The Russian Orthodox Church and the Crisis in Ukraine

Suslov, Mikhail

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-34144-6_7

Mikhail Suslov³

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5 Citations

Abstract

Mikhail Suslov presents the Russian Orthodox Church as a key stakeholder in the religious scene in Ukraine, which put forward a multilayered interpretation of the military conflict that broke out in 2014. He analyzes three levels of Russian Orthodox interpretation: the integral self-perception of the Russian Church and its reluctance to entertain ecclesiastical autocephaly in Ukraine; the search by church leaders for a coherent conceptual framework for understanding the crisis in Ukraine; and the efforts of Orthodox bloggers to express through powerful images the crisis as a religious war. Beneath the intensive search for a new church paradigm there is a profound re-thinking of Russia’s relationship with Ukraine—and the world.

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Notes

1.
Metropolitan Hilarion (Alfeyev), “Privetstvennoe slovo,” [Oct. 16, 2014]. Accessed Apr. 9, 2015. http://www.patriarchia.ru/db/text/3797892.html.
2.
Dmitry Shishlyannikov’s vk.com page of Feb. 20, 2014 at 9:39. Accessed Apr. 9, 2015. http://vk.com/wall14348686_3929.
3.
According to the documents adopted at the Inter-Orthodox Preparatory Commission in Chambésy (Dec. 16, 2009), the Tomos of Autocephaly is signed by the Ecumenical Patriarch, verified by the primates of all other Orthodox Churches, but first the consent of the Mother Church should be secured. See Metropolitan Hilarion (Alfeev), “My dostigli konsensusa,” [May 4, 2010]. Accessed Apr. 9, 2015. http://www.patriarchia.ru/db/text/1153092.html). This means that the Moscow Patriarchate can effectively block any attempt by the UOC-MP to separate from the ROC.
4.
Statut UPTs, I.1; IV.9; V.2. Accessed Apr. 9, 2015. http://orthodox.org.ua/page/statut-upts.
5.
On Feb. 22, 2014 the UOC-KP called for unification with the UAOC and the UOC-MP. On Feb. 24, 2015, the head of the UAOC Metropolitan Methodius (Kudriakov) died. This sparked enthusiasm among supporters of a merger of the two churches, the UOC-KP and the UAOC with its 1000 parishes. If this were to happen, the UOC-KP would gain greater moral authority and more institutional power. Such a decision would be regarded as the first step toward the creation of the united Ukrainian National Orthodox Church. Cf. Vitalii Chervonenko, “Smert’ Mefodiia,” [Feb. 26, 2015]. Accessed Apr. 9, 2015. http://www.bbc.co.uk/ukrainian/ukraine_in_russian/2015/02/150226_ru_s_church_unity?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter.
6.
An important reservation should be made at this juncture; on many occasions the juridical establishment of a “parish” in Ukraine is a mere formality, done for the purpose of “marking the territory” vis-à-vis the competing Church (e.g. UOC-MP vs. UOC-KP) rather than to address the religious needs of the people. In the event of a reunification, these “formal” parishes would likely merge, thus lowering the total number of parishes, as compared with the number one would get by simply adding up currently existing parishes.
7.
Ukraina-2014: Suspil’no-politychnyi konflikt i tserkva, Liudmila Shangina, ed., (Kyiv: Tsentr Razumkova, 2014), 29, 32.
8.
Ukraina-2014: Suspil’no-politychnyi konflikt i tserkva, Liudmila Shangina, ed., (Kyiv: Tsentr Razumkova, 2014), 31.
9.
“Kievskii prestol rasshatyvaiut regiony,” NG-Religii 14 (Aug. 20, 2014), 1.
10.
Anastasiia Chibisova, “Ukrainskii vopros v otnosheniiakh Konstantinopolia i Moskvy v nachale XXI v.,” Vestnik PSTGU: Bogoslovie. Filosofiia 55:5 (2014), 9–25.
11.
Metropolitan Volodymyr (Sabodan), “Ukrainskoe pravoslavie na rubezhe vekov,” Tserkov’ i vremia 44:3 (2008), 86–97. Volodymyr started his analysis from a quotation from Samuel Huntington’s “clash of civilizations” research. It shows that geopolitical language penetrated deeply into the discursive fabric of the Church.
