Post by Jaga on Jul 30, 2008 16:46:06 GMT -7
Slavic Rivals Embroiled in Church Rift
www.nytimes.com/2008/07/30/world/europe/30ukraine.html?ref=world
- see also some pictures in the article
MOSCOW — For many Russians, it is bad enough that Ukraine is pushing to join NATO and to eject the Russian Navy from its Black Sea port. But over the weekend, the confrontation over Ukraine’s attempts to shrug off Russian influence reached an even more emotional pitch — when the Ukrainian president sought to split his nation’s church from Moscow’s.
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Sergei Supinsky/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
President Viktor A. Yushchenko of Ukraine, right, greeted Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew in Kiev, Ukraine, on Saturday.
It was the latest round in an increasingly fraught tug of war over history, identity and power. The two governments have fought with many different political weapons — from Ukraine’s threat to join Russia’s cold war rivals to Russia’s ability to shut off the natural gas deliveries on which its neighbor depends. Both quickly made it clear that the struggle over the church — traditionally an institution closely entwined with state power — was at least as important.
On Saturday, President Viktor A. Yushchenko of Ukraine chose the 1,020th anniversary of the advent of Christianity in the Slavic kingdom that predated Ukraine and Russia — a date that each country claims as a founding event of its nationhood — to issue a plea for Ukraine’s Orthodox Christians to gain independence from the Russian Orthodox Church.
With Orthodox Church notables from around the world looking on, Mr. Yushchenko asked Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, the spiritual leader of the world’s 250 million Orthodox Christians, to bless the creation of an independent Ukrainian church — “a blessing,” he said on Saturday, “for a dream, for the truth, for a hope, for our state, for Ukraine.”
The Ukrainian president — who claims that pro-Russian opponents tried to kill him with poison that pockmarked his face — also snubbed the Russian Orthodox patriarch, Aleksy II, by giving him a businesslike handshake after warmly kissing Bartholomew on both cheeks.
During three days of solemn religious ceremonies, rock concerts and political brinkmanship in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, the power struggle was not resolved. Both sides declared victory, as Bartholomew stopped short of supporting or rejecting the independence movement, saying only that divisions in the church would have “problematic consequences for Ukraine’s future.”
But there was insulted pride and inflamed nationalism on both sides as well, and it was clear that it would be hard to resolve the dispute without causing a schism in the church, heating up ethnic tensions in Ukraine and deepening the division between Russia and Ukraine.
The possibility of a split in the church showed that behind the geopolitical bluster that the two countries have directed at each other since 1991 — when they each became independent after the fall of the Soviet Union — lies an identity crisis and a deep sense of loss.
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www.nytimes.com/2008/07/30/world/europe/30ukraine.html?ref=world
- see also some pictures in the article
MOSCOW — For many Russians, it is bad enough that Ukraine is pushing to join NATO and to eject the Russian Navy from its Black Sea port. But over the weekend, the confrontation over Ukraine’s attempts to shrug off Russian influence reached an even more emotional pitch — when the Ukrainian president sought to split his nation’s church from Moscow’s.
Skip to next paragraph
Enlarge This Image
Sergei Supinsky/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
President Viktor A. Yushchenko of Ukraine, right, greeted Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew in Kiev, Ukraine, on Saturday.
It was the latest round in an increasingly fraught tug of war over history, identity and power. The two governments have fought with many different political weapons — from Ukraine’s threat to join Russia’s cold war rivals to Russia’s ability to shut off the natural gas deliveries on which its neighbor depends. Both quickly made it clear that the struggle over the church — traditionally an institution closely entwined with state power — was at least as important.
On Saturday, President Viktor A. Yushchenko of Ukraine chose the 1,020th anniversary of the advent of Christianity in the Slavic kingdom that predated Ukraine and Russia — a date that each country claims as a founding event of its nationhood — to issue a plea for Ukraine’s Orthodox Christians to gain independence from the Russian Orthodox Church.
With Orthodox Church notables from around the world looking on, Mr. Yushchenko asked Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, the spiritual leader of the world’s 250 million Orthodox Christians, to bless the creation of an independent Ukrainian church — “a blessing,” he said on Saturday, “for a dream, for the truth, for a hope, for our state, for Ukraine.”
The Ukrainian president — who claims that pro-Russian opponents tried to kill him with poison that pockmarked his face — also snubbed the Russian Orthodox patriarch, Aleksy II, by giving him a businesslike handshake after warmly kissing Bartholomew on both cheeks.
During three days of solemn religious ceremonies, rock concerts and political brinkmanship in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, the power struggle was not resolved. Both sides declared victory, as Bartholomew stopped short of supporting or rejecting the independence movement, saying only that divisions in the church would have “problematic consequences for Ukraine’s future.”
But there was insulted pride and inflamed nationalism on both sides as well, and it was clear that it would be hard to resolve the dispute without causing a schism in the church, heating up ethnic tensions in Ukraine and deepening the division between Russia and Ukraine.
The possibility of a split in the church showed that behind the geopolitical bluster that the two countries have directed at each other since 1991 — when they each became independent after the fall of the Soviet Union — lies an identity crisis and a deep sense of loss.
...