Interview with Vladimir Legoyda, the Head of the Russian church’s Synodal Department for Church, Society and Media Relations claims that the Moscow Patriarchate is not dominated by Putin and expresses gratitude for the discretion of the Pope and the Holy See in the face of recent intra-Orthodox controversies: “There was not a single comment from the Roman Catholic Church that would interfere or make the situation worse”.
No Orthodox Church has so far offered certificates of recognition to the new independent ecclesiastical structure established in Ukraine before the recent presidential elections. And this is a sign that the process of recognition of an Ukrainian “autocephalous” Church, independent from the Moscow Patriarchate, does not benefit from the “orthodox consensus”. This is why a new pan-Orthodox meeting is needed to untie the knots of a crisis that is making the entire Orthodox suffer. These are the Moskow Patriarchate’s wishes regarding the “Ukraine case” exposed in the following interview by Vladimir Legoyda, Journalist, professor in the Department of International Literature and Culture at Mgimo (Moscow State Institute for International Relations), Legoyda is the Chairman of the Department for Society and Relations with the Mass Medias of the Russian Orthodox Church. Born in 1973 in Kostanay (Kazakhstan), married, he has two daughters and a son.
Five Months after the formation of a new Orthodox Church in Ukraine, how do you see the situation?
«We see all the process, as an uncanonical way of dealing with the situation in Ucraine. In terms of inter-orthodox relations, Ukraine is definitely a part of the canonical territory of the Russian Orthodox Church, and nobody has questioned this fact, including The Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. The situation changed in april 2018, and without any understandable reason to the Orthodox world. We have to realize that the idea of canonical territory was the basis of inter-orthodox relations: we can discuss many things, there are different unsolved problems in interorthodox relations, but one thing is absolutely clear: the idea of canonical territory and the fact that nobody can interfere in the canonical territory of another Church, and this is what happened: an interference in our canonical territory.
Now we still claim that in Ukraine there is only one canonical Church, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC). We have almost 100 bishops in UOC. Before there were rumors that when Constantinople would establish this new “Church” half of them, or one third, or one fourth of them would move in the new Church, But only two of them decided to move, and only two did so far».
And what about the parishes?
«The parishes of the canonical church are 12000. After december 15th, only 60 parishes had moved( qui sarebbe meglio da ..verso..), the majority of them under the pressure of nationalistic groups. And in these cases, their move has nothing to do wih the real spiritual life of the parishes. All the problems in Ukraine were created by political power. We hope, first of all, that they will stop the pressing on priests in the near future.
Another important thing: the Rada (Ukrainian Parliament), before the elections, expressed the will to implement the law that our Church has to change its name, going by the name of “Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine”. This is a nonsens; The Ukrainian Orthodox Church is an autonomous Church that consists of ukrainian citizens, not russian citizens. Even the charter of Russian Orthodox Church stays that the center of the Ukrainian Church is Kiev, not Moscow».
Vladimir Zelensky was elected as new President of Ukraine. What does his election mean in the light of the issue of this ecclesial struggle?
«Our main concern and our main hope is that the new political ream will stop the pressure on the UOC, its priests and parishes. Patriarch Kirill ,in his address to the newly elected president Zelensky ,said that «I sincerely hope for the end of the sorrowful period of persecution and discrimination against the Ukrainian citizens who belong to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church».
How can this crisis be solved? Do you think there is a valid “exit strategy” to find a break through in the current situation?
«This is a canonical problem, and for this we need some kind of pan-orthodox discussion. This is the only correct way. And other orthodox Churches are supporting the idea of a pan-orthodox meeting to face the situation in Ukraine: Serbian Church, Albanian Church, Bulgarian Church. Polish Church, Anthiochian Greek Orthodox Church... I don’t see another way to solve the problem. I hope the Ecumenical Patriarch understands that.
When I say there is only one canonical orthodox Church in Ukraine, this is not the opinion of the Russian orthodox Church: up to now, none of the orthodox Churches recognized the new so called Ukranian Church, nobody congratulated the new elected head of new “Church” sending a simple letter of courtesy, and this is a vivid example of the real attitude in the Orthodox world. There is the orthodox consensus on this issue. It is a fact, and a very important fact».
One can think: let’s just wait, Time will heal the problem.
«This is not a theoretical problem. This is not a dispute involving only some ecclesiastical cyrcles, The Ecumenical Patriarch, the Patriarch of Moscow, and so on. The spiritual life of millions of people is involved, and the same theme is with the schismatics of the so called Kiev Patriarchate. It is question of whether you have religious life or you don’t.
Filaret was a schismatic. And Patriarch Bartholomew also recognized he was as a schismatic. Then, suddenly, he said: now we forgive him. And nobody actually said anything about his status. Filaret started declaring: I am still the Patriarch, and the next day he said: inside Ukraine I am the Patriarch, and outside I am not the Patriarch… It is absurd, a canonical nonsens. The people are tired of this situation».
What about the results affecting the spiritual-sacramental life?
«You know we don’t recognize any sacraments celebrated within the structures of schismatics. In those structures, some people put some clothes and say “I am a priest now”. The faithful probably don’t know all the details and implication of the situation, but they suffer. And they understand they are sufffering for political ambitions».
There where no bloody clashes up to now. It seems that the people of God are wiser than ecclesiastical-hierarchical elites.
«If you compare the situation with 1992, when there were bloody clashes, yes, it is not yet like that. But if they keep pushing and try to take over churches, who can guarantee that nothing will occure in the future? A famous Ukrainian boxer, Usik, declared: if they come to take my Lavra, I will defend my monks. People are thretened, this is the reality. There was no bloodshed yet, but the situation is not OK. And regarding the conflict in the eastern part of the country, we see that the Ukrainian Orthodox Church can be today the only pacemaker».
The Moscow Patriarchate diserted the Pan-Orthodox Council at Crete. According to many observers, this was an historical mistake, and Moscow Patriarchate lost the opportunity to find shared solutions for the interorthodox problems.
«I would’t describe all this in terms of “mistake”. We were planning to go to Crete. Tickets were bought. We were ready. What’s happended? Several Churches said that they could not go. It was not Russian Church behind this decision. This was related with inter-orthodox problems. In that situation, we wrote to the Ecumenical Patriarch an official letter from our Synod saying that since we were talking about a pan-orthodox meeting, all the 14 Autocephalos Churches needed to be present. We wrote this letter 2 or 3 weeks before the Council, when it was clear that not all of them would be present. We wrote: let’s get togheter, on some kind of High level meeting, discuss that situation and let’s solve this problem, so that all the Churches will come. We did not get a proper answer. I perfectly realize that in a situation where the long time of preparation, almost sixty years waiting this meeting… but the main idea was not just to get together, but to get all the chirches together. So, how could we go? It wouldn’t be a pan-orthodox meeting, and it wasn’t. Nevertheless, We don’t see this as a dramatic, or more, tragic situation. It was a working situation. We did have time to find a solution. In every case, it is not true that we could take advantage and discuss at the Council of Crete, problems like the Ukrainian situation, The agenda was set, and the idea was not to bring other issues in the agenda».
The Moscow Patriarchate cut sacramental communion with Ecumenical Patriarchate, and the Ecumenical Patriarchate didn’t make the same regarding the Moscow Patriarchate.
Don’t you see the risk to use sacraments as weapons in ecclesiastical disputes regarding jurisdiction problems?
I don’t think you can say we cut the eucharist communion with the Ecumenical Patriarchate. Our Synod said: we don’t see how it is possible to continue being in communion, in this new situation. We didn’t cut, we have just said that we are in a new situation now, and we have to admit that after what happened in Ukraine we can no longer continue the eucharistic, liturgical communion. In other words, de facto they broke liturgical communion, we just stated the fact,. Maybe they didn’t say they cut. Patriarch Bartholomew continues to commemorate Patriarch Kirill, but those are words. As when you do something very bad to someone, and then you continue to say: oh, you are still my friend.
What do you think of the attitude of Pope Francis and the Holy See towards this intra- orthodox conflict?