12.
Vladislav Maltsev, “Ukrainskaia Tserkov’ v zhernovakh protivostoianiia stran i oligarkhov,” NG-Religii 12 (16 July 2014), 1.
13.
It should be noted that the episode when three monks stood up between the militants on Jan. 21, 2014 on Hrushevskyi Street in Kiev and appeased their aggression, was widely aired in the media. The (pro-Ukrainian) press secretary of the UOC-MP Georgii Kovalenko claimed that these were monks of the UOC-MP. By evening, several other monks had arrived, who were from the UOC-MP and the UOC-KP. This same practice would later be repeated in various Ukrainian cities, where clerics tried to calm down activists on both sides of the conflict and to offer their service as mediators. See: Vladislav Mal’tsev and Anatolii Khlivnyi, “Sviashchenniki moliat maidan o mire,” NG-Religii 350:2 (Feb. 5, 2014), 1. The Mikhailovskii Monastery (UOC-KP) and likely others sheltered protesters from pro-government police forces (Iurii Chernomorets’, “Iz tsykh podii Ukraina vyide onovlennoiu,” [Dec. 28, 2013] in Maidan i Tserkva: Khronika podii ta ekspertna otsinka, L. Filipovich, ed., (Kyiv: Sammit-Kniga, 2014).
14.
Ekaterina Shchetkina, “Katekhizis khozhdeniia po grabliam,” Zerkalo nedeli 7 (Mar. 1, 2014).
15.
Because of the illness of Metropolitan Volodymyr (Sabodan), Onuphrius was elected as a locum tenens.
16.
Nicholas Denisenko, “Chaos in Ukraine: The Churches and the Search for Leadership,” International Journal for the Study of the Christian Church 14:3 (2014), 242–259.
17.
Anatolii Khlivnyi, “Boevoe kreshchenie Sviatoi Rusi,” [June 4, 2014], NG-Religii 357:9.
18.
Elena Iakovleva, “Mitropolit Onufrii vystupil protiv evrointegratsii Ukrainy,” [June 18, 2014]. Accessed Apr. 9, 2015. http://www.rg.ru/2014/06/18/metropolit-site-anons.html.
19.
“Ob’edinenie pravoslavnykh tserkvei v Ukraine otkladyvaetsia?” [Aug. 20, 2014]. Accessed Apr. 9, 2015. http://vlasti.net/news/200112.
20.
“Mitropolit Onufrii prosit Petra Poroshenko zashchitit’ sviashchennikov Donbassa ot nepravomernykh deistvii silovikov” [Aug. 1, 2014]. Accessed Apr. 9, 2015. http://www.pravmir.ru/mitropolit-onufriy-prosit-petra-poroshenko-zashhitit-svyashhennikov-donbassa-ot-izdevatelstv-ukrainskih-silovikov/.
21.
“Mitropolit UPTs nazval Vladimira Putina ‘Banditom’ i prizval ego soratnikov ‘ispravit’ strashnye i prestupnye oshibki’ protiv naroda Ukrainy” [Mar. 20, 2014]. Accessed Apr. 9, 2015. http://www.religion.in.ua/news/ukrainian_news/25279-mitropolit-upc-nazval-vladimira-putina-banditom-i-prizval-ego-soratnikov-ispravit-strashnye-i-prestupnye-oshibki-protiv-naroda-ukrainy.html.
22.
Vladimir Chesnokov, archpriest, “Kogo podderzhivaiut luganskie sviashchenniki?” [June 10, 2014]. Accessed Apr. 9, 2015. http://www.portal-credo.ru/site/?act=news&id=108190.
23.
For example, he compelled two Metropolitans to withdraw their signatures from the so-called “Rivne memorandum,” signed on Nov. 17, which insists on the creation of an independent, national Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
24.
I translate the expression Sviataia Rus’ as Holy Rus’, rather than “Holy Russia.” This is the term which was used from the time of Prince Kurbskii to the present. The term “Holy Russia” misleadingly conflates two groups of notions: russkii (accent on the ethnic component) and rossiiskii (accent on the civic component); Rus’ (medieval Russia) and Rossiia (modern Russia).
