Introduction: Orthodoxy as a Diplomatic Tool
Diplomatic mediation between Orthodox hierarchy, governments, and non-profits in the Russia-Ukraine conflict can bring about peace and prosperity in the Orthodox world in the 21st century. The powerful global Eastern Orthodox world should have a more active and engaged role in promoting conflict resolution and ending the war between Russia and Ukraine. Multiple actors in the global Orthodox world can play active negotiating roles in ending this conflict These actors include the governments of majority Orthodox countries, global Orthodox ecclesiastical leadership, and Orthodox deposed inter-related nobility. All can play significant roles in ending this conflict to neutralize the war path charted by Western powers waging a new Cold War against Russia’s Putin.
I will briefly examine the history of the Orthodox world and offer a plan of action for unifying and promoting dialogue among the Orthodox spheres of influence that I define as composed by the following groups. First, we have Greece, Cyprus, Bulgaria, Romania, and Serbia, states with Orthodox believers firmly planted within the European Union’s democratic economic and political order. Second, we have the sprawling Orthodox diaspora in North America, Australasia, and other parts of the world. Third, we have authoritarian Russia and now invaded and victimized Ukraine. Finally, we have non-state historical and non-profit actors.
Historical Orthodoxy and Russian and Ukrainian Identity
The Slavic identity of both Russia and Ukraine is unified by the commonalities of Orthodoxy and the Cyrillic alphabet as passed on by Kyivan Rus’, an early medieval state, common to both Russia and Ukraine.[1] This unity is best reflected at Easter when both communities mark the holiday on the same calendar date as all Orthodox, as was done this year on May 5, 2024. Orthodoxy is a fragile yet unifying identity factor for Russian and Ukrainian lands in a similar way that it is for Greece and the Balkans—all liberated from Ottoman and Mongol invasions and conquests in both the Slavic and non-Slavic Byzantine East. Unlike in Greece and the Balkans, Russia wasn’t able to assimilate the full spiritual inheritance of Byzantium when the Mongols violently invaded Kievan Rus’ in 1237.[2] Both Russia and Ukraine were denied this spiritual continuity during the over 70 years of Soviet Communism when this unity was only broken by the Stalinist era and the famine of 1932-33 that set the foundations for today’s ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine.[3] When Viktor Yushchenko assumed the presidency of Ukraine after the Orange Revolution in the mid 1990s, this famine (Holodomor) was recognized as a genocide to Russias’s objections. This led to the solidifying of Ukraine’s and Russia’s separate identities and Ukraine’s ambitions to seek Western integration.[4]
Maintaining Orthodox Unity in Russia and Ukraine
The forgotten unity of the Orthodox world is exemplified today by the tapestry of splintered national churches that essentially mirrors the cultures and languages of the Orthodox national states and reemerged after the fall of communism, with Greece being the only consistent long-term democracy in the post-World War II Orthodox world. Orthodox Christianity triumphed in the Byzantine, Ottoman, and Russian empires before reemerging in the autocephalous national churches of independent states after the fall of the Ottoman Empire and Soviet Communism. Unfortunately, adversarial circumstances both inside and outside of the Church since then have hindered the development of democracy and have resulted in violations of human rights and outright war between Russia and Ukraine. Today, the Orthodox world has a unique opportunity to wage peace, promote democratic values, and uphold human rights, not only in Ukraine and Russia, but also the Christian Middle East.
Christianity and Conflict
Although religion remains the underlying reason for some of the world’s most unretractable and persistent conflicts, the premise of religion is love, and Christianity, as taught by Jesus Christ, emphasizes unity based on love. Jesus said: “I give you a new commandment: Love one another! As I have loved you, so love one another! By this, everyone will know that you are My disciples, as you will have love among yourselves (Jn 13:34-35).” Yet, in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, the Russian Orthodox Church and its leader, Patriarch Kirill (Gundyaev), routinely delivers sermons supporting Russia’s role in the war The Church always has a choice between love and government,or party line of a leader or Prime Minister. The Church can support the ideological or political ambitions of governments at its own risk or it can serve peace and humanity.[5] As Blessed Sviatoslav, the Primate of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church (UGCC), stresses, the significance of reconciling the Ukrainian Orthodox Churches is to guarantee Ukraine’s European future as a developed and true democratic state of the European model. An essential aspect of this model is “full-fledged freedom of all religions and the guarantee of the free development of all peoples, without exception, living in Ukraine.”[6]
Church Conflict inside Ukraine
The longstanding confrontation between the Orthodox churches of Ukraine, lasting almost the entire period of its independence since 1991 (there was a short-lived Ukrainian Republic in 1918-1919 period), was primarily driven by the desire of a significant portion of the Orthodox community to have a Ukrainian Orthodox Church expressing the Ukrainian spirit. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate (UOC-KP) fulfilled this role, while another faction aimed to remain loyal to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP).[7] These internal divisions prompted the granting of the Tomos on the autocephaly of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) by Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I and the Holy Synod of the Church of Constantinople to promote reconciliation within Ukrainian Orthodoxy in January 2019.[8]
Leadership in Orthodox Diplomacy and Conflict Resolution
Greece, as a seminal country in the spread of Christianity, is in a unique position to take a leadership role in ending this conflict. The Greek-speaking world has been historically important in Christianity’s development and expansion, and has the moral authority to intervene in intra-Orthodox conflicts that are not unlike the current Russia-Ukraine conflict. Athens rightly supports the West’s effort for a free and democratic Ukraine but needs to do more to encourage Russian democratization and engage Russia to the negotiating table, independently of Brussels and Washington leadership. Athens can easily convene a roundtable composed of the heads of government of Orthodox EU countries, the heads of all the Orthodox Church branches around the world, and the deposed heads of Orthodox royal families, including the Russian Romanovs from whom many reigning monarchs in Europe descend. Representatives of the LGBT+ and other Human Rights groups can also be represented to facilitate better human rights conditions and legislation in both Russia and Ukraine. This conference can be held in Athens, with EU and American envoys invited as well.
Brokering Russian-Ukrainian peace would be a rare opportunity for Orthodox countries to show and use their historical moral power. It is a glaring failure of Greece that such an opportunity is lost as the country is ever eager to please its European master creditors. This failed policy is evident by Greece’s willingness to damage its traditional warm relations with Russia that date from the time Russia assisted with Greek independence and to do so because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.[9] As Kallistos Ware wrote in his best-selling book about the Orthodox Church, Orthodoxy is about “Greeks, Russians, and the Rest.” Orthodoxy holds the key to preventing the fratricidal war between a people with a common history while resisting Western hegemonic domination in the former Communist world.
[1] Popova, Maria, and Oxana Shevel. Russia and Ukraine: Entangled histories, diverging states. John Wiley & Sons, 2023., p.21.
[2] Ware, Timothy. The Orthodox Church: an introduction to eastern Christianity. Penguin UK, 1993.p. 77.
[3] Popova, Maria, and Oxana Shevel. Russia and Ukraine: Entangled histories, diverging states. John Wiley & Sons, 2023.,p. 6.
[4] Popova, Maria, and Oxana Shevel. Russia and Ukraine: Entangled histories, diverging states. John Wiley & Sons, 2023.,p. 6.
[5] Havryliuk, Tetiana, Yuriy Chornomorets, and Vasyl Lozovytskyi. “Orthodoxy in Ukraine: Strategies of Reconciliation.” Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe 44, no. 2 (2024): 4., p.34.
[6] Havryliuk, Tetiana, Yuriy Chornomorets, and Vasyl Lozovytskyi. “Orthodoxy in Ukraine: Strategies of Reconciliation.” Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe 44, no. 2 (2024): 4., p.33.
[7] Havryliuk, Tetiana, Yuriy Chornomorets, and Vasyl Lozovytskyi. “Orthodoxy in Ukraine: Strategies of Reconciliation.” Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe 44, no. 2 (2024): 4.p. 35.
[8] Havryliuk, Tetiana, Yuriy Chornomorets, and Vasyl Lozovytskyi. “Orthodoxy in Ukraine: Strategies of Reconciliation.” Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe 44, no. 2 (2024): 4.p. 36-37.
[9] Antonopoulos, Paul. “Russia slams Greece for not inviting delegation to Greek Independence Day celebrations.” Greek City Times. March 26, 2024. https://greekcitytimes.com/2024/03/26/russia-slams-independence-day/.
Eleftherios Hazapis wrote this essay for the Human Rights and Media course during the Spring Semester 2024 at American University in Washington DC.
ORTHODOXY IN DIALOGUE 