Russian Orthodox suspend ties with Ecumenical Patriarch

c. 1996 Religion News Service (RNS)-As the Russian Orthodox Patriarch Aleksy II presided at a liturgy Feb. 23 in Moscow’s Cathedral of the Epiphany, he omitted from the day’s prayers the name of the pre-eminent leader of Orthodox Christians worldwide, the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I. It was a startling omission, the first time in the […]

c. 1996 Religion News Service

(RNS)-As the Russian Orthodox Patriarch Aleksy II presided at a liturgy Feb. 23 in Moscow’s Cathedral of the Epiphany, he omitted from the day’s prayers the name of the pre-eminent leader of Orthodox Christians worldwide, the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I.

It was a startling omission, the first time in the 1,008-year history of the Russian Orthodox Church that the well-being of the Ecumenical Patriarch was not included in the litany of petitions.


Aleksy’s failure to pray for Bartholomew was the first public acknowledgment of a profound rift between the 100 million-member Russian Orthodox Church-the single largest Orthodox body-and the man who is considered the ultimate authority, or”first among equals”for some 250 million Orthodox Christians around the world.

Surrounded by 50 bishops of the Russian Orthodox Synod, Aleksy then declared a”break in communion”with the Ecumenical Patriarchate and directed Russian Orthodox clergy to no longer celebrate liturgies with clergy who remain under Bartholomew’s jurisdiction.

At the heart of the dispute between Bartholomew and Aleksy is the autonomy of the Orthodox Church of Estonia, whose 60,000 members historically have been under Russian control.

Just what this all means remains to be seen, according to Orthodox observers in the United States and Europe, none of whom was willing to be quoted.

At the very least, the rift between Aleksy of Moscow and Bartholomew, who resides in Instanbul, represents a hierarchical squabble in the Orthodox family, which includes 16 independent ethnic churches. At worst, it could signal a major split in the Orthodox church worldwide.

Another unknown is what this disagreement among patriarchs will mean as it ripples through the congregations of the 4 million to 5 million Orthodox Christians in North America, many of whom are far less concerned with ethnic and political differences than their counterparts in Europe and Asia Minor.

Though Estonia, a small nation on the Baltic Sea, is now primarily Lutheran, Orthodox Christianity was established there in the 13th century by Russian missionaries and colonists. By the 18th century, when Estonia became part of the Russian empire, the Orthodox church was headed by Russian bishops and counted among its members a large number of Russian settlers.


When Estonia became independent in 1920, the local Orthodox church was granted autonomy, but remained in the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarch. Three years later, when the Bolsheviks mounted severe persecution of Orthodox Christians in Russia, the Estonian church, cut off from its Russian hierarchy, came under the wing of the Ecumenical Patriarch.

In 1940, when Estonia became part of the Soviet Union, the situation changed again. The Estonian Orthodox Church was abolished and its members were absorbed by the officially recognized Russian Orthodox Church, that was in the control of the government.

Since the fall of communism and the breakup of the former Soviet Union, anti-Russian sentiments have sharpened in Estonia and elsewhere in Eastern Europe, prompting calls from political and religious leaders for Orthodox Christian churches to be independent from the Russian patriarchate.

After two years of fruitless negotiations with the Moscow Patriarchate on the fate of the Estonian church, Bartholomew declared Feb. 20 that the Estonian church was now under his jurisdiction; two days later, he recognized an autonomous Orthodox Apostolic Church of Estonia in the capital of Tallinn.”Inevitably, the prolongation of uncertainty and the climate of mutual suspicion created by it brings about only harm and widens the chasm between two groups of Orthodox brethren,”Bartholomew wrote Aleksy. In the letter, the Ecumenical Patriarch explaining his recognition of the Estonian church as an attempt to”build a bridge over the psychological gap between Orthodox Estonians and the Orthodox of Russian descent created during the Soviet occupations.” While Bartholomew’s decision drew praise from religious and political leaders in Estonia, Aleksy saw it quite differently, in a letter responding to the Ecumenical Patriarch’s decision to establish an Estonian Orthodox Church independent from Moscow.”It is in a brotherly spirit,”he wrote,”that we warn Your Holiness … you will be responsible for a tragic division of Orthodoxy on the threshhold of the 2000th anniversary of Christianity.”

MJP END CONNELL

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