"A Georgian Orthodox church, left, and a Russian Orthodox church sharing a street in Tbilisi, the Georgian capital. (Justyna Mielnikiewicz for The New York Times)"...................................................................................................................................................................... By Sophia Kishkovsky Published: September 5, 2008...................................................................................................................................................................... MOSCOW: While leaders and generals quarrel over the strategic map of Georgia and Russia's future relations with both its neighbors and the West, the Christians of both nations have fretted over the worrisome loss of Orthodox unity.Post-Soviet Russia has re-embraced Orthodoxy, as has Georgia, and has used it to stir support on a range of issues - for Serbia, particularly when NATO bombed Serbia in 1999, or in claims against Ukraine, whose western territories are dominated by Uniates, or Eastern Rite Catholics, long at loggerheads with the Orthodox Church. But the prospect of two Orthodox nations at war did nothing to deter Russia, or Georgia, from war in August. The patriarchs of both the Russian and Georgian Orthodox churches issued strong and immediate appeals for peace. In the case of the Russian Orthodox patriarch, Aleksy II, this was all the more unusual for putting him at odds with the Kremlin."Today, blood is being shed and people are perishing in South Ossetia and my heart deeply grieves over it," the patriarch said in a statement published as fighting raged on Aug. 8. "Orthodox Christians are among those who have raised their hands against each other. Orthodox peoples called by the Lord to live in fraternity and love are in conflict."Two days later, Patriarch Ilia II of the Georgian Orthodox Church gave a sermon in Tbilisi, noting that "one thing concerns us very deeply - that Orthodox Russians are bombing Orthodox Georgians." According to a translation on the Web site of the Georgian church (www.patriarchate.ge), he added: "This is an unprecedented act of relations between our countries. Reinforce your prayer and God will save Georgia."Despite the alarm, Orthodox ties proved strong enough to offer some relief to civilians swept up in the conflict. The Georgian patriarch made a pastoral visit, bringing food and aid, to Gori, a central Georgian city that was occupied by Russian forces.Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad, chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate's Department of External Church Relations, said the Russian church facilitated this visit and conveyed letters from Patriarch Ilia to President Dmitri Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. Like other Russian politicians since the end of communism, both men have made much of their Orthodox faith.In the letters, Patriarch Ilia noted that "Russian air forces have been bombing Georgian cities and villages, Orthodox Christians have been killing each other," according to his patriarchate's Web site. He expressed sorrow at Georgian and Ossetian deaths, and rejected Russia's charges of Georgian genocide as "a pure lie."The Georgia conflict marks the first war between countries with majority Orthodox Christian populations since the Second Balkan War in 1913 pitted Serbia, Greece, Montenegro and Romania against Bulgaria in a prelude to World War I.Priests and others close to the Orthodox churches, studying their role in post-Soviet society, have voiced anxiety that, while religion has recovered its stature, calls to prayer could not avert bloodshed between two peoples who share Orthodoxy, and centuries of deep cultural, political, economic and social ties."What these events show is the collapse of the myth of unity of Orthodox peoples and the collapse of the myth of the supreme peacemaking ability of Orthodox civilization," said Anatoly Krasikov, director of the Center for Religious and Social Studies of the Institute of Europe in Moscow."Of course it is not Orthodoxy that is to blame for this collapse, but concrete people, functionaries of the church administrative structures of Russian and Georgian Orthodoxy. They, for all practical purposes, remained aloof and did nothing to end a war that was unjust from all sides."Russia has the world's largest Orthodox Christian population, with an estimated 75 percent of its over 140 million people identifying themselves as Orthodox (although only 10 percent are regular churchgoers), according to a poll last year by the Russian Public Opinion Research Center. The Moscow Patriarchate is vying with the smaller Patriarchate of Constantinople for predominance in the Orthodox world.Georgia has fewer than five million people, but is one of the most ancient Christian countries in the world. Its church dates back to the fourth century, far outpacing the Russian church, which dates its founding to the Baptism of Rus in 988, when Prince Vladimir of Kiev brought Orthodoxy to the banks of the Dnieper River.Russia annexed Georgia, which was seeking protection from Persia, in 1801, absorbed its church and abolished its Patriarchate, which was restored - in name, at least - only after the Bolsheviks came to power.In Soviet times, Georgia became something of a refuge for persecuted Orthodox monks from Russia, said Nikolai Mitrokhin, a specialist on the Orthodox Church in the former Soviet Union. From Czarist times through the Soviet era, Georgian clergy trained in Russia and Kiev. "For Georgia, Russia is this love-hate relationship," said Tamara Grdzelidze, an Oxford-trained theologian from Georgia who works at the World Council of Churches headquarters in Geneva and has edited an English-language history of the Orthodox Church of Georgia."Our patriarch was educated in Russia, and this is the best he knows and he respects it highly," she added. "This is a very complicated and long history of relationship between the churches. When Russia annexed Georgia in the beginning of the 19th century, it abolished the king, it abolished the patriarch in 1811, it persecuted the Georgian language at all levels, including the church."The latest conflict has stirred those memories on both sides, rankling each.Last week, Patriarch Ilia appealed to Medvedev and Putin to end the confrontation and not to recognize South Ossetia and Abkhazia. "This will give rise to separatism in your country, and in the future you will have many more problems than we have in Georgia today," he said, according to the Interfax news agency. "This is worth meditating upon."The next day, Medvedev said in a televised speech that events compelled him to recognize the enclaves' independence."This is an especially painful situation for us because four Orthodox peoples are in conflict," said Deacon Andrei Kuraev, an outspoken Russian Orthodox missionary who is famous for his Web site, books and sermons at rock concerts by bands that have turned to Orthodoxy.Parts of South Ossetia's and Abkhazia's populations are Orthodox and do not want to be under the Orthodox Church in Georgia, Kuraev said. Ossetia and Abkhazia also have strong pagan elements, said Mitrokhin. Islam is also present there.The Russian church was surprisingly tepid about Medvedev's recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, saying it did not necessarily mean that their Orthodox communities would come under Moscow's jurisdiction."The Moscow Patriarchate must take political realities into account," said the Reverend Nikolai Balashov, the church's secretary for inter-Orthodox relations. But in resolving canonical jurisdiction over the territories, he added, "dialogue with the Georgian church" is more important. SOURCE: READ THE PREVIOUS POST RELATED TO THIS STORY:
