In the Fenar district of Istanbul, overlooking the banks of the
Bosphorus, is the church of St. George and next to it, a red brickbuilding (the so-called red school) that houses Greek children. The
Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople is located in the church with
a neoclassical facade and in the adjacent rooms of the building complex.
In the church, rich in icons and precious decorations, a 5th-century
gold-inlaid throne hosts the patriarch who wanders around with other
monks in the rooms adjacent to the church, organized like the
chancellery of a state.
Bartholomew I, Patriarch of Constantinople
Yes, because the Patriarchate aspires to be a sort of Vatican for the
Orthodox - however improper this definition may be. Bartholomew I, who
currently holds the office of Patriarch, is an elderly gentleman of
eighty-four, a former second lieutenant in the Turkish army, today with
an emaciated body, a white, sparse and stringy beard, wrapped in his
black robe, as befits an Orthodox prelate. Often adorned with rich
vestments, he loves to seek alliances and support for his dream of
restoring physical jurisdiction and territory to his Patriarchate and
therefore he often engages in concelebrations with prelates of other
Churches to forge alliances, stipulate agreements, consolidate
relationships, organize new Churches aimed at increasing the influence
of his patriarchal seat on the Orthodox ecumene. Surrounded by its
monks, to whom it has distributed ecclesiastical duties and dioceses
with ancient names, but in fact non-existent, the Patriarchate of
Constantinople can be defined as a virtual, immaterial structure,
governed by the Holy Synod, which claims to govern the world, claiming
for itself the management of the dioceses (eparchies) established in the
various countries by the Orthodox diaspora and which operates outside
the jurisdiction of the autocephalous Churches, (generally of a national
dimension), formally sister Churches, but considered by the Patriarchate
itself to be subordinate to it, even if over them the Patriarchate of
Constantinople claims exclusively a primacy of honor. (This means that
it is cited first in the diptychs when and at the beginning of the mass
prayers are said for the deceased patriarchs of the Orthodox ecumene).
This Patriarchate, heir to what was the Patriarchate of the capital of
the Byzantine Empire, making use of tradition, claims to embody the
spirit of the Orthodox Church and is globally opposed to the
Patriarchate of the "third Rome", that is, the Patriarchate of the
Russian Orthodox Church, which in turn claims to be the heir to the
Patriarchate of Byzantium, the second Rome and point of reference for
Orthodoxy in the world.
There are no different theological or doctrinal visions among the
different Patriarchates, but what divides them is the exercise of
jurisdiction over the faithful and power. These two entities are
fighting a no-holds-barred war for the political domination of the
Orthodox world, unknown to public opinion, but which has a heavy impact
on the lives of the world's inhabitants, with an intensity and effects
that are underestimated, due to the camouflage with which their actions
are hidden from world public opinion.
An example is what is happening in Africa where the Patriarchate of
Alexandria of Egypt exercised jurisdiction and sided with the Ecumenical
Patriarchate in recognizing the schismatic Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
Well, the Patriarchate of Moscow has established the Eparchy of North
Africa and that of South Africa, financially incentivizing the Orthodox
clergy to move to the new ecclesiastical structures, paying them a
salary of around EUR1300 per month, thus emptying the old Patriarchate
from within and carrying out evangelization work, for example, in South
Sudan where Russian interests are growing.
Hegemony in the Orthodox world and the war in Ukraine
The outbreak of the war in Ukraine has made world public opinion aware
of the role claimed in this clash between states by the Patriarchate of
Moscow and its Patriarch Kirill, Putin's companion and mentor, who
claims to have developed the values of the "Russkiy mir", for which
Putin claims to fight and which he opposes as a set of traditional
values to the "degenerate West". Certainly less known is the plan that
moves the Ecumenical Patriarchate, which supports the same set of
values. This prevents us from understanding some of the profound reasons
for what is happening in Ukraine, a country that constitutes the
battleground on which the hegemony claimed by the two Patriarchates is
confronted without holds barred, effectively producing the massacre of
two peoples, the Ukrainian and the Russian. It is necessary to know that
the Russian Orthodox Church was born in Kiev and from there, over time,
it moved its headquarters to Moscow. Ukraine was then converted to
Orthodoxy thanks to Prince Wlodomir who imposed Orthodox Christianity on
his subjects, wanting to take upon himself the prestige and power of the
Byzantine emperor, of whom he considered himself heir having married one
of his daughters. After the dissolution of the USSR, and with it of the
State, heir to the Tsarist empire, the Patriarchate of Constantinople,
without its own territory, at least since the birth of the Turkish
Republic (1920), pursued a strategy of refounding its own canonical
territory which could only happen by tearing away strips of jurisdiction
from other Patriarchates. Having its own canonical territory is
essential for an Orthodox Church because only in this way does it have
jurisdiction over its faithful and above all can it ask for and obtain
from them the economic resources necessary for its activities and have
all those material and immaterial, economic and social benefits that
allow its clergy to exercise hegemony over those it considers part of
its flock. The exercise of power constitutes a profound libido for those
who exercise the ecclesiastical function, a substitute and largely
compensatory for the renunciations that monastic life and dedication to
God require. (In Sicily they say: "cummannari è megliu ca futtari").
