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Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 has further divided the Orthodox world and diminished the scope of the ecumenical meeting scheduled for this week in Turkey between Pope Leo XIV and the Patriarch of Constantinople.
“Politics will be present at the meeting. The Patriarch of Moscow [Cirilo] and Putin’s shadow will be the two most present absentees at the meeting”, Pedro Constantino, author of the doctoral thesis “Russian Orthodox Church and the State in Russian-Ukrainian foreign policy relations”, commented to Lusa.
On Friday, in İznik, a few kilometers from the Turkish capital, Leo or evangelicals.
The ecumenical meeting was prepared by Popes Benedict XVI and Francis and the signing of a joint declaration between Catholics and Orthodox is expected, in an increasingly fragmented religious and political world.
Since the 15th century, with the conquest of Constantinople, now Istanbul, by the Turks, Eastern Rome lost political weight among the Orthodox and some autonomous churches were born, designated as autocephalous, each with its own patriarch, with the religious leader of Constantinople as the primate, a moral symbol, but with no effective weight to enforce decisions.
“Bartholomew has a very great symbolic weight and that is why the meeting will be important, because all the Orthodox look to him as a reference, but in reality the great Orthodox power is in Moscow. It is there that everything is decided”, summarizes Pedro Constantino.
Cyril will not be in Turkey because he is in a split with Bartholomew over the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, which called for separation from Moscow in 2019. The Kiev patriarch was excommunicated by the Russian Church, while Bartholomew recognized this new autonomous structure, increasing the division in the Orthodox world.
“This will be a thorn in the meeting’s side, but let’s pray that the path of dialogue and reconciliation takes place,” said Armando Domingues, president of the Episcopal Commission for Mission and New Evangelization, the Portuguese Church’s structure for interreligious dialogue and ecumenism.
“The political context is not easy. War is a global problem and the Pope is very aware of this. But we cannot give up fighting for peace”, said the bishop of Angra do Heroísmo, Azores.
The person responsible for the Interreligious Dialogue Subcommission, Adelino Ascenso, recalls that the theological differences between Orthodox and Catholics are “residual, in essence”, because the two confessions profess the “same Nicene creed”, the Eucharistic prayer conceived 1,700 years ago that unites Christianity.
“What divided [ortodoxos e católicos] It was never faith, but politics. The Orthodox have often been divided and it is not always easy to define an interlocutor with concrete authority over Eastern Christians”, Adelino Ascenso told Lusa.
The recent split of Kiev’s autocephalous Church has had consequences in Portugal: the country’s main Orthodox parish has switched doctrinal allegiance to Moscow instead of Constantinople and there is no formal Portuguese Orthodox structure that aligns with Bartholomew.
Agência Lusa tried to obtain a comment from the Portuguese Orthodox on the topic and is awaiting a response.
The Portuguese Orthodox followed the path of other European dioceses, which align with Moscow, not for political reasons of supporting Russia in the invasion of Ukraine, but because the recognition of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church as legitimate – the first schism in 600 years – by Bartholomew paves the way for new divisions.
In parallel, Russian Patriarch Cyril has strengthened financing channels, dismissed bishops and priests who publicly condemn the war in Ukraine, placing the various Orthodox dioceses under his spiritual guidance, while Russian propaganda accuses Bartholomew of being a puppet of the United States and Erdogan, a version that Pedro Constantino rejects.
“Bartholomew continues to be the ecumenical patriarch, because what divides the Orthodox are territories, not faith”, he explained.
Cyril has taken advantage of his connections to the Kremlin to assert himself as the great world leader of the Orthodox, supporting the historic argument that Moscow is the “third Rome”, after the fall of Constantinople, with the spiritual legitimacy of Eastern Christian leadership.
Cyril and Putin “are two partners in the reconstruction of the Russian empire” since 2000, the date on which the two leaders came to power.
“Today it is perfectly written and proven that the patriarch was from the KGB, like Putin and it is these two operatives who are leading Russia”, said Pedro Constantino.
Ukraine’s departure from “Holy Orthodox Russia” in 2019 was an “attack that had a response in 2022”, with Putin’s invasion, explained the researcher from the University of Coimbra, highlighting that “religion and politics are almost one” in the Kremlin’s management.
An example of this are the statements by Cirilo who “came to say that he forgives the sins of those who murder Ukrainians”, something that “is unbelievable” on the part of a religious leader.
“For the Moscow Orthodox Church, the war in Ukraine is a crusade. This is the type of man we have as the most powerful patriarch in the Orthodox world”, explained Pedro Constantino.
And it will be Cyril’s shadow that will be at the meeting between Leo XIV and Bartholomew, one day after the deadline given by the United States to Ukraine to accept a peace plan, which includes several concessions to Russia, ends.
“The Pope has spoken about peace, we need peace and the end of war”, but the conditions for any agreement depend on politicians, warned Armando Domingues, who prefers to focus on the celebrations of the 1,700th anniversary of Nicaea
“It is a date that we must reflect on and celebrate, because it unites us as Christians, in the diversity of the various confessions”, added the Portuguese bishop.