25.
Aleksii II (Ridiger), Patriarch, “Ezhegodnoe eparkhial’noe sobranie goroda Moskvy,” Zhurnal Moskovskoi Patriarkhii 2 (2008).
26.
See M. Cherniavsky, Tsar and People: Studies in Russian Myths (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1961), 159–228.
27.
Ivan Kireevskii, “O kharaktere prosveshcheniia Evropy i ego otnoshenie k prosveshcheniia v Rossii,” in his Polnoe sobranie sochinenii (Moscow: A. I. Koshelev, 1861), vol. 1, 174–223.
28.
On Patriarch Kirill’s concept of Holy Rus’, see: Mikhail Suslov, “Holy Rus’: The Geopolitical Imagination in the Contemporary Russian Orthodox Church,” Russian Politics and Law 52:3 (2014): 67–86.
29.
Patriarch Kirill (Gundyaev), Vmeste ili vroz’? Patriarkh na Ukraine (Moscow, 2009); see also Mara Kozelsky, “Religion and the crisis in Ukraine,” International Journal for the Study of the Christian Church 14:3 (2014): 219–241; and Mikhail Suslov, “Holy Rus’: The Geopolitical Imagination in the Contemporary Russian Orthodox Church,” Russian Politics and Law 52:3 (2014): 67–86.
30.
Mikhail Il’in, “Problemy formirovaniia ostrova Rossii i kontury ego vnutrennei geopolitiki,” Vestnik Moskovskogo universiteta 12:1 (1995); Vadim Tsymburskii, “Ostrov Rossiia za sem’ let,” in Vadim Tsymburskii, Kon’iunktury Zemli i Vremeni: Geopoliticheskie i khronopoliticheskie intellektual’nye rassledovaniia (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo ‘Evropa’, 2011), 48–49.
31.
Iurii Alekseev, “Vezhlivost’ i nemnogo politiki,” NG-Religii (June 21, 2010), 2. Those rumors originated from the Kiev Patriarchate, which strove to raise public awareness of Kirill’s expansionist plans. The Patriarch himself has never explicitly corroborated them, but it is hard to disprove that those steps look quite consistent with Kirill’s project of “Holy Russia.”
32.
Not to be confused with today’s usage of the term, which basically implies centrifugal and irredentist entho-centrism.
33.
Andrei Desnitskii, “Russkii mir posle Slavianska,” [May 21, 2014], in Rossiia v global’noi politike. Accessed Apr. 9, 2015. http://globalaffairs.ru/ukraine_crysis/Russkii-mir-posle-Slavyanska-16652). Cf. Boris Falikov’s analysis of the “Doctrine of Russian Identity,” adopted at the All-Russian People’s Council in November 2014. B. Falikov, “Novye russkie osnovy” [Nov. 13, 2014]. Accessed Apr. 9, 2015. http://www.cultandart.ru/society/109131-boris_falikov_novye_russkie_osnovy.
34.
“Tserkov’ pomogaet bezhentsam s Ukrainy,” ZhMP 9 (2014), 54.
35.
“Obrashchenie … Patriarkha Kirilla…” ZhMP 7 (2014), 16; “Obrashcheniie Predstoiatelia … k P.A. Poroshenko,” ZhMP 6 (2014), 14; “Sviateishii Patriarkh Kirill voznes molitvu ob Ukraine,” ZhMP 5 (2014), 20.
36.
“Obrashchenie … Sviateishego Patriarcha Kirilla…,” ZhMP 3 (2014), 18.
37.
“Obrashchenie Sviateishego Patriarkha Kirilla k polnote Russkoi Pravoslavnoi Tserkvi v sviazi s sobytiiami na Ukraine” [Feb. 21, 2014]. Accessed Apr. 9, 2015. http://www.patriarchia.ru/db/print/3575247.html.
38.
“Patriarkh Kirill nazval Ukrainu ‘Organicheskoi chast’iu Sviatoi Rusi’” [Apr. 19, 2014]. Accessed Apr. 9, 2015. http://korrespondent.net/world/russia/3351961-patryarkh-kyryll-nazval-ukraynu-orhanycheskoi-chastui-sviatoi-rusy.
