On February 7th, 2023, still a priest of the Russian Orthodox Church, I boarded a plane and left the Holy Land, where I was serving as a member of the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in Jerusalem (REM). Only after landing in Antalya (Turkey) did I publish a post on social media in which I announced my…
Continue readingBy Silence God is Betrayed…Again
On May 11th, 2023, Moscow priest John Koval was defrocked by the ecclesiastical court after being suspended by Patriarch Kirill in February of the same year. His offense was replacing the word “victory” with “peace” in the “Prayer for Holy Rus’” mandated by the Patriarchate of Moscow to be included in all litanies. The “offensive”…
Continue readingInter-Orthodox Relations in the Symbolic Field of Ukrainian Society
The last year has been a difficult and conflictual one in Ukraine. It seems that war has become a way of life and thinking. It reanimates conflicts, exposes people’s feelings, opens old wounds, provokes intolerance and the search for an enemy, embitters, and most importantly, it makes people believe that there are simple solutions to…
Continue readingOn Non-Violence, Defense, and Victory in the Context of the Russian Aggression against Ukraine
First of all, let me make my standpoint clear: I am from Ukraine, I am Orthodox, I have experience and interest in peacebuilding, and I co-translated the document For the Life of the World: Towards the Social Ethos of the Orthodox Church (FLOW) into Ukrainian and Russian. I find this document a profound and inspiring…
Continue readingHumble Abuse and Responsibility
Some Reflections on the Situation Around the UOC
First, I would like to say two things. From 2009 to 2019, I was quite involved in the life of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC)—from singing and helping a priest-monk at a local parish near Kyiv to assisting the bishop during international trips to translating for international ecumenical guests at Lavra, the metropolia, and the…
Continue readingRussia, Ukraine, and the Orthodox Church: The Aftermath?
As the war between Russia and Ukraine enters its second year, prayers throughout the world continue to be offered for a quick and just end. One question that needs to be raised is what will this just end look like? Regardless of who the victor will be, regardless of whether the political players—Putin and Zelensky—will…
Continue readingViolence and Non-Violence: From Constantine to Ukraine
It can be difficult to fathom the mindset of the followers of Jesus in the early to mid fourth century, as they gradually abandoned their commitment to the Way of total love towards all, even enemies. Before being called Christians, the disciples of Jesus were known as the people of the Way. What Way? The Way that…
Continue readingEveryday Religiosity and the Politics of Belonging in Ukraine
A Conversation with Catherine Wanner
This episode of “Women Scholars of Orthodox Christianity” features a conversation with Catherine Wanner. Highly visible, vernacular religious practices make the presence of religious institutions in the public sphere in Ukraine possible and influential, even among non-believers, critics, and skeptics. The ongoing presence of clergy, religious symbolism, and religious sentiment in public space in Ukraine and other…
Continue readingThe Russian-Ukrainian War is Now a Theological Crisis
In his 2006 book titled The Civil War as a Theological Crisis, historian Mark Noll argued that the American Civil War of the 19th century was, among other things, a crisis not only of differing biblical interpretations but of the very concept of the Bible. The South and the North interpreted the Scriptural outlook on…
Continue readingOf Camels and Gnats
As I write this, the drama surrounding the expulsion of the monks of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church under Metropolitan Onuphry from the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra is being played out, a drama simultaneously sad, understandable, and scandalous. I first visited the Lavra in November of 1988. A portion of the monastery had just been re-opened, and it…
Continue readingDrama at the Lavra: What’s at Stake?
The decision of the Ukrainian government to terminate the Ukrainian Orthodox Church’s (UOC) lease at the Kyiv Pechers’ka Lavra monastery complex has dominated Orthodox news in recent weeks. The events leading up to the decision have stirred up emotions, generated debate, and given birth to rumors on the state’s objectives. Dispassionate analysis is at the…
Continue readingSave Kyiv Theological Academy
Students of Kyiv Theological Academy In 2022, the Russian Federation began full-scale military aggression against Ukraine. There are already many thousands of victims in this terrible war, not only military, but also civilians. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church took the side of the Ukrainian people from the very beginning of the war. Already on February 24,…
Continue readingOn the Way to a Unified Orthodox Church in Ukraine
Challenges and Perspectives
On February 16, the second face-to-face meeting of initiative groups of clergy and laity of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) and the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) was held in Sophia National Sanctuary Complex in Kyiv. Its final appeal we published on Public Orthodox earlier. Now we follow up with the impressions and comments of…
Continue readingSaviors on Weapon Boards
Two Kinds of Social Ethos during Wartime
Icon painting is rightly considered to be the visual expression of the Orthodox tradition. The icon speaks of the Gospel, the liturgy, the hymnography, the saints, the dogmas, and the pedagogy of the church. Icons testify to the reality of God’s Incarnation, the image of God in each of us, and mystically lead us…
Continue readingAppeal of the participants of the interchurch dialogue in St. Sophia of Kyiv to the bishops, clergy, and faithful of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and the Orthodox Church of Ukraine
No official dialogue has thus far been established between the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (under the Moscow Patriarchate’s jurisdiction until May 2022) and the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (which received autocephaly from the Ecumenical Patriarchate in 2019), yet this is not an insurmountable obstacle to the informal dialogue on the grassroots level. Active priests and lay…
Continue readingWhy Have You Forgotten the Truth of God?
