Eastern Orthodox Conflicts Expands from Africa to the Balkans
The close of 2019 brought with it an explosion of controversy within the Eastern Orthodox Church. The first, and more consequential within the faith, is that the Russian Orthodox Church has broken communion with the Greek Orthodox Church of Alexandria. The second is in the Balkans, with a law in Montenegro that, on its surface, does not do much, but digs up tensions around the Serbian Orthodox Church. These two issues, on the surface, are based around arcane religious laws that can be difficult to follow and only of interest to devout men in black robes, but they go to the heart of conflicts in their respective countries with political, and even military and intelligence, implications.
On December 27th, 2019, the Russian Orthodox Church convened a Holy Synod where they denounced the Greek Orthodox Church of Alexandria, which is the branch of Eastern Orthodoxy with jurisdiction over the continent of Africa from its center in Alexandria, Egypt. The split between Moscow and Alexandria was over Pope and Patriarch of Alexandria and all Africa Alexander II recognizing the independence of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine. The Russian-allied branches of the Eastern Orthodoxy met in Amman, Jordan on February 26th, 2020 to try and come to some kind of authoritative stance on the issue, along with the situation in Montenegro and others, but its poor turnout undermined the attempt.
This story begins in late 2018, when the Orthodox Church of Ukraine began the process of being given autocephaly, or local independence by Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople. This angered the Russian Orthodox Church, which sees Ukraine as its own territory.
An Interlude on Orthodox Organization
For a brief rundown of how these various organizations work, the Eastern Orthodox Church is based on a tapestry of local churches, with varying degrees of seniority, which usually more or less correspond with the country they are in. The most senior are the four ancient Patriarchates of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem. Below them, in order of seniority, are the junior Patriarchates and Archbishoprics of Bulgaria, Georgia, Serbia, Russia, Romania, Cyprus, Greece, Albania, Poland, the Czech Lands and Slovakia, and, most recently, Ukraine. The ancient Patriarchates, being a holdover from Roman times, are not beholden to modern borders, but the Junior ones tend to match up with their home countries.
The logic used by Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I to give Ukraine independence from Russia was that Ukraine always was under Constantinople’s jurisdiction. The Russian Church, he argued, was only allowed to be a custodian over Constantinople's territories within an area that didn’t even include all of modern-day Ukraine. As part of his own territory, he then acted on his right to give Ukraine autonomy. Russia responded by accusing Bartholomew I of invading their own religious territory and promoting illegal schismatics.
The Orthodox Church of Ukraine was given autocephaly on January 5th, 2019. Since then, there have been mixed reactions from the other Churches. Antioch and Jerusalem have come down on the side of Russia, as have Serbia, Poland, and the Czech Lands and Slovakia. In addition to Alexandria and Constantinople, Ukraine is also supported by Greece. Most of the rest have been very careful about not taking sides too strongly, with their own levels of internal disagreement.
The Russian Religious Annexation of Africa
On top of cutting ties with Alexandria, the Russians also declared that the parishes they administer in Africa will no longer be under Alexandrian authority and an Alexandrian church in Moscow would be taken over by Russia. This was nominally done under the justification that Alexandria only has had authority over sub-Saharan Africa for about a century and could have it revoked. But, that is contradicted by them also nationalizing the parish attached to the Russian embassy in Egypt. This is the most egregious escalation in the inter-Orthodox split. Moscow has not only grabbed sub-Saharan territory which it has explicitly recognized as Alexandrian for a century, but also some in North Africa which had been Alexandrian for over 1500 years before Moscow became a Patriarchate at all.
The Patriarch of Alexandria recognizing Ukraine is significant because he is second in seniority only to Constantinople. This holds tremendous symbolic value. However, it is also the smallest of the Patriarchates in terms of both numbers of adherents and resources available. Out of the 631 million Christians in Africa, only half a million of them are Eastern Orthodox. The pre-colonial Coptic, Ethiopian, and Eritrean Churches are, along with the Armenian and some Syriac Churches, Oriental Orthodox. While similarly named, they are entirely separate from Eastern Orthodoxy. Catholicism and Protestantism were spread throughout the continent by missionaries from the colonial powers. The Greek Orthodox Church of Alexandria was historically mostly limited to Greeks and Syrian Christians living in North Africa. Orthodox missionaries have only been active in sub-Saharan Africa for the last century.
