Geopolitics and Eastern Orthodoxy

http://www.asianews.it/news-en/The-Russian-Orthodox-against-the-'claims'-of-Constantinople-54091.html

Whether the US is playing a role in this rift or not – it fits a script that could have been written in Washington. And as the Cold War demonstrated, the US and other governments are actually very interested in such religious questions. And among these sacral bodies and especially among so-called ethnic Christian communities, politics and religion are closely united.

During the Cold War, Washington sought to undermine Moscow and worked with dissident groups and even fostered splits and schisms in an attempt to wrest away control and even any hint of connection of its immigrant populations with the Moscow patriarchy – or any of the others within the Warsaw Pact. What we're seeing right now is more of the same. The Ecumenical Patriarch in Constantinople who is the primus inter pares, the de facto leader of the Orthodox world has moved into the American orbit. The reasons for this are many but undoubtedly a large factor has been the rise of Erdogan's AKP within Turkey and the challenge presented by the Moscow Patriarch. The AKP has made the status of the Orthodox a bit more difficult in Turkey and the US has advocated for them and I would be surprised if a good deal of money hasn't changed hands. This is also tied in with questions surrounding Ukraine and the creation of its autonomous or autocephalous ecclesiastical body with its own patriarch – a move harshly opposed by Moscow but permitted and endorsed by the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew.

What we're seeing here is more of the same – an attempt to check the Moscow Patriarch's power. Kirill may not outrank Bartholomew of Constantinople but for a very long time he (as Moscow Patriarch) has been the most powerful figure within the Slavic-Orthodox world.*

Additionally there are those within Russian Orthodoxy that still advocate for the view of Moscow as the Third Rome. According to this view, the Moscow Patriarch is equal if not superior to Bartholomew, the Constantinople patriarch. 

There is an ecclesiastical struggle taking place and it is intertwined with the geopolitics of Western Eurasia. It's worth watching as the implications may set the stage for many generations to come.

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*The Soviet Period represents something of an interlude as the Patriarchs were marginalised and often under control of the regime. But since 1991, the Patriarch and Russian Orthodoxy in general has experienced a tremendous resurgence. The situation for the Constantinople Patriarch has grown slowly worse.