Russia warns of using measures to defend Moscow Patriarchate

The Russian government will employ
“political-diplomatic measures” if the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Moscow
Patriarchate is targeted with political persecution, Russian President Administration
Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Oct. 11, the tass.ru news
agency said. Russia will defend the interests of Orthodox Christians just as it
defends the interests of Russian-language speakers, he said. “Russia’s secular
government can’t interfere with interchurch dialogue. It never did that and it
won’t be doing that,” he said. In response, Ukrainian Foreign Ministry
Spokeswoman Mariana Betsa tweeted the next day, “We heard similar themes from
Russia on ‘defending the Russian-speaking population’ as justification of its
aggression against Ukraine.”

The Russian Orthodox Church decided at its Oct. 15
synod that it will cease communicating with the Constantinople Patriarchate
(also known as the Ecumenical Patriarchate) over its decision to reinstate two
schismatics that it alleged divided the church in Ukraine, the Interfax news
agency reported. The ecumenical patriarchate’s decision was “illegal and
canonically contemptible,” said Metropolitan Ilarion, a church spokesman. “A
schism remains a schism, and the leaders of a schism remain the leaders of a
schism,” he said. “That church that recognized the schism by entering into
communication with them excludes itself from the canonical field.” The synod
called upon the Constantinople Patriarchate to change its decision.

The Ecumenical Patriarchate’s decision on Oct. 11 to
reinstate two excommunicated Ukrainian Orthodox Christian leaders is a
U.S.-backed provocation, said on Oct. 12 Russian Foreign Minister Sergei
Lavrov, as reported on the ministry’s website. Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew
is getting “direct public support from Washington” for his actions, Lavrov
said, citing as evidence the statement of U.S. Special Envoy to Ukraine Kurt
Volker in response.

Zenon Zawada: In its
campaign of aggression against the Ukrainian state, the Russian government is
always looking for a convenient pretext to weave into its political narratives,
which are then repeated throughout its controlled mass media. These pretexts
are also used to justify expanded aggression. So with these actions aimed at
granting the Kyiv Patriarchate canonical recognition, the Kremlin has added to
its arsenal of narratives another pretext, the “defense of Orthodox
Christians,” to justify its expanded aggression. This is in addition to “the
defense of the Russian-language speakers,” which was often used to justify the
occupation of Crimea and Donbas. Of course, the Kremlin will also combine both
“victims” as needing defense from the Ukrainian government.

So in activating this sensitive religious topic to
energize his presidential re-election campaign, Ukrainian President Poroshenko
is also making Ukraine more vulnerable to expanded Russian aggression. Not just
“political-diplomatic measures,” as the Kremlin warned, but we believe this
expanded aggression could take a military nature on the basis of defending
persecuted Orthodox Christians, including those in Kyiv and as far as Ukraine’s
western regions.

The most likely scenario for
expanded aggression is the Kremlin using the 2019 elections in Ukraine to
foment chaos. Instead of a hostile expanded military invasion of Ukraine, the
Kremlin could arrange for regional and local councils to not recognize election
results, particularly after the 2019 parliamentary vote. This could prompt
violence and intensify chaos, prompting Kremlin-aligned  politicians in Ukraine to ask Russia to
intervene militarily. This is one of the possible scenarios, as is the
elections being held calmly and the vote being recognized by all major players.