«We do appreciate that, as far as I can see it, the Pope and the Holy See understand the whole situation and how difficult it is. And there was not a single comment from the Roman Catholic Church that would interfere or make the situation worse. We are grateful for that».
Ecclesial life can be transformed into a struggle of power, in order to affirm its own supremacy with political skills. does it seem so?
«Theoretically, there is always this risk for every Church, not only for the Russian orthodox Church in the contemporary world, when the religious as such is becoming more and more important. Thirty years ago religion as topic was not as important as now in international relations. Now it is getting more and more towards the centre of this political and social life. This has to do with the end of bipolar international system».
What do you mean?
«You know, after the crash of the Soviet Union there were talks of such flavour: Now, we’ll have the happy life, now the life will be predictable, we will have a bright and peaceful future. Nothing of what people expected came. And it turned out that there is no some kind of ideal, of ideological essence towards international relations and political life. So the governments, and political forces are looking for some ideas in religion. It is a fact. We can look it differently, but this is a fact. Religion is getting more and more important. That is why it is a temptation».
A temptation also in Russia…
«I would say this is something that really bothers me: when I see how the media describing the relation between Russian Church and Russian State… These descriptions are always so far from the reality. Because the reality is that the Russian Orthodox Church, in its entire one thousand years History, has never been so free from the State as it is now. I am not speaking only about the Soviet period. Even before, the Russian Church was very much dependent on the State».
Russian media narrates everyday contacts, meetings and good relations between President Putin and Patriarch Kirill.
«If we say we are independent we mean that our inner life is autonomous. And this was not possible before, not only at the time of the Soviet Union. We do treasure this situation. And at the same time we don’t interfere in the political life. We don’t do politics, because the centre of political life is struggle for political power, And Russian Orthodox Church doesn’t need or want political power. We are satisfied with the situation we have in now. We respect the State. We are not in opposition with he State, because it is not something that Church would normally do.
Some people say: How can you say you are not used by the State if you are not in opposition with the State? And we can answer: why would we be in opposition? We are not a political Party, The Church is not a political party, and the mission of the Church is not political opposition. And about the connections between politics and ecclesial life, I see the Ukrainian case as a good example of the temptation we are speaking about…».
What do you mean?
«On this topic, Russian State officials said something about their concern, but did not interfere, they don’t do anything about the situation, All we do about Ukraine is our Church effort to try to stop this. But there was not interference from the Russian State. It was not the same in Ukraine. When they had their Uniting Council in Kiev, the 15th of december 2018, and established the so called new Church, President Poroshenko was actually the head of this meeting. Can you imagine something similar in Moscow today? Can you imagine Putin coming to a Church meeting and presiding and moderating there? Or take any other European State: can you imagine something similar in Italy, or in Germany?».
Moscow Patriarchate suspended its participation in the Commission of theological Dialogue on the themes of Primacy and Sinodality. Does it mean that Russians Orthodox Christians refrain to walk together towards sacramental communion with catholics?
«We have to differentiate. the theological dialogue is one thing, and the broad dialogue on some other important issues is another thing. Theological dialogue is a very specific thing. it is important when you want to make sure that you understand correctly the theological position of your partner and to show exactly what your theological position is.
But the question of sacramental unity is a very complicated issue. And we have a lot in common, on moral issues and traditional values: Roman Catholic Church is our closest partner on this field. We don’t see any problem in the dialogue with Roman Catholic Church on the issue of traditional values, moral issues in the contemporary world, as gay marriages et cetera. As they met in Cuba, the Pope and Patriarch Kirill gave to politicians a vivid example of how you can, having some differencies, put them side and meet and discuss something that is vital today, when people are suffering. For example, to find the way to support together the christians persecuted in Syria».
In present times there is a sort of competition to present themselwes as protectors of Middle East Christians. This approach leads to the danger of transforming the middle eastern christian indigenous communities in a sort of “alien bfody” always needing external support in order to survive.
«I think there is this risk, but it is a little bit theoretical. We are talking about people that are being killed today. And when there is an emergency, you have to face the emergency».
