Erasmus | Ukraine and Christian disunity

Earthly causes, spiritual effects

Relations between Christianity's largest communities are overshadowed by geopolitics

By B.C.

IN SOME ways, this should be a promising time in the relationship between the two largest groups of Christians in the world, Catholics and Orthodox. Bartholomew I, the Istanbul-based Ecumenical Patriarch who enjoys a "primacy of honour" among the bishops of the Orthodox world, will have a symbolically resonant meeting with Pope Francis in Jerusalem on May 25th. The Moscow Patriarchate, meanwhile, has repeatedly suggested that Orthodox and Catholics should make common cause as social conservatives and upholders of Europe's Christian heritage.

But inevitably, the crisis in Ukraine is casting a long shadow. Some of the reasons for this are obvious, some less so. To see the more obvious factors at play, look at what it happening in Ukraine itself. In territory controlled by Kiev, religious life is still a subtle spectrum. Among churches that worship in an eastern-Christian way, there are three main bodies: the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) which ultimately answers to Moscow; the Kiev Patriarchate which aspires to be the national church but has failed to win global recognition; and the Greek Catholics who use eastern customs (like married priests) but obey the Pope. The latter two churches profess Ukrainian patriotism and accuse the UOC of being Moscow's stalking-horse; the UOC responds non-committally. Some UOC clergy are indeed pro-Russian, some support Ukrainian independence. A Ukrainian news service stressed recently that clergy from all three groups were co-operating to provide moral and practical succour to military units in border areas.

In places controlled by Russia and its advocates, the atmosphere is quite different. Russian propaganda, among the many insults being hurled at the Ukrainians, is stressing the Catholic factor in Ukrainian nationalism. (It also taunts Ukrainian president Oleksandr Turchynov for being a "heretic"he is a Baptist preacherand portrays Arseny Yatsenyuk, the prime minister, as a Scientologist; in fact he is Greek-Catholic.) Metropolitan Hilarion, the current head of external affairs at the Moscow Patriarchate, is an advocate of working with Rome over moral issues, but he's a hard-liner over Ukraine; Greek Catholics complain that he refuses to accept their historical reasons for existing. Meanwhile sympathy for the Ukrainian cause is running high among Catholics in central and eastern Europe (Poles and Lithuanians, for example) and among their kin in North America. All that is bound to affect the broader relationship between Orthodox and Catholics.

But the real new source of inter-confessional strain may be something less predictable. In high Russian places, lines of thought which are radically anti-Western in all matters, including religion, are gaining ground. One such school is the "Eurasianist" theory of geopolitics which stresses the distinctiveness of Russian civilization and refuses to let Russia be judged by European standards. It dreams of a Slavic-Turkic partnership dominating the Eurasian landmass and keeping the Judeo-Christian West at bay. Its advocates like Orthodox Christianity as a mark of difference from the West, but they are not much interested in Christianity as such. In this scheme of things, some forms of Islam can be a help in resisting Anglo-American and Western influence. As I mentioned in a recent posting, Vladimir Putin revealed his own openness to such thinking when, in 2010, he stressed the commonality that many people saw between Orthodox Christianity and Islam.

The best-known advocate of this school of thought is an eccentric philosopher, Alexander Dugin, who has palpably gained visibility as the Ukrainian crisis has been unfolding. He has been expounding his belief that Russian liberals are fifth-columnists who should be treated as enemies; and that the interests of the Russian narod or people should trump values like individual or civil rights. One prediction is safe. If Mr Dugin and his sort gain further ground, the relatively conservative Orthodox prelates who now lead the Russian church, sometimes sparring and sometimes dealing amicably with the Vatican, will start to look like bleeding-heart softies by comparison.

A brief follow-up to this post can be read here.

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