia of the crimes of the Soviet period.” He quotes a Russian priest, Fr. Vladimir Soloviev:

Russia stands at a crossroads. We are struggling to decide what our national attitude will be toward our communist past. For example, there are some who argue that we should remove Lenin’s body from his mausoleum beneath Red Square, at the center of Russia, and re-name those streets and subway stations in our cities which commemorate communist leaders.

I personally think we should do this. We cannot fully celebrate our great national festivals on Red Square as long as Lenin’s mausoleum stays in Red Square. Let it stay anywhere else, but not in Red Square.

Earlier this month, Fr. Georgy Ryabykh, the acting secretary of the Moscow Patriarchate Department for External Church Relations, said Russian authorities should denounce the communist regime, both in word and practice. “For some reason, we are avoiding to give a clear moral estimation of this evil act. But this estimation is needed and should be voiced in public actions and statements. Denouncement of this crime and recognizing the feat committed by the Tsar family would resist any revolutionary intentions in the national mind,” the priest said.