39.
“Glavnoe chudo Sergiia Radonezhskogo – on sam,” Expert.ru, July 21, 2014. Accessed Apr. 9, 2015. http://expert.ru/expert/2014/30/glavnoe-chudo-sergiya-radonezhskogo–on-sam/. Cf. “Bez Prepodobnogo Sergiia ne bylo by i Sviatoi Rusi,” [July 22, 2014] http://www.pravoslavie.ru/news/72409.htm.
40.
Andrei Novikov, “Russkaia pravoslavnaia tserkov’ etim liudiam kak kost’ v gorle,” [Nov. 11, 2014], http://www.stoletie.ru/slavyanskoe_pole/protoijerej_andrej_novikov_russkaja_pravoslavnaja_cerkov_etim_ludam_kak_kost_v_gorle_652.htm.
41.
Metropolitan Hilarion (Alfeyev), “Tserkov’ ne molchit,” ZhMP 8 (2014), 53; TV program “Tserkov i mir” on Rossia-24 channel, Apr. 8, 2014; TV program “Kommentarii nedeli” on Soiuz channel, Mar. 3, 2014.
42.
“Mitropolit Ilarion: Blizhnii Vostok i Ukraina – chasti odnoi strategii,” RIA Novosti, Aug. 5, 2014.
43.
Metropolitan Hilarion (Alfeev), “Dukhovnoe edinstvo navsegda sokhranitsia mezhdu rossiiskim i ukrainskim narodami” [Sep. 16, 2014]. Accessed Apr. 9, 2015. http://www.patriarchia.ru/db/text/3744471.html.
44.
“Obrashchenie Sviateishego Patriarkha Kirilla k Predstoiateliam Pomestnykh Pravoslavnykh Tserkvei v sviazi s situatsiei na Ukraine” [August 14, 2014]. Accessed Apr. 9, 2015. http://www.patriarchia.ru/db/text/3704024.html. In November 2014, Patriarch Kirill reported 50 UOC-MP churches ruined, 3 priests killed, more than 10 arrested and tortured, and many more expelled from the country. See: “Okolo 50 khramov RPTs unichtozheny ili povrezhdeny—patriarkh” [Nov. 14, 2014]. Accessed Apr. 9, 2015. http://ria.ru/religion/20141114/1033270063.html.
45.
This letter is dated Aug. 20 on the webpage of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church. See: “Priziv v zashchita na pravoslavnite khristiian v Iztochna Ukraina” [Aug. 20, 2014]. Accessed Apr. 9, 2015. http://www.bg-patriarshia.bg/news.php?id=148624. Shortly thereafter, this letter disappeared from the website of the ROC’s External Relations Department, but later it was re-posted: Ekaterina Shchetkina, “Patriarkh Kirill podlozhil svin’iu Kievskomu mitropolitu” [Aug. 15, 2014]. Accessed Apr. 9, 2015. http://risu.org.ua/article_print.php?_lang=ru&id=57377&name=society_digest, and “Sviateishii Patriarkh Kirill prizval predstoiatelei pomestnykh tserkvei vozvysit’ golos v zashchitu pravoslavnykh khristian vostoka Ukrainy” [Aug. 14, 2014]. Accessed Apr. 9, 2015. https://mospat.ru/ru/2014/08/14/news106782/ respectively.
46.
“Patriarkh Kirill: Ia ne veriu, chtoby na khram mog byt’ sluchaino sbroshen snariad” [Aug. 25, 2014]. Accessed Apr. 9, 2015. http://ruskline.ru/news_rl/2014/08/25/patriarh_kirill_ya_ne_veryu_chtoby_na_hram_mog_byt_sluchajno_sbroshen_snaryad/.
47.
Vsevolod Chaplin, “S khramami na Ukraine voiuiut iz nenavisti k kanonicheskoi tserkvi,” RIA.ru (Aug. 27, 2014). Accessed Apr. 9, 2015. http://ria.ru/religion/20140827/1021621456.html.
48.