To achieve this goal, the Ecumenical Patriarchate has worked and works
on several fronts: on the one hand, being without a territory on which
to exercise its jurisdiction, since the State that hosts it is avowedly
Islamic, it claims its jurisdiction over all those Orthodox who do not
reside in a State in which an autocephalous Orthodox Church operates,
that is, a Church that claims and is recognized as having jurisdiction
over Orthodox citizens who live in the territory of the State.
Since the distribution of Orthodox throughout the world is now a
widespread phenomenon, it is quite evident that those who belong to this
cult have created ecclesiastical structures that in turn have formed
eparchies, or episcopal jurisdictions. Well, over these, the Ecumenical
Patriarchate claims jurisdiction and demands to receive the proceeds of
the ecclesiastical activities that take place in those territories. In
this way, the proceeds of many Canadian, American, Australian and other
dioceses in the world that do not have an autocephalous Church are
channeled towards Istanbul and the Ecumenical Patriarchate, guaranteeing
this Patriarchate immense proceeds, further fueled by the affiliation to
it of monasteries and structures scattered around the world, starting
with some historic monasteries of Mount Athos.
But the greed of the prelates of the Patriarchate does not stop there
since the Patriarch of Constantinople believes he has the exclusive
authority in granting autocephaly to the Churches that are formed in the
territories, through the drafting of a Tomos, a document that we would
improperly define as a contract, with which the autocephaly of the
Church is recognized.
Autocephaly is a status desired by national Churches and usually
coincides with the achieved independence of a State; to have it
recognized, therefore, the Churches are willing to bear the burdens
imposed by the Patriarchate that grants it; that of Constantinople has
acquired the habit of asking in exchange for the transfer of
jurisdiction over the dioceses that the national Churches have
established outside the territory of the State, thus accumulating ever
greater profits and power. Ukraine, hosting the majority of the parishes
and eparchies of the Russian Orthodox Church, constituted a succulent
morsel in this perspective and it is for this reason that, welcoming the
requests of groups of Orthodox constituted in small local Churches, the
Patriarchate of Constantinople has claimed jurisdiction over Ukraine,
declaring that "the legal bond of the synodal letter of the year 1686"
with which it had ceded it to the Russian Patriarchate had lapsed and
has promoted and managed the unification of these Churches in Ukraine,
giving life to a schismatic Orthodox Church, declared autocephalous,
which has taken on the objective of removing jurisdiction over the
Orthodox faithful from the pre-existing canonical Ukrainian Orthodox
Church and of promoting Ukrainian nationalism with an anti-Russian function.
The birth of the schismatic Ukrainian Orthodox Church is shortly after
the outbreak of hostilities with Russia. It occurs with the favor of the
Government in 2019, following a negotiation of the Ukrainian nationalist
Government chaired by Poroshenko with the Ecumenical Patriarchate,
during which the economic conditions for the development of the
operation, the political scope of the initiative, the strategy of
progressive delegitimization of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church
linked to the Moscow Patriarchate are defined. In other words, the
foundation of the schismatic Ukrainian Orthodox Church, supported by the
Government, is an instrument for building Ukrainian nationalism, for
rewriting the history and religious traditions of the country, so much
so that this Church proposes and obtains the change of the dates on
which Orthodox Christmas and Easter are celebrated, acquiring those of
the Western Catholic tradition, pursues the cancellation of the saints
of Russian origin from the official Ukrainian Orthodox calendar, but
above all promotes the passage of churches and monasteries from
affiliation to the canonical Orthodox Church to the schismatic one. This
operation is made possible by the peculiarities of Orthodox canon law,
according to which the ownership of the place of worship and the
affiliation of the parish to the confession, occurs on the basis of the
decision of the faithful who belong to that building, who, meeting in
the parish seat, decide by majority on a different affiliation. Thus,
with the complicity of the state security services, the churches of the
canonical Orthodox confession are invaded by nationalists trained for
this purpose, who declare themselves faithful of that church and decide
during an assembly to belong to the schismatic confession. The local
bodies and the authorities that govern them certify the correctness of
the procedure, determining the spoliation of the place of worship in
favor of the schismatic Orthodox Church. With this procedure,
accompanied by violence and beatings, arrests and harassment of
ministers of worship and the faithful, in these two and a half years of
war the passage of more than 350 churches and monasteries to the
direction of the schismatic Orthodox Church has occurred, with violation
of every principle of religious freedom.
