The Patriarchate of Antioch is the only one of the fifteen autocephalous Orthodox Churches, and the only one of the five primitive patriarchates, that has always supported the Russian Church. After all, it was precisely the Antiochians who inspired the institution of the Moscow Patriarchate. And these ancient stories from the Late Middle Ages are today regained relevance due to the fear of the Russians of losing their controlling role in the Middle East, after the victory of the Islamists in Damascus.
Patriarch of Moscow Kirill (Gundjaev) has made it known that he “accompanies with fervent prayers” his beloved brother, Patriarch Ioann X (Yagizi) of Antioch, together with all the clergy and faithful of the Church representing the entire East Christian. The representatives of the Patriarchate of Antioch in Moscow, Metropolitan Nifon and Archimandrite Filipp, assured “constant first-hand information” about the evolution of events in Syria, which are of such interest and concern to all of Russia. President Vladimir Putin has offered refuge to the now former dictator of Damascus, Bashar al Assad, in a luxurious apartment near the Kremlin, and Moscow Duma deputies are calling for him to be immediately granted Russian citizenship.
As noted by the Patriarch’s advisor, Protoierej Nikolaj Balashov, “the Church of Antioch has always represented the true patriotic spirit of Syria”, recalling the words of John X according to which “Christians are the true original inhabitants of these lands, all The others arrived later.” The Syrian Patriarchate is the only one of the fifteen autocephalous Orthodox Churches, and the only one of the five early ecumenical patriarchates, that has always supported the Church of Moscow, even in this time of schism with Constantinople and the other patriarchates of Alexandria and Jerusalem, although the latter maintains a fairly neutral position. After all, it was precisely the Antiochians who in the past inspired the institution of the Moscow Patriarchate.
In 1586, in fact, the then Patriarch of Antioch Ioakimos V arrived in Moscow in search of material help to survive under the Ottoman Turks, and was welcomed by the tsar’s unscrupulous advisor, Boris Godunov, with whom he devised the plan that would make the dream of the “Third Rome” at its supreme level, the religious and ecclesiastical. Ioakimos was received in Moscow as is the case today with Assad, and prepared the visit of his brother Ieremias II (Tranos), the patriarch of Constantinople who in turn arrived in the Russian capital in 1588 to ask for help. He was housed in the most solemn rooms of the Kremlin, where Godunov imprisoned him for seven months, until he agreed to sign the decree of institution of the Russian Patriarchate, the first since ancient times to join the apostolic ones, opening the way to a conception of “national orthodoxy” and patriotism that today finds its splendor in the holy wars of Putin and his imitators.
Ieremias was then released, and upon his return he stopped with the Russian Orthodox of Poland, suggesting that they create a patriarchate in kyiv to counteract the claims of Moscow, the ancient capital of Rus’ being the true source of Christianity in those lands. The loyalty of the Polish king Sigismund III to the Roman Catholic see, together with the powerful influence of the Jesuits, transformed this project into the Union of Brest with the Pope in 1596, giving rise to the confrontation between Moscow and kyiv that has been projected in the subsequent history to the present day, between the two souls of Russian Christianity, the eastern and the western. Meanwhile, the Patriarch of Antioch and his successors found in Moscow the main point of reference for their own religious and national identity, and in the 17th century they even proposed a “Russian papacy” that would offer the former Eastern patriarchs new seats in the surroundings of the capital.
In the current rediscovery of their “traditional values”, these ancient stories from the Late Middle Ages acquire new relevance in the face of the Russians’ fear of losing their role of control over the Middle East, after the victory of the Islamists against the Syrian regime. Moscow. The patriarch’s concern expresses the deepest feelings of the entire Russian political and military leadership, which is counterbalanced by the exaltation of the Ukrainian leadership, which takes credit for having supported the Islamic revolution, to corner the Russians.