See the statements of Archpriest Aleksandr Kuzin, Archpriest Sergii Rybakov and Fr. Filipp Il’iashenko of Aug. 29, 2014. Accessed Apr. 9, 2015. http://regions.ru/news/2526799/.
49.
“Patriarkh Kirill rasskazal rossiianam, chto takoe Russkii mir,” Vlasti.Net (Sep. 9, 2014); “Slovo pastyria,” Sep. 6, 2014. Accessed Apr. 9, 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QiIe_bwVp9U.
50.
“Patriarkh: Tragediia Ukrainy sviazana s poterei obshchego ponimaniia istorii,” Vsesmi.Ru (Nov. 11, 2014).
51.
“Rozhdestvenskoe interv’iu,” [Jan. 7, 2015]. Accessed Apr. 9, 2015: http://www.patriarchia.ru/db/text/3914070.html.
52.
Mikhail Suslov, “Proshloe i budushchee v istoricheskom voobrazhenii sovremennoi Russkoi pravoslavnoi tserkvi,” in Proshlyi vek, A. Miller, ed. (Moscow: INION, 2013): 133–157.
53.
Patriarch Kirill (Gundyaev), Propovedi 2009–2010 (Sergiev Posad: Izd-vo Sviato-Troitskoi Sergievoi Lavry, 2010).
54.
“Segodia net bole vazhnogo voprosa, chem mir na ukrainskoi zemle” [Feb. 17, 2015]. Accessed Apr. 9, 2015. http://www.patriarchia.ru/db/text/3996170.html.
55.
Patriarch Kirill (Gundyaev), “My vse dukhovno sviazany s ukrainskoi zemlei” [Dec. 23, 2014]. Accessed Apr. 9, 2015. http://www.patriarchia.ru/db/text/3888307.html.
56.
The bulk of the sources has been obtained through qualitative analysis of the blogs of priests, chosen by the snowball method. From August to November 2014, I closely read the blogs of some 50 Orthodox priests, about half of which contain explicit statements about Ukraine, while the other half, significantly, avoids this subject.
57.
The difference between “the sacred” and “the holy” is understood along the lines of the Durkheimian juxtaposition of “the sacred” and “the profane,” which precedes and undergirds the religious experience of “holiness.”
58.
Among those “dissenting” bloggers are Aleksandr Shramko (aka priestal) of the Belarus Exarchate, hieromonk Valentin Salomakha (aka kalakazo), anonymous prostopop (http://prostopop.livejournal.com, accessed Apr. 9, 2015).
59.
Pavel Shul’zhenko, ‘Pomolimsia za Novorossiiu’ [Feb. 13, 2015]. Accessed Apr. 9, 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whs3pU-PcFo#t=446.
60.
“Sviashchennik iz Staroi Russy na 11 let otluchil ot prichastiia vsekh podstrekatelei “bratoubiistvennoi” voiny v Ukraine” [Sep. 1, 2014]. Accessed Apr. 9, 2015. http://www.novayagazeta.ru/news/1686477.html.
61.
“V Peterburge sviashchennika, zanimavshegosia banderovskoi propagandoi s amvona, pereveli v monastyr’” [May 29, 2014]. Accessed Apr. 9, 2015. http://ruskline.ru/news_rl/2014/05/29/v_peterburge_svyawennika_zanimavshegosya_banderovskoj_propagandoj_s_amvona_pereveli_v_monastyr/. Recently Anatolii Artiukh, leader of the fundamentalist Narodyi Sobor – People’s Assembly and the aide of Vitalii Milonov, the member of the St.Petersburg Legislative Committee, threatened Fr.Nikolai with administrative prosecution and expulsion from Russia for anti-Kremlin statements on his account in vk.com.
62.
Georges Bataille, “The Psychological Structure of Fascism,” [1933] New German Critique 16 (1979): 64–87; Émile Durkheim, Elementary Forms of Religious Life [1912] (New York: Free Press, 1995).
63.
René Girard, La violence et le sacré (Paris: Grasset, 1972); Sergei Zenkin, Nebozhestvennoe sakral’noe (Moscow: Izd-vo RGGU, 2014).
64.
Iver Neumann, Russia and the Idea of Europe: A Study in Identity and International Relations (London: Routledge, 1996).