An open letter to the bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church
Your Eminences! My letter is addressed to the Orthodox bishops in Russia. I have intentionally not collected signatures or involved any Church structures or public organizations, because I am addressing not the episcopal body, not the leaders of the Moscow Patriarchy, but each of you personally. My letter’s addressee is an Orthodox Christian who…
Continue readingWar and Eschatology
by George Persh | ελληνικά | Русский Any conflict, especially a military conflict, needs a clear rationale for why it occurs. Usually, this question should be answered by official representatives of the state. However, the situation in Russia after the beginning of the armed conflict with Ukraine is gradually beginning to be explained in religious…
Continue readingKremlin Notes in the Patriarch’s Christmas Appeal
This year, on Christmas Eve, Patriarch Kirill wrote the shortest text in the fourteen years of his patriarchate: the appeal for a Christmas truce. This document might well have become a masterpiece of the anti-war, peacemaking stance of the Russian Orthodox Church. However, it turned out quite differently. The appeal for a ceasefire is yet…
Continue readingWar and Appeals to Magical Consciousness
by Archimandrite Cyril Hovorun As was noted many times, the ongoing Russian aggression against Ukraine is ideologically framed by a quasi-religious doctrine that promotes Russian civilizational exceptionalism and has been branded as the “Russian world.” This doctrine is not the only quasi-religious aspect of the war. Those who endorse the war try to justify it…
Continue readingSix Months Later: The Ukrainian Orthodox Church Still at the Crossroads
by Andriy Fert In late May 2022, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) held a local council to announce independence from the Moscow Patriarchate. But six months since, it is still being determined what that independence means. Metropolitan Onufriy of Kyiv commemorates heads of other churches in the way only primates of autocephalous churches do. Still,…
Continue readingDeconstructing Russia’s Ukraine Wars and Understanding the Diplomacy of Religion
The 2022 Economos Orthodoxy in America Lecture, presented by Dr. Elizabeth Prodromou. The Christ and Anastasia Economos Orthodoxy in America Lecture at Fordham University is the largest annual lecture of its kind and the only one housed within a university setting. In addition, the annual lecture series is the only one to explore the Orthodox tradition as it intersects…
Continue readingUkraine: A New Legal Framework for the UOC?
“We will never allow anyone to build an empire inside the Ukrainian soul,” President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky, on December 1, 2022, stated in reference to the need to ensure the spiritual independence of the country. He signed the decree with measures to counter religious organizations and figures affiliated with the aggressor state: the Russian…
Continue readingWhich Orthodox Church in Ukraine is the Largest?
From the moment the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) was granted autocephaly by the Ecumenical Patriarch early in 2019, it has competed with the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) not only over canonicity but also about the number of parishes and the number of faithful. Each claims to be the only canonical church in the country,…
Continue readingFour Months Later: The Ukrainian Orthodox Church’s New Modus Vivendi
Four months ago, a UOC (Ukrainian Orthodox Church) Council in the Feofaniya monastery in Kyiv introduced fundamental changes into the Church’s statutes. That Council has already become a historic event—with possible implications for world Orthodoxy. But properly understanding the logic of its decisions means understanding what happened in the UOC after the Russian army’s full-scale…
Continue readingPatriarch Kirill’s Crusade
by George Demacopoulos | български | ქართული | ελληνικά | Română | Русский | Српски In 1095, Pope Urban II told a large gathering of knights in Southern France that it was their responsibility to avenge the Islamic conquest of the Holy Land (he did not mention that the conquest had occurred nearly 500 years…
Continue readingShould the WCC Expel Patriarch Kirill?
The Christian world as a whole—and the Orthodox world, in particular—has been horrified by the invasion of Ukraine by the armed forces of Russia. It seems to be a distressingly indiscriminate campaign, in which thousands have been killed—young soldiers, men, women, and children—as well as hospitals, schools, homes, monasteries, churches destroyed, with millions of refugees…
Continue readingForeign Diplomats Assess the Vatican’s Ostpolitik
Image: iStock.com/PhotoBeto It was a great opportunity to express solidarity to Ukraine by taking part in a panel discussion at the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv on July 1. Four ex-ambassadors to the Holy See—Ukrainian, Lithuanian, EU (originally from Poland), Georgian—were invited to speak about the history and contemporary challenges of the Vatican’s Ostpolitik. Ostpolitik…
Continue readingOrthodoxy, Russia’s Manifest Destiny, and the Russia-Ukraine War
by Paul Ladouceur | Русский Also available in Ukrainian (pdf) Several times Russian church and state leaders have been enraptured by the idea that the Russian people and its political expression have a special mission or “manifest destiny” to accomplish. Successive iterations of this “Russian idea” reflect a growing convergence of religion, ethnicity, and nationalism…
Continue readingLex Orandi, Lex Credendi? Ukraine and the Second Sunday of Pentecost in UOC and OCU Liturgies
by Nadieszda Kizenko Most people who have written about the tensions between the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) and the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) after the Russian invasion tend to focus on one thing: who is commemorated. This is not surprising. Accepting the authority of this bishop, but not that one, is an easy shorthand…
Continue readingWill Orthodoxy in Ukraine Miss a Chance?
Image: iStock.com/Haidamac On May 27, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) declared its independence from the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC), of which it had until then been a branch. The reason is very clear: it disagrees with its (former) supreme hierarch, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, who has supported the Russian war against Ukraine. The UOC did…
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