Who Owns Montenegro’s Churches?
Montenegro is the second front where Orthodox intra-religious conflict has reared its head. The Montenegrin parliament passed a bill that will, strictly speaking, ask churches to provide documentation that they owned their properties prior to 1918, the year when Montenegro was absorbed by the Serb-dominated Kingdom of Yugoslavia. The Serbian Orthodox Church, the largest church in Montenegro, has interpreted the law as a precursor to attempts to seize Serbian Church property. The government has denied this, but that fear has brought thousands of Serbian Orthodox believers to the streets in protest ever since. The Serbian Church banned the officials responsible from their grounds and protesters in Belgrade attacked the Montenegrin embassy.
The Serbian Church believes that their properties will be transferred to the Montenegrin Orthodox Church, which broke away from the Serbian Orthodox Church in 1993 and has deep, but often bumpy, relationship with the Montenegrin independence movement. The law does not reference the Church directly, but it bears a resemblance to arguments they have made that they should own all Orthodox property from before 1918. Saying that the law is engineered to promote the much smaller denomination would be an exaggeration, but it is a delicate issue which global Orthodoxy has taken note of. On December 30th, the office of the Ecumenical Patriarchate clarified that it recognized the Serbian Church as the sole canonical authority in Montenegro:
“For the Ecumenical Patriarchate, the only canonical Church in Montenegro is the Metropolitanate of Montenegro and the Littoral of the Serbian Orthodox Church headed by Metropolitan Amfilohije. I repeat, we will never grant autocephaly to the so-called Montenegrin Orthodox Church.” — Ecumenical Patriarch Batholemew
The Russian and Serbian churches have both compared the situation in Montenegro to that of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine. The Ecumenical Patriarch’s strong stance against the Montenegrin Orthodox Church is the key difference. Like with the similar breakaway faith of the Macedonian Orthodox Church, Bartholomew considers Montenegro to be the legitimate territory of the Serbian Church. This is unlike Ukraine, which he saw as being under his own jurisdiction. Strict issues of canon aside, Bartholomew also has a close relationship with the Serbian Church that he does not want to risk. Some figures in the Orthodox Church of Ukraine have personal relationships with members of the Montenegrin Church, but the Ukrainians have not given them any actual recognition.
Political Effects of Church Battles
These two controversies could have sweeping implications, both within Orthodoxy and stretching far beyond it.
On the largest scale, the split between Moscow and Alexandria drives the Orthodox Church deeper into schism. The Moscow Patriarchate sees the independence of the Ukrainian Church as Constantinople trampling on their rightful territory, so they are now taking over Alexandria’s for supporting the act. Patriarchs have broken communion in the past, but if they keep walking down this path, it means the same sort of split that created the separate Orthodox and Catholic Churches in 1054. Rome was the fifth ancient Patriarchate until the question of authority led to a break between it and the others. Russia has already laid the groundwork for a new Orthodox Church with themselves at the head. For example, the Russians made plans in July for overhauling the Moscow suburb of Sergiyev Posad, home to the Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius, into a “Vatican of Orthodoxy.” The other churches would have to pick sides. Serbia would likely follow Moscow, which would almost certainly inflame the Montenegrin church issue and make Constantinople rethink who has authority there.
No All-Orthodox Council will convince the Ukrainians to give up their long-fought for independence, especially when the Russian Patriarch Kiril is supporting a war against their country. The Ecumenical Patriarch has gone from being an influential figure with a church that has struggled since the Turkish conquests, to having authority over the third largest Orthodox community in the world. Meanwhile, by losing their mandate over Ukraine, one of the strongest pillars of Russian state-building, the protector of the religion of the Eastern Slavic lands, lost legitimacy. If the Orthodox Church of Ukraine completely slips out of his hands, that means Kiril has also lost many of his more active, and lucrative, parishes and monasteries. All sides involved claim that they are only being motivated by a studious reading of ancient church law, but political realities are unavoidable.
