Nativity of Christ Cathedral, Riga Latvia (source: Diego
Delso, Wikimedia Commons).
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has further divided the Orthodox Christian world, putting pressure on Orthodox churches in the Baltic States to take a clear stance against the war and distance themselves from the Moscow Patriarchate, writes Sebastian Rimestad (Leipzig University) in Religion & Gesellschaft in Ost und West (June). In the small Orthodox Church of Lithuania, five priests were suspended by their bishop in 2022 because of discussions they had about a possible switch to Constantinople. Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople lifted that suspension in February 2023 and visited Lithuania the following month in order to discuss with the government the possibility of a new, autonomous ecclesiastical jurisdiction under Constantinople being established on Lithuanian soil. Metropolitan Innocent (Vasilyev) expressed disagreement with Patriarch Kirill of Moscow about the war and is attempting to obtain autonomous status from Moscow, but the answer is uncertain. In Latvia, where the Orthodox Church already has an autonomous status, Metropolitan Alexander (Kudryashov) of Riga expressed solidarity with Ukraine and condemned all military violence, without facing much internal criticism. After security concerns were nevertheless raised in Latvian political circles, the Latvian government decided on its own to declare the Orthodox Church of Latvia autocephalous.
The Latvian church adjusted its statutes accordingly—while continuing to commemorate the Patriarch of Moscow—and submitted the revised versions to the Patriarchate. No answer has come yet. Several observers expect Moscow to consider Latvian autocephaly as a purely political statement without canonical consequences. In Estonia, the Orthodox Church has been divided since 1996, with one part under the Moscow Patriarchate and the other under Constantinople. The stance of Metropolitan Eugene (Reshetnikov) on the conflict has been questioned, and the Estonian Orthodox Church under Moscow faces challenges due to its unclear attitude about the conflict and the potential for further divisions. Rimestad’s article highlights how the Russian invasion of Ukraine has intensified existing divisions, testing the loyalty of Baltic Orthodox churches that are caught between Moscow and the expectations of their home countries. While Baltic Orthodox churches are small and not a powerful voice in the Orthodox world, how they respond may nevertheless impact the future reconciliation or further division of world Orthodoxy. Patriarch Bartholomew’s activities in Lithuania point to a further deepening of the schism in world Orthodoxy.
(Religion & Gesellschaft in Ost und West, Institut G2W, Bederstr. 76, 8002 Zürich, Switzerland – https://www.g2w.eu/zeitschrift/)
