When the patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church consecrated the first stone of what is planned to be a towering green-and-gold cathedral outside Moscow last fall, Vladimir Putin and his defense minister were front and center for the ceremony. The Russian president even pledged some of his own money to fund the cathedral’s centerpiece icon.
The ceremony for a cathedral being built to honor Russia’s military was a potent public demonstration of the newly tightened bond between church and state in a country that was officially atheist for decades under the Soviets. Putin’s alliance with the church is central to his efforts to represent a regional bulwark against the West and to help keep the largely Orthodox former Soviet republics — especially Ukraine — under his wing.
But since that ceremony, the spiritual leader of the global Eastern Orthodox Church has dealt a blow to Putin’s prospects in Ukraine — and plunged both countries and the church itself into a contest for the loyalties of many Ukrainians. In January, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I handed Ukraine its own church. That move ended centuries of Russian ecclesiastical authority over Ukraine, and it also gave support to Ukraine’s efforts to limit Moscow’s influence on its citizens.
Russia has denounced the Eastern Orthodox spiritual leader as a U.S. puppet.
Since then, Russia has suspended communion with the church of the 79-year-old Bartholomew, accusing him of overstepping his authority and denouncing him as a U.S. puppet. Putin has said that Bartholomew was duped into the move, motivated by money and “prompting from Washington.” A top Russian Orthodox bishop accused Bartholomew of having been paid $25 million for his pro-Ukraine decision, citing unsubstantiated claims in the