Won't someone think of the Moscow Patriarchate!
The Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church is the second largest Christian denomination, and the largest Eastern Orthodox church, and under its omophorion are the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church, the Belarussian Orthodox Church, the Chinese Orthodox Church, the Japanese Orthodox Church, the Lithuanian and Latvian Orthodox Churches, the canonical Estonian Orthodox Church, and the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (which reconciled with the MP after severing ties with it during the Soviet era according to instructions from Patriarch Tikhon), and is responsible for having granted autocephaly (independence) to the Orthodox Church in America, which is, like ROCOR and the MP, multi-ethnic, and the OCA and ROCOR collectively represent the majority of Eastern Christians of Slavonic background in the US.
Given that the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople has alienated the Patriarchate of Antioch by refusing to act against uncanonical incursions into Antiochian churches by the Patriarchate of Jerusalem, and alarmed many Eastern Orthodox through recent claims by the the former Metropolitan of Bursa, now the Archbishop of North America, that the Ecumenical Patriarchate is not first among equals but first without equals and has the exclusive right to not only grant but also rescind the autocephaly of Eastern Orthodox churches, a claim lacking in any canonical basis, and given that the EP in 2019 decided to shut down its Russian Orthodox Exarchate in Western Europe and put those parishes under Greek bishops (resulting in most leaving and affiliating with the MP), for no logical or coherent reason, the Russian Orthodox Church under the Moscow Patriarchate is
extremely important to traditionalist Eastern Orthodox Christians, and it is imperative that the association of this war with the MP be avoided.
I evaluated the controversial remarks by Patriarch Kyrill and do not believe that he expressed support for the war, and many clergy under the omophorion of the MP oppose it.
Since the war began, Russian Orthodox Churches, even those with largely Ukrainian congregations, have experienced incidents of vandalism and threats, which is extremely alarming.
Putin has apparently embraced Orthodoxy and rejected Communism and with it, Atheism (a prerequisite to Party membership, although many Christians disclaimed their faith publicly for fear of reprisals against their family while practicing secretly, however, Putin was an officer in the KGB at an important station, Berlin, at an important time, which suggests that he was at least considered trustworthy by the apparatchiks and the KGB leadership, which was quite sinister even in the Gorbachev era), appearing at St. Savior’s Cathedral in Moscow on Christmas and Pascha (Easter); it is not for me to judge if his faith is sincere, or if he just happens to attend the largest cathedral* in Moscow for political reasons, or indeed if his beliefs are confused. I can’t comment on the sincerity of his faith, only God knows.
And I believe and confess there is a God, an infinitely loving God who does grant us free will, but forgives us our sins if we repent with sincerity, one God of three persons in a union of eternal love, the Father unoriginate, from whom the Son and Holy Spirit are generated and proceed in eternity, before all ages, as the Nicene Creed states, for I believe God created time, or creates time, since God exists independently of it, who in His singular divine essence is completely transcendental, but who is imminent and comprehensible through His uncreated energies, such as divine grace, which I pray more people are able to experience, and who assumed our fallen nature in order to restore it to His image through the incarnation of God the Son as Jesus Christ, the promised Messiah who was conceived by the Holy Spirit in the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Bearer and Mother of God, who for our sakes was crucified, died and buried, who descended into Hell, and who rose again on the Third Day as prophesied, and ascended into Heaven, thus being the first fruits of the Resurrection, and who sent the same Holy Spirit who sent Him into the World, into the World as the Paraclete and Comforter to dwell in all Christians, who became temples of the Holy Spirit, and these temples are defiled when Christians are caused to commit violence upon one another rather than living together in peace and brotherhood.
Ergo, Putin’s actions are having a detrimental effect on the church he at least visibly, and hopefully sincerely, supports, a church which has about 200 million members on every continent, including Antarctica, and which was horribly persecuted, manipulated, coerced and vandalized by the Soviet Union, with policies that prevented Orthodox Christians and all other Christians, Muslims and practicing Jews, and people of other faiths such as Buddhism and some indigenous Shamanist religions, from membership in the Communist Party, thus relegating them to the lower classes of the supposedly classless Soviet state.
Thus I pray Putin realizes this, and repents, just as I pray Zelenskyy sues for peace in earnest rather than taking actions likely to provoke further violence from an unrepentant Putin.
There are by the way two other Russian Old Rite “Old Believer” Orthodox churches in Russia not in communion with the MP or the other major Orthodox churches; there are also Old Believer churches based in other countries, and a large number of Old Rite parishes in the MP and some in ROCOR. These also face persecution due to this conflict, because of anti-Russian sentiment engendered by Putin’s invasion.
So from a Christian perspective, these churches are among the victims of this tragedy, along with other Eastern Orthodox Churches, the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, the Ukrainian Lutheran Church, the Ruthenian Greek Catholic Church, the Russian Catholic Church, and the Roman Catholic Church (which operates in both Russia and Ukraine) and several other denominations.
I would argue the primary victims are the Moscow Patriarchate, especially its Ukrainian Orthodox Church, and the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, which faced severe persecution during the Soviet Union along with the other aforesaid Catholic Churches due to Soviet antipathy towards the Papacy, but all Slavonic Christian Churches are suffering due to this war.
*St. Basil’s Cathedral, although more famous, is still a museum owned by the Russian government, although unlike the Soviets, St. Basil’s has, if I recall, hosted the Divine Liturgy on some occasions since the downfall of communism. However, St. Savior’s is much larger and more practical, consisting of one large open church, and then another located beneath it on the ground floor, whereas St. Basils consists of nine chapels each with an onion dome, one of which appeared miraculously when its construction was completed. This layout is ideal for many services, but the massive Christmas and Paschal liturgies with the accompanying crowds are more easily accomodated in St. Savior’s, which was rebuilt with only slight changes to the design, and on the location of, the original, which Stalin, recognizing its utility to the Orthodox Church, blew up with explosives for a dramatic if impractically theatrical demolition; a planned monument to communism that would have blasphemously been built on the same site was miraculously never built, and thus after the downfall of the Soviet Union it was possible for St. Savior’s to be rebuilt, providing Moscow with a cathedral large enough to accommodate the now unrestricted services (during the Soviet Union, the Russian Orthodox Church was also prohibited from catechesis, and preaching was heavily restricted).