The political fallout in Montenegro is more immediate. The diplomatic sparring has already started. It was the last country to leave the former Yugoslavia and only became independent of Belgrade in 2006. About half of the country are members of the Serbian Orthodox Church and one in three Montenegrins self-identifies as a Serb. The two countries are deeply intertwined. The biggest geopolitical difference is that Montenegro was recently admitted into NATO in 2017 and is first in line for EU ascension, as stalled as that may be at the moment. They are firmly western-oriented. While Serbia is also on the path to joining the EU, they are also Russia’s most reliable ally. Serbian security officials, with the support of Russian spies and pro-Serbia Montenegrins, orchestrated a coup attempt to try and thwart Montenegro's NATO membership. Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vučić denied that his government was involved, even stressing that they shared intelligence that helped stop the coup. However, Montenegro continues to point the finger at Belgrade. That friction will not go away any time soon, especially now that Serbia views its Church, rightly or wrongly, as under attack and the protests continue. Even after they subside, the Serbian Orthodox Church will be Belgrade’s most potent vector of influence in their coastal neighbor.
The direct political fallout of the Alexandrian crisis will be less pronounced, outside of it piling onto the larger Orthodox split. It is worth noting, however, that Russia has been increasingly reasserting itself in sub-Saharan Africa, particularly South Sudan and the Central African Republic. This particularly gained attention when three Russian journalists were murdered in the Central African Republic while investigating the activities of the Wagner Group, a notorious Russian mercenary company. In Eastern Europe and the Balkans, Orthodoxy is Russia’s most potent tool for soft power, a field they otherwise struggle with. It also provides cover for intelligence operations, a less soft form of power. Taking parishes away from Alexandria will have limited utility due to their small size, but it could help if Russia chooses to put more resources into supporting proselytism and other church operations on the continent. The small gains made by Orthodoxy earlier in the century came in large part from African Christians looking for an alternative to the other European powers, so building a theoretical African Orthodox Church — Moscow Patriarchate would be a natural fit into Russian vision of the “multipolar” world.
The Council That Wasn’t
Jerusalem Patriarch Theophilos III hosted what was meant to be an All-Orthodox Council in Amman last week to address all of these issues. In the year leading up to it, church officials throughout the Orthodox world traded barbs and the highly ritualized forms of ostracization that exist in such an ancient organization. It would be a mistake to see these as neatly bifurcated factions, though. Bulgaria challenges the authority of the Serbian Church in Macedonia, though nowhere near as strongly as the other conflicts mentioned. While Antioch and Jerusalem are both supportive of Moscow, they are not in communion with each other due to a conflict over jurisdiction in Qatar. This conflict led to Antioch boycotting the council, meaning that Jerusalem was the only of the four Ancient Patriarchates in attendance.
Other than Antioch, and Constantinople and Kyiv of course, Greece, Cyprus, Bulgaria, and Georgia were also absent. Greece and Cyprus are explainable for their position standing by Constantinople, but Bulgaria and Georgia were more shocking. Despite pressure from within both Churches, their Patriarchs opted not to attend because they considered the council too combative. Romania and Poland sent only lower-level representatives.
Overall, this left the supposed “All-Orthodox Council” upon which Russia was going to build its theological case against Ukraine was left with only 6 of the 15 Patriarchates within Orthodoxy: Russia, Serbia, Jerusalem, Romania, Poland, and the Czech and Slovak Church.
The Russian Orthodox Church has largely downplayed the event, noting how other councils were lacking in attendance as well, and has mostly just treated it as any other gathering of Church leaders. Not much was accomplished besides some minor, largely non-actionable pronouncements. Not what Russia had hoped for.
Conclusion
The Eastern Orthodox Church, a millennia-old institution known for its arch-conservative stability and slowness to change, is going through a period of upheaval whose effects are being felt from Moscow to Cape Town. There is no saying whether or not it will even be a single religion in a few years. The recent, but very rough, All-Orthodox Council in Jordan could be yet another step on the road to schism, or it could be nothing. Its continued role in the national character, and even foreign policy, of Russia, Serbia, Ukraine, and others means that religious disagreements can easily turn into, and often are synonymous with, national conflict. The nexus of these conflicts is in Ukraine and the autocephaly of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, but it is also playing a role, as ever, in the Balkans. There are no signs of this process slowing down, let alone being resolved, though the unimpressive showing at the Amman council may have a cooling effect. The only solution is to shore up the affected communities so that they will be less vulnerable to tumultuous international religious conflict.
