On the eve of the millennium of the death of St. Vladimir, Grand Prince of Kyiv and baptiser of Rus’, Patriarch Kirill of the Moscow Patriarchate commented to visiting representatives of Orthodox churches on the situation in Ukraine. In his remarks, he called for the spiritual unity of all Orthodox faithful. He also drew a parallel between religious schism and political violence, implicitly blaming the independent Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate and the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church for fomenting war in eastern Ukraine. Then, taking advantage of a Greek churchman ’s mention of Patriarch Photius, Kirill made reference to the Crimea and the northern Black Sea coast. (SEIA Newsletter No. 238, July 31, 2015.) This could well have been taken as a sly re-assertion of his jurisdiction over those areas – a jurisdiction now based on Russian military aggression and occupation.

Indeed, blaming the war on the independent Ukrainian Orthodox churches is a classic case of crying “thief” in the act of robbery. The patriarch ’s calls for peace treat the war as a dispute between brothers that can and should be settled by diplomacy – rather like a civil suit – rather than as a case of criminal assault by one brother against another – which can only be settled by the arrest, trial, and punishment of the criminal.

But Kirill’s notion that religious error breeds political error is not so far -­‐fetched. In fact, his own conduct provides the best example. For it is not the Ukrainian Orthodox churches whose false ecclesiology leads to the political sin of aggressive war-making. Their position — that an independent country has a right to an independent Orthodox Church — is borne out by the very representatives who visited Kirill for the millennium observances. No one would contest the right of the Serbian, Bulgarian, or Romanian nations to maintain their own Orthodox Churches. The Ukrainian people have the same right. It is thus Kirill ’s ecclesiology that is erroneous.

And in line with his principle that bad ecclesiology makes for bad politics, his political stance is equally faulty. For just as the Moscow Patriarchate has no right to control the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, so the Kremlin has no right to seize the Crimea, the Black Sea littoral, or the Donbas – whether with its own troops or with proxies (or, as is the case, with both). Thus, if the Patriarch really wants peace, his appeal should be directed to the Kremlin.

We can thus be grateful to Patriarch Kirill not only for discovering a new principle of church and state — that bad theology makes bad politics – but for providing a most convincing proof.

Andrew Sorokowski