65.
Entries to igumen-nektariy’s blog on June 22 and July 7, 2014. Accessed Apr. 9, 2015: http://igumen-nektariy.livejournal.com/2014/07/07/; http://igumen-nektariy.livejournal.com/104325.html.
66.
Entry to otets_gennadiy’s blog on Sept. 12, 2014. Accessed Apr. 9, 2015: http://otets-gennadiy.livejournal.com/182890.html; entry to fra_konstantin’s blog on June 16, 2014: http://fra-konstantin.livejournal.com/31242.html#cutid1.
67.
Entry to pere-grin’s blog on Jan. 17, 2012. Accessed Apr. 9, 2015: http://pere-grin.livejournal.com/?skip=10 (sharing of the article by Igor’ Druz’ from http://ruskline.ru/analitika/2012/01/17/vatikan_kak_katalizator_globalizacii/). Cf. archpriest Maksim Volynets’s video clip on Youtube.com, in which he avers that Russian Orthodoxy represents the greatest threat to “the whole of the Western world … [to] Europe, America and Vatican.” (Accessed Apr. 9, 2015: “Predskazaniia startsev o voine na Ukraine,” [July 20, 2014]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmvPPZ9et_Y).
68.
Entry to fra_konstantin’s blog on June 20, 2014. Accessed Apr. 9, 2015: http://fra-konstantin.livejournal.com/2014/06/20/; entry on pere-grin’s blog on Jan. 17, 2012.
69.
Entry to seminarist-mp’s blog on May 3 and Sep. 4, 2014. Accessed Apr. 9, 2015: http://seminarist-mp.livejournal.com/78667.html; http://seminarist-mp.livejournal.com/80260.html.
70.
Entry on chudo-iva’s blog on Aug. 31, 2014. Accessed Apr. 9, 2015: http://chudo-iva.livejournal.com/786395.html.
71.
Girard, La violence et le sacré, 211–248.
72.
Entry to fra_konstantin’s blog on July 31, 2014. Accessed Apr. 9, 2015: http://fra-konstantin.livejournal.com/2014/07/31/.
73.
Entry to iereys’s blog on May 4, 2014. Accessed Apr. 9, 2015: http://iereys.livejournal.com/2014/05/04/.
74.
Entry to inokv’s blog on July 2, 2014. Accessed Apr. 9, 2015: http://inokv.livejournal.com/2014/07/02/.
75.
Cf. the blog entry on the blog on icon-painter Andrei Zharkov (aka agafangel-z) of Mar. 15, 2014. Accessed Apr. 9, 2015: http://agafangel-z.livejournal.com/9343.html.
76.
For example, “there will be a lot of blood (really a lot of blood) [in Ukraine]” (Entry to kalakazo’s blog on Apr. 30, 2014. Accessed Apr. 9, 2015: http://kalakazo.livejournal.com/2014/04/30/; or “[the Ukrainian people has been] cast into the bloody abyss … for tens and tens of generations to come.” (entry to priest Aleksii Agapov aka saag’s blog on May 7, 2014. Accessed Apr. 9, 2015: http://saag.livejournal.com/2014/05/07/).
77.
Entry to fra_konstantin’s blog on June 10, 2014. Accessed Apr. 9, 2015: http://fra-konstantin.livejournal.com/2014/06/10/.
78.
The Canons of the Council of Trullo [A.D. 692]. Accessed Apr. 9, 2015: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/trullo.asp.
79.
Entry to inokv’s blog on Nov. 5, 2014. His weblog has been recently deleted, the copy may be found here: http://www.liveinternet.ru/community/lj_inokv/blog/page4.html. Accessed Apr. 9, 2015.
80.
Entry to Pavel Shul’zhenok’s account in vk.com of Jan. 23, 2015. Accessed Apr. 9, 2015: http://vk.com/id2021378?w=wall2021378_12005.
81.
Entry to otets-gennadiy’s blog on Aug. 16, 2014. Accessed Apr. 9, 2015: http://otets-gennadiy.livejournal.com/2014/08/16/.
82.
