from Window of Eurasia - Paul Goble

 In Russia, Public Support For Orthodox Church (I..e. The Official State-Supported Moscow Patriarchate}, Is Collapsing.

  Time:  Mon, 19 Sep 2022 02:53:31 +0000    

  From: Dan Everiss <oregdan@hotmail.com>

Window on Eurasia -- New Series

Thursday, September 15, 2022

Public Support for Orthodox Church in Russia Collapsing, Academy of Sciences Study Finds

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 18 – At least among residents of the Russian capital, public support for the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate is collapsing, according to a study by the Institute of Socio-Political Research of the Russian Academy of Sciences, a trend for which there are at least five major reasons, Aleksey Makarkin says.

            The Academy of Sciences study finds that between 2015 and 2020, the share of Muscovites who trust the ROC MP fell from 55 percent to 28 percent. Among believers, the share fell from 72 percent to 43 percent; and among non-believers, from 15 percent to only five percent.

            The Moscow analyst who frequently comments on social phenomena that have a significant impact on high politics in that country points to five reasons which he says lie behind what can only be described as a collapse in confidence in the Orthodox Church in Russia (kasparov.ru/material.php?id=62FDD04599869&section_id=50A6C962A3D7C):

            First, he says, many who turned to the church at the time of the collapse of the Soviet system in their search for a new source of values have turned away in disgust at what they see in the church itself. Its leaders, they feel, have discredited themselves by the positions they have taken on political issues.

            Second, the rising generation is increasingly consumerist in its approach to all things including religion. It no longer feels the church has much to offer it; and so it turns to other segments of social life. Third, religion therefore has come to occupy a much less significant place in the Maslow hierarchy than it did a generation ago.

            Fourth, the idealized image of the church as heroically resisting the state, an image that was widespread in the early 1990s, has dissipated. It has come to be viewed as a corrupt institution worried more about taking care of its employees rather than showing any concern for believers.

            And fifth, Makarkin concludes, as the church’s own surveys have found, fewer and fewer Russians over the last 30 years know the name of their parish priest or even what parish they are part of. This “depersonalization” of the church has the effect of making it less influential than it was only a few years ago.

Posted by paul goble at 8:27 AM 

 

  Latvian Government Has Declared The Latvian Orthodox Church (Of The Moscow Patriarchate) in its borders, as Autocephalous...no matter what Moscow thinks, -this also because of Putin's Unjust Invasion of Ukraine, and all blessed by MP Patriarch Kyrill.   

  Time:  Mon, 19 Sep 2022 03:14:13 +0000    

  From: Dan Everiss <oregdan@hotmail.com>

Window on Eurasia -- New Series

Sunday, September 18, 2022

Exploiting Caesaro-Papist Nature of Orthodox Christianity, Riga has Dealt Moscow Patriarchate ‘a Powerful Blow,’ ‘Nezavisimaya Gazeta’ Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 11 – The Latvian parliament has declared the Orthodox Church in Latvia, a denomination previously under the control of the Moscow Patriarchate, to be autocephalous, an action, the editors of Nezavisimaya gazeta say, that hadn’t occurred to anyone else before and is an effective game changer as far as Orthodoxy on the post-Soviet space is concerned.

            When Ukrainian Orthodox leaders sought autocephaly, their action was approved by the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, the editors point out, adding of course that the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate from which the OCU broke away declared its independence from Moscow because of Russian aggression (ng.ru/editorial/2022-09-11/2_8536_editorial.html).

            But the UOC made that decision at a church council and notified the Moscow Patriarchate. At least officially, neither the Ukrainian government nor the Russian government was involved. What has happened in Latvia is a very different matter entirely. (For a discussion of the Latvian moves, see jamestown.org/program/moscow-losing-another-nations-orthodox-church-this-time-latvias/).

            In Latvia, the president called for the Seimas to declare the Orthodox church in Latvia autocephalous, the parliament voted to do so, and the Orthodox hierarchy there simply accepted that move, despite expressions of anger in Moscow. The Latvian Orthodox Church did not hold a meeting or even have its head give a speech.

            Instead, the press service of the Latvian Orthodox Church issued a simple statement: “The state has determined that the Latvian Orthodox Church is legally independent of any church center located outside of Latvia.” And then it urged its parishioners to maintain calm in the face of this change.

            Such obedience to state power has a long tradition in Orthodoxy and especially Russian Orthodoxy, but what makes the Latvian move so intriguing and likely to be repeated elsewhere is that this tradition is now being used against the Moscow Patriarchate and thus against the Russian government behind it.

            Lithuania may very well be the next to take this step, and it may be followed in all the former Soviet republics as well, something that will leave the Moscow Patriarchate a strictly national church at least with regard to the territory of the former Soviet space and thus a shadow of its former self and its current pretensions.

            What Latvia has done will accelerate this process because the stratagem it adopted is far easier to carry out and fall more difficult for Moscow to block than the pursuit of autocephaly by other means, the Moscow paper suggests.

Posted by paul goble at 1:26 PM