Complicity and connivance
One must not be misled by appearances into believing that what is
happening is the exclusive fruit of the war or even the sick consequence
of an exasperated nationalism, translated onto the terrain of religious
affiliation. The whole operation has important complicities and
connivances and is based on the support of the representative of the
Ecumenical Patriarchate in Washington where what can be defined as the
embassy of the Patriarchate to the government of the United States
(Stauropegia) is located. Its holder is Elpidophoros (Lambranidis),
Archbishop of America, supporter of the current President Biden, was one
of the illustrious participants in the conventions of the Democratic
Party and successor in pectore of Bartholomew; as a good opportunist
today he is participating in the Republican convention. He acts in close
coordination with the State Department and with the services of the
administration that deal with the support of religious freedom in the
world, drafting an annual report that photographs the status of
religious freedom according to the parameters of the government of the
United States.
Nor does the Ecumenical Patriarchate limit itself to providing its
services in Ukraine; his is the action of a global agent who gives life
to Orthodox schismatic structures in countries where Churches affiliated
with the Moscow Patriarchate already exist, such as in the Baltic
countries, and tries to exert his influence in the election of
Patriarchs, as happened on June 30th on the occasion of the election of
the Patriarch of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church. However, the operations
do not always succeed, as in this case, because the elected official is
aligned with positions in support of the Moscow Patriarchate and
considers the Church supported by Bartholomew in Ukraine to be
schismatic. The outcome of the Bulgarian synodal vote marks at the same
time the defeat of the Ukrainian ambassador to the Holy See, an
irreducible nationalist, a fanatical supporter of the Ukrainian
schismatic Church, Zelensky's main advisor for ecclesiastical affairs,
who had used all his influence to establish a synodal commission of
bishops of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church to study the position to take
towards the Ukrainian schismatic Church.
What has been said makes us understand how vast and complex the strategy
of expanding the role of the Ecumenical Patriarchate is, whose
objectives are not only economic and financial, but also concern the
deep pleasure for power and money of those who manage these structures.
If the Ukrainian nationalists do not neglect any means and opportunity
to promote their strategic plan to rewrite the country's history, the
Ecumenical Patriarch and his clergy feel invested with a mission, they
set themselves up as the custodians of revealed truth, they present
their actions as aimed at the triumph of the "true faith," but also at
the affirmation of their personal ego, fascinated by the exercise of power.
Seen from this perspective, the participation in the exercise of worship
of these prelates, their sumptuous sacred vestments, their precious
icons, their long candles and the magnificence of the liturgy, their
chants, inherited from Byzantine traditions, constitute the most obvious
exercise of vanity and narrow-mindedness that leaves them indifferent to
the fact that their actions contribute and not a little to producing and
fueling the war and with it the death of men, women and children, be
they Ukrainian or Russian, helping to dig a deep ditch between peoples,
to produce centuries-old enmities, rancor, hatred in the name of an
objective pursued, obviously, for the greater glory of God and His
Church. On a more concrete level, while the United States is questioning
the political balance and control of the religious activities of Western
countries, for the Ecumenical Patriarchate it is a question of
increasingly expanding its network, so that its hegemonic plan, strongly
opposed by the Patriarchates of the autocephalous Churches of the
various countries, as well as, obviously, by the Patriarchate of Moscow,
can be realized. Currently only four Orthodox patriarchates of minor
importance recognize the newly formed schismatic Ukrainian Orthodox
Church, considering instead the canonical Orthodox Church, linked to the
Patriarchate of Moscow, as the Orthodox Church of the Ukrainian people
that has been recognized with such broad administrative autonomy by the
Patriarchate of Moscow, to the point that the canonical Ukrainian
Orthodox Church enjoys greater independence and autonomy compared to the
schismatic one and has spoken out by officially condemning the Russian
invasion of the country. This inter-ecclesial conflict develops in
parallel with the fighting on the front and affects the Ukrainian people
in their deepest feelings, related to their relationship with tradition,
with their own history, with religious freedom and conscience, violated
in the name of a nationalist political strategy by an interest group
that on paper claims to be a supporter of liberal principles and the
rule of law and aims to enter Europe to exploit for itself and its own
interest group the economic and financial advantages that derive from it.
G. C.
https://www.ucadi.org/2024/07/20/per-la-maggior-gloria-di-dio/
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