On the ubiquity of geopolitical narratives in today’s Russia see: Mikhail Suslov, “‘Urania Is Older than Sister Clio’: Discursive Strategies in Contemporary Russian Textbooks on Geopolitics,” Ab Imperio 3 (2013), 351–387.
83.
Entry on igumen-nektariy’s blog on Mar. 10, 2014. Accessed Apr. 9, 2015: http://igumen-nektariy.livejournal.com/96361.html.
84.
Comment in saag’s weblog on May 7, 2014, 6:35 am. Accessed Apr. 9, 2015: http://saag.livejournal.com/236834.html?thread=2291490#t2291490. Cf. similar views in priest Stefan Domuschi’s blog on livejournal.com of Mar. 10, 2014. Accessed Apr. 9, 2015: http://d-stefan.livejournal.com/2014/03/10/.
85.
Entry on priest Andrei Spiridonov’s blog on Mar. 6, 2014. Accessed Apr. 9, 2015: http://iereys.livejournal.com/2014/03/06/. The parallel with Gogol’s Taras Bulba, whose son Andrii falls in love with a Polish beauty was occasionally explicated in Ortho-blogs as well.
86.
Cf. the video blog by archpriest Dimitrii Smirnov of Mar. 20, 2014. Accessed Apr. 9, 2015: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-I4WZ0wlHM; entry on hegumen Nektarii Morozov’s blog on Mar. 10, 2014: http://igumen-nektariy.livejournal.com/96361.html; entry on hieromonk Makarii Markish’s (aka p-m-makarios) blog on May 6, 2014. Accessed Apr. 9, 2015: http://p-m-makarios.livejournal.com/41392.html.
87.
For example, Fr. Feognost Pushkov (aka abbatus-mozdok) has an idiosyncratic vision of the Ukrainian crisis from the extreme-right viewpoint: he reproaches Russia for the involvement in the conflict, but he also sees the US as the Great Satan and the real cause of the Ukrainian crisis. See the entry to his blog on July 17, 2014. Accessed Apr. 9, 2015: http://abbatus-mozdok.livejournal.com/2014/07/17/.
88.
Entry on otets-gennadiy’s blog on Apr. 5, 2014. Accessed Apr. 9, 2015: http://otets-gennadiy.livejournal.com/2014/04/05/ (sharing of his radio broadcast of Mar. 18, 2014; entry on otets_gennadiy’s blog on Aug. 16, 2014. Accessed Apr. 9, 2015: http://otets-gennadiy.livejournal.com/180323.html. See also his radio airing on Mar. 18, 2014. Accessed Apr. 9, 2015: http://otets-gennadiy.livejournal.com/160905.html. Other entries. Accessed Apr. 9, 2015: http://agafangel-z.livejournal.com/8024.html.
89.
Ekaterina Mel’nikova, “Otchityvanie besnovatykh: Praktiki i diskursy,” Antropoligicheskii forum 4 (2006), 220–263; Aleksandr Panchenko, “Chuzhoi golos: Klikota i prorochestvo,” in his Khristovshchina i skopchestvo: Fol’klor i traditsionnaia kul’tura russkikh misticheskikh sekt (Moscow: OGI, 2002), 324–341.
90.
Feliz J. Oinas, “Heretics as Vampires and Demons in Russia,” The Slavic and East European Journal 22:4 (1978): 433–441.
91.
“Natsionalizm idet ot gordyni,” [Oct. 30, 2014]. Accessed Apr. 9, 2015: http://ria.ru/religion/20141030/1030824417.html.
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Their difference has been fruitfully explored in Eric Ringmar, “The Recognition Game: Soviet Russia Against the West,” Cooperation and Conflict 37:2 (2002): 115–136.

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UCRS Centrum för Rysslandsstudier, Uppsala, Sweden
Mikhail Suslov

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University of Sudbury, Sudbury, Ontario, Canada
Andrii Krawchuk
University of Münster, Münster, Germany
Thomas Bremer

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Suslov, M. (2016). The Russian Orthodox Church and the Crisis in Ukraine. In: Krawchuk, A., Bremer, T. (eds) Churches in the Ukrainian Crisis. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-34144-6_7

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-34144-6_7
Published: 08 February 2017
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
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