Terry Mattingly

On the Get Relgion blog, Terry Mattingly describes a trip he made to Kiev to speak to Ukrainian journalists “about the challenges of covering religion news in mainstream press.” He looks at the divisions among Orthodox Churches in the Ukraine, which is set against the long running antagonisms that exist between that country and Russia. “You see, right now almost anything can create tensions between Ukraine and Russia,” Mattingly writes. “A ceremony with clergy linked to Moscow would create tensions in some circles. A ceremony without clergy linked to Moscow would create tensions in others. The symbolism has political content either way.” He also writes about his trip to Kiev for his Scripps News column. Here’s how he begins:

Merely saying the forest’s name — Bykivnya — can cause strong emotions for millions of Ukrainians.

This is where the secret police of Soviet strongman Joseph Stalin buried 100,000 of their victims between 1937 and 1941 in a mass grave northeast of Kiev. President Victor Yushchenko did not mince words during his recent speech there, on Ukraine’s Day of Remembrance for Victims of Political Repression.

“Here, at Bykivnya, Stalin and his monstrous hangmen killed the bloom of Ukraine. There is no forgiveness and there will be none,” he told several thousand mourners and, of course, Ukrainian journalists.

The mourners wept, while processing through the site behind Orthodox clergy who carried liturgical banners containing iconic images of Jesus and Mary.

“Because of the national symbolism of this ceremony, the priests there may not be important,” said Victor Yelensky, a sociologist of religion associated with the Ukrainian National Academy of Sciences.

“But the priests have to be there because this is Ukraine and this is a ceremony that is about a great tragedy in the history of Ukraine.

“So the priests are there. It is part … of a civil religion.”

This is where the story gets complicated. In the Ukrainian media, photographs and video images showed the clergy, with their dramatic banners and colorful vestments. However, in their reporting, journalists never mentioned what the clergy said or did.

Mainstream media reports also failed to mention which Orthodoxy body or bodies were represented. This is an important gap, because of the tense and complicated nature of the religious marketplace in this historically Eastern Orthodox culture.

It would have been big news, for example, if clergy from the giant Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) — with direct ties to Moscow — had taken part in a ceremony that featured Yushchenko, who, as usual, aimed angry words to the north.

But what if the clergy were exclusively from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Kiev Patriarchate), born after the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991 and linked to declarations of Ukrainian independence? What if there were also clergy from a third body, the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church, born early in the 20th century?

A rite featuring clergy from one or both of these newer churches also would have been symbolic. After all, these days almost anything can create tensions between Ukraine and Russia, from natural gas prices to efforts to emphasize the Ukrainian language, from exhibits of uniquely Ukrainian art to decisions about which statues are torn down (almost anything Soviet) or which statues are erected (such as one of Ivan Mazepa, labeled a traitor by Russia after his 18th century efforts to boost Ukrainian independence).

Read “Eastern Orthodox Church in Ukraine rent by divisions” on the Scripps News site.

The new “Changes in Religious Affiliation in the U.S.” survey released by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life yesterday is getting a lot of coverage in the mainstream and religious press. The survey looks mostly at Catholic and Protestant “fluidity of religious affiliation in the U.S. and describes in detail the patterns and reasons for change.”

A good place to start on this issue is Terry Mattingly’s post “Ch-ch-ch-changes in pews (saith Pew)” at GetReligion.org, which looks at how the press covers faith. Terry, an advisor to AOI, closes with this observation:

… let me note one other issue that may be hidden down in this Pew Forum research (and I intend to ask about it).

Anyone who works in the wider world of modern religion knows about the so-called 80-20 rule. This states that about 80 percent of the work, worship and giving is done by about 20 percent of the membership, the most dedicated members who have the strongest ties to their particular faith and to the content of its doctrine.

What happens when these people convert from one faith to another? What are the doctrinal fuses that must be lit to drive a devout believer — say a clergyperson — from Canterbury to Rome, from Nashville to Geneva, from Jerusalem to Athens? I know, from experience (my Orthodox parish is about 90 percent converts), that this is a radically [different] matter than making a church switch due to marriage or a change in zip code.

Alas, how do you put that kind of human blood, sweat and tears into a poll questionnaire?

In “Orthodox bishop on hot spot,” Terry Mattingly looks at the improbable rise of Metropolitan Jonah — in the span of about 10 days — from newly consecrated assistant bishop of Dallas to head of the Orthodox Church in America. Snip:

If nationwide change is going to happen, said Jonah, it will have to grow out of respect and cooperation at all levels of the church.

“Hierarchy is only about responsibility, it’s not all of this imperial nonsense,” he said. “Thank God that we’re Americans and we have cast that off. We don’t need foreign despots. We are the only non-state Orthodox church. In other words, we are the only Orthodox church that does not exist under the thumb of a state — either friendly or hostile.

“So the church is our responsibility, personally and collectively, individually and corporately. What are you going to do with it?”

Terry Mattingly looks at the most recent battles, from the left and the right:

If you could erase one moment from Sen. Barack Obama’s White House campaign, which would you choose?

That’s an easy question for evangelicals, Catholics and other religious believers who back Obama. Most would happily erase all evidence of his speech last spring to a circle of insiders behind closed doors in San Francisco. For those who have ignored national news in 2008, Obama talked about meeting voters in rural Pennsylvania, where hard times have crushed hopes and fueled resentments.

“So it’s not surprising then that they get bitter,” he said, that “they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them … to explain their frustrations.”

Welcome back to the “culture wars,” all you politicos who hoped and prayed that talk about “values voters” and “pew gaps” would disappear. Instead, Republicans have been chanting this mantra — “bitter,” “cling,” “God” and “guns” — for months.

Read “Culture wars 2008” on Terry Mattingly’s Web site.

Update (10/13/08): The complete, unedited column is now available on Terry Mattingly’s site under the title, “Beyond Orthodox folk dancing.”

(10/11/08): Religion writer Terry Mattingly has a column in today’s Boulder (Colo.) Daily Camera newspaper that is a must read. He looks at the controversy surrounding the publication of Fr. John Peck’s “The Orthodox Church of Tomorrow” here on the Web site of the American Orthodox Institute. Mattingly is a blogger at the GetReligion site, a syndicated columnist, and directs the Washington Journalism Center at the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities. He recently joined AOI as an adviser.

About Fr. Peck, Mattingly said that “the 46-year-old priest wrote an article about the positive Orthodox trends in America, as well as offering candid talk about the problems faced by some of his friends. He finished ‘The Orthodox Church of Tomorrow’ soon after arriving at the Greek Orthodox mission in Prescott, Ariz., and sent it to the American Orthodox Institute — which published the article in late September on its Web site.

Bishops, priests and laypeople — some pleased, some furious — immediately began forwarding Peck’s article from one end of Orthodox cyberspace to the other. I received some of these urgent e-mails, since I am an Orthodox convert whose name is on several public Web sites.

After a few days, Peck asked that his article be pulled offline. Now the question is whether, after a scheduled Oct. 16 conference with his bishop, he will still have a job.”

Read the entire column here. Sign up for Mattingly’s weekly column here.