President Obama with Greek Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, courtesy of Wikipedia, public domain

Robert F. Worth at The Atlantic, in The Clash of the Patriarchs, reports on how Patriarch Kirill is precipitating a potential schism in the Orthodox Church:

In late august of 2018, Patriarch Kirill, the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, flew from Moscow to Istanbul on an urgent mission. He brought with him an entourage—a dozen clerics, diplomats, and bodyguards—that made its way in a convoy to the Phanar, the Orthodox world’s equivalent of the Vatican, housed in a complex of buildings just off the Golden Horn waterway, on Istanbul’s European side.

Kirill was on his way to meet Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, the archbishop of Constantinople and the most senior figure in the Orthodox Christian world. Kirill had heard that Bartholomew was preparing to cut Moscow’s ancient religious ties to Ukraine by recognizing a new and independent Orthodox Church in Kyiv. For Kirill and his de facto boss, Russian President Vladimir Putin, this posed an almost existential threat. Ukraine and its monasteries are the birthplace of the Russian Orthodox Church; both nations trace their spiritual and national origins to the Kyiv-based kingdom that was converted from paganism to Christianity about 1,000 years ago. If the Church in Ukraine succeeded in breaking away from the Russian Church, it would seriously weaken efforts to maintain what Putin has called a “Russian world” of influence in the old Soviet sphere. And the decision was in the hands of Bartholomew, the sole figure with the canonical authority to issue a “tomos of autocephaly” and thereby bless Ukraine’s declaration of religious independence.

When Kirill arrived outside the Phanar, a crowd of Ukrainian protesters had already gathered around the compound’s beige stone walls. Kirill’s support for Russia’s brutal behavior—the 2014 annexation of Crimea and the bloody proxy war in eastern Ukraine—had made him a hated figure, and had helped boost support in Kyiv for an independent Church.

Kirill and his men cleared a path and ascended the marble steps. Black-clad priests led them to Bartholomew, who was waiting in a wood-paneled throne room. The two white-bearded patriarchs both wore formal robes and headdresses, but they cut strikingly different figures. Bartholomew, then 78, was all in black, a round-shouldered man with a ruddy face and a humble demeanor; Kirill, 71, looked austere and reserved, his head draped regally in an embroidered white koukoulion with a small golden cross at the top.

The tone of the meeting was set just after the two sides sat down at a table laden with sweets and beverages. Kirill reached for a glass of mineral water, but before he could take a drink, one of his bodyguards snatched the glass from his hand, put it aside, and brought out a plastic bottle of water from his bag. “As if we would try to poison the patriarch of Moscow,” I was told by Archbishop Elpidophoros, one of the Phanar’s senior clerics. The two sides disagreed on a wide range of issues, but when they reached the meeting’s real subject—Ukraine—the mood shifted from chilly politeness to open hostility. Bartholomew recited a list of grievances, all but accusing Kirill of trying to displace him and become the new arbiter of the Orthodox faith.

Kirill deflected the accusations and drove home his central demand: Ukraine must not be allowed to separate its Church from Moscow’s. The issue was “a ticking time bomb,” he said, according to a leaked transcript of the meeting. “We have never abandoned the notion that we are one country and one people. It is impossible for us to separate Kyiv from our country, because this is where our history began.”

Bartholomew explained that “the Ukrainians don’t feel comfortable under the control of Russia and desire full ecclesiastical independence just as they have political independence.” He added that he had been receiving petitions and pleas for years from Ukrainians at all levels, including members of Parliament and the country’s then–president and prime minister. Kirill replied that those pleas were meaningless because Ukraine’s political class was illegitimate. The people, he said with a disquieting certainty, “will overthrow them and expel them.” Bartholomew, shocked by the implied violence in Kirill’s words, called on the Russians “not to issue such threats, neither for schism nor for bloodshed in Ukraine.” When the meeting concluded, Kirill and his men were so angry that they skipped lunch and headed straight back to their private plane, I was told by an adviser to Bartholomew.

In the end, the threats proved unavailing: Bartholomew approved the new Orthodox Church of Ukraine, and Kirill issued an order to cut the Russian Church’s ties with the Phanar.

Glory to Ukraine!