The Russians had deployed their troops in Syria in 2015, investing hundreds of billions of rubles, and organizing the most aggressive units, that of the “Chechen butchers” and the mercenaries of the Wagner company, led by “Putin’s cook” , the late Yevgeny Prigozhin, who later became the main actors in the Russian war in Ukraine. In a sense, Moscow’s support for Damascus was the training ground for Russia’s return to the leading role on the world geopolitical stage. In 2016, Russia even obtained the blessing of Pope Francis, who met Patriarch Kirill in Havana in February and agreed on a common “humanitarian action” for Christians and Syrian refugees, allowing the Russians to consider themselves officially in charge of control that territory, where the Roman pontiff himself had blocked the entry of Americans with the prayer vigils of the previous year.
Of the five ancient patriarchates, apart from Antioch, only Rome today is Moscow’s interlocutor, in a convergence of attention towards the East still in search of a true definition. It is now difficult to say whether Russia will be able to maintain its military bases in Syria, and the Holy See has made it known through its Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, that it is “impressed by the speed of events”, hoping to that Christian minorities are respected and awaiting the evolution of the situation, a statement almost identical to that of the Kremlin spokesman, Dmitri Peskov. On the other hand, it is not just a matter of fearing the decisions of the new Islamist government in Damascus: remaining in Syria could be a threat to everyone, Russians and Armenians, Orthodox Christians, Chaldeans, Protestants and Catholics.
The loss of the Russian bases would also represent a serious logistical problem for the Kremlin, for contacts with its groups in Africa, heirs of the Wagner company businesses, which depend precisely on Syria for Mediterranean transit. The Russians would be forced to expand their structures in Libya or Sudan, but currently this is quite complicated, because there are no official relations with these States, which in turn continue to seek a stability that is still very indefinite. And Russian military structures in Africa are not sufficiently developed to ensure satisfactory defense of the Kremlin’s interests, as all commentators claim. Russian planes bound for Africa have until now moved through the air corridor over the Caspian Sea, Iran and Iraq, stopping in Syria to reach Khartoum and from there to all of Africa, and now it is not clear how to proceed.
Syria is Russia’s bridge to the Mediterranean and Africa, also taking into account the dispersion of the Black Sea fleet after the Ukrainian drone attacks, and now “there could also be new eventual uprisings in African countries, which the Russians do not easy for them to control,” according to the correspondent Novaya Gazeta Denis Korotkov. Today it is difficult to calculate how many Russians are still stationed in Syria: in 2018 there were three thousand army soldiers and two thousand Wagner mercenaries, while today, after three years of war in Ukraine, estimates do not exceed a thousand units. , including a hundred observers spread throughout the country. In addition to the soldiers, there are supposedly more than seven thousand Russians throughout Syria, and the military (and non-military) structures are very varied and are confused with the state ones of the regime that has just fallen.
Formally, Russia had intervened in Syria to fight against the Islamic fundamentalists of ISIS, which allowed Moscow to recover part of the international credit it had lost with the start of the hybrid war in Ukraine in 2014, thus also escaping new sanctions. A lot of water has passed under the bridge since then: Moscow has collected more sanctions than any other country in the world, the war in Ukraine has also (and above all) involved the Muslims of the Caucasus and Asian Russia, exalting them as “Islam.” moderate and patriotic”, the face that today is attributed to the representatives of the jihadist group Hay’at Tahrir ash-Sham, in power in Damascus, which has managed to do in one week what the Russians have not been able to do in Ukraine in three years. Putin cannot afford to throw away twenty years of efforts to restore Russia’s strategic role in global geopolitics, and establish a “multipolar vision” in place of Western hegemony, so he will try to find a way to stay in Syria.
On the other hand, Syria has now largely remained under the control of Turkey, a historical enemy of Russia due to its dominance of these territories, which today appears instead as the only possible ally in the search for new balances between the “Russian world” and the “Turkish world.” Erdogan’s stated goal is to eliminate the autonomy of the Kurds in northeastern Syria, but it is clear that we have entered a new phase of the subdivision of rule over the vast border territories between East and West, between Moscow and Istanbul, as in the times of the formation of the Russian patriarchate, in relation to that of Antioch.
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