Constantinople Orthodox church appoints exarchs in Kyiv

The Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, the leading
body of the world’s Orthodox Christians, has appointed two exarchs to serve in
Kyiv, announced on Sept. 7 Archbishop Yevstratiy, the press secretary of the
Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Kyiv Patriarchate. Their appointments are in
preparation for Patriarch Bartholomew’s plans to grant canonical recognition to
a single autocephalous Ukrainian Orthodox Church, the archbishop said. An
Orthodox church exarch is a bishop with higher jurisdiction than the
metropolitan of a diocese.

In response to the appointments, the Russian Orthodox
Church issued statements expressing its “vehement protest” and “deep offense”
at the decision, accusing the ecumenical patriarchate of violating church
cannons and interfering with the affairs of another church jurisdiction. It
warned of cutting all ties to the Ecumenical Patriarchate should it grant
canonical autocephaly to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

“These actions bring the relations between the Russian
and Constantinople churches to a dead end and create a real threat to Orthodox
Christian unity throughout the world,” said a statement released on Sept. 8.
“Full responsibility of the given anti-canonical activity is with Patriarch
Bartholomew personally and those individuals in the Constantinople church who
support it. Corresponding actions by the Moscow Patriarchate will be taken in
the nearest future.”

Zenon Zawada: With the
appointment of the exarchs, it’s apparent that the Ecumenical Patriarchate
(also known as the Constantinople Patriarchate) will grant some form of
canonical autocephaly to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which is the world’s
largest Orthodox church without official recognition. The Russian church’s
fierce reaction to the appointed exarchs also indicates that autocephaly is
likely.

We believe the Russian government will use Ukraine’s
attempt to establish spiritual independence to allege religious and ethnic
persecution against Moscow Patriarchate members throughout Ukraine. It will
also allege theft of church property, though most of it is state-owned.

We don’t believe Russia will go to the extreme of
using these events to expand its military aggression, but we can’t rule out
that possibility, given what happened in Crimea and Donbas. Instead we expect
Ukraine’s pro-Russian forces will milk these events as much as possible to
maximize the vote turnout next year of the Russophile population, just as
President Poroshenko will use this process of gaining autocephaly to maximize
his election results.