RUSSIA-UKRAINE New Orthodox schism in Donbass

The Russian annexation of the Ukrainian territories raises the question of Orthodox ecclesiastical jurisdiction. It is not inevitable that local churches will be incorporated into the Moscow patriarchate. Priority to the reconstruction of the destroyed holy places (by the Russians themselves).

Moscow () – After the annexation of four Ukrainian territories to the Russian Federation, there is now the problem of the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Orthodox churches in these regions. They could be incorporated ex officio into the Moscow patriarchate, but that would cause new conflicts and divisions in what is already called “the Donbass schism”.

The Russian Church is facing the dilemma of “ecclesiastical annexation” for the second time after Crimea in 2014. Eight years ago Patriarch Kirill decided not to remove the eparchies and parishes of the peninsula from kyiv, trusting in the fidelity of the jurisdiction ” patriarchal” Ukraine and thus contesting Putin’s bet on “our Crimea”. Today the patriarchate is totally aligned with the Kremlin and the Orthodox “Muscovites” of Ukraine distanced themselves from Moscow in a synod that took place in May, in which they affirmed their full ecclesiastical independence.

There are 9 eparchies in play: Donetsk and Mariupol, Lugansk, Gorlov and Slavjansk, Berdjansk and Primorje, Rovenkov, Kherson and Tauride, Zaporožets, Novokhakovsk and Severodonetsk. In many churches in these territories, which had already been occupied by the Russians for a long time, the priests had sided with the patriarchy, but others had remained in positions of expectation and reserve. Today they are forced to maintain very limited relations with the head of the PZU (“Pravoslavnaja Zerkov Ukrainy”) Church, to which the acronym MP (“Moskovskogo Patriarkhata”) should no longer be added, headed by Metropolitan Onufryj (Berezovskyj) of kyiv, which today is in a “foreign land” after the referendum farce imposed by Putin.

If in 2014 Kirill seemed to want to distance himself from Putin, today he finds himself isolated by a “providential” Covid infection, about which many make irony because of the coincidence with the new imperial proclamations of annexation. The patriarch’s almost manic prevention of the coronavirus is well known, which he managed to avoid for two years, and now he is confined to bed, in an “intensive care regimen” that prevents him from communicating with the outside world.

The spokesman for the patriarchy, Vladimir Legojda, assured that “the Church respectfully accepts the will of the people and their decisions of political and national belonging,” without clarifying the details of the ecclesiastical jurisdiction. “This question, if it arises, will be addressed by the higher organs of the ecclesiastical authority in the times that are established,” he declared. Another member of the patriarchate, the protoierej Nikolai Balašov, explained that at this time “the priority is the reconstruction of the churches destroyed”, mostly due to Russian bombing, which does not predispose the local faithful to an easy submission to the authority of Moscow.

For now, the attention of the nine eparchies of the annexed territories will focus on humanitarian aid and reconstruction programs. It is also unclear who will be entrusted with the management at this juncture: in March the patriarchate assigned responsibility for “ecclesiastical structures in the near abroad” to Metropolitan Pavel (Ponomarev), former exarch of Minsk dismissed in 2020 for not being sufficiently aligned with Belarusian President Lukashenko. Other members of the patriarchate consider, however, that the care of the former Ukrainian territories should be in the hands of an “interdicasterial working group” for the “newly acquired” eparchies, led by Metropolitan Dionysius (Porubaj), moderator of the curia Patriarchal of Moscow.

Much will depend on the decisions of the eparchies and parishes themselves and of the local clergy, who according to local traditions have undergone frequent oscillations in their orientation towards the higher hierarchies, as is the case in a way throughout the Orthodox world. The national patriarchal pyramid, in reality, does not have the same legal force as the Roman papacy for Catholics, and many times not even that of episcopal conferences and diocesan curiae, and it is not uncommon for issues to be resolved by local assemblies that They often lead to heated fights and very unspiritual competitions. Not to mention that further pressure from the Moscow patriarchate could lead to further isolation of the Russian Church from the rest of world Orthodoxy.