By the skin of their teeth, prelates of the Christian East avoid a rupture
WHENEVER two or more Orthodox Christian clerics join in celebrating the Eucharist—consecrating bread and wine in a manner that is far more elaborate, solemn and formal than is usual in today’s Christian West—it creates a special bond between them. And if one Orthodox cleric refuses to “concelebrate” with another, that is a sign of a deep, painful rift.
That helps to explain why Orthodox Christians all over the world (who may number more than 200m, if one makes generous assumptions about the religiosity of ordinary Russians and Ukrainians) looked on with fascination as two important gentlemen, one from Moscow and the other from Istanbul, came together in Kiev on July 27th to conduct their church’s most important rite. This was a powerful, if provisional, moment of reconciliation between the Patriarchs of Constantinople and Moscow, whose relations have been scratchy for most of the past decade.
It was a close-run thing: the 1,020th anniversary of the advent of Christianity among the Slavs, celebrated with enormous fanfare by Ukraine’s President Viktor Yushchenko, might just as easily have led to a dramatic bust-up between the two institutions whose multiple disagreements have cast a shadow over Orthodox Christian affairs in places ranging from New York to Paris to Beijing.
In the end, however, rupture was avoided. A basis was also laid for better relations in future, thanks to careful diplomacy by Bartholomew I, the Patriarch of Constantinople, who is by tradition the “first among equals” in the Orthodox hierarchy.
Why were the Ukraine festivities such a pivotal moment? Mr Yushchenko, a devout believer himself, longs to see a united Ukrainian Orthodox church; some say he is envious of the role played by his counterpart in Moscow, Vladimir Putin, in ending an 80-year-old division in the Russian church. But Ukraine’s religious scene is messy. There are Greek Catholics who worship in an Orthodox way but acknowledge the pope; there are two church organisations (one founded in 1921, the other in 1992) which identify strongly with Ukrainian nationhood but remain unrecognised by other Orthodox Christians. The largest group, as measured by the number of parishes, consists of Orthodox Christians aligned with Moscow.
Mr Yushchenko gave Patriarch Bartholomew a red-carpet reception in the hope that the visitor would help bring closer his dream of a single national church, no longer tied to Russia. In the Muscovite camp, rumours were rife that Patriarch Bartholomew was about to recognise unilaterally an independent Ukrainian church, causing an almost irreparable breach between Moscow and Constantinople. In the end, Patriarch Bartholomew steered a middle course—assuring Mr Yushchenko that he too yearned for unity among believers in Ukraine, while also accepting that (at least until some other arrangement is agreed upon) Patriarch Alexy remains the legitimate Orthodox authority in that part of the world. As a Turkish citizen who heads that country’s small Christian minority, Patriarch Bartholomew is used to tightropes; and this time his footwork was exceptionally delicate.
The Economist
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I always thought religious arguments were a little silly, especially among the different branches of christianity. You all worship the same god; you all read the same bible; you all believe that christ was the son of god; all that's different are some small things about ceremony and the title of the head of your church. Why not acknowledge what you have in common instead of fighting with each other? Maybe my perspective is different because I don't believe in god at all, but there are some parallels. I acknowledge what I have in common with fellow atheists even if they believe there is a higher power that is not god, while I do not, or they believe in fate but not god, while I simply believe there is no higher power or fate whatsoever. We still don't believe in god. We still don't attend religious services. We still hold some doubts about the nature of organized religion. What matters are the similarities, not the differences. Surely the believers could agree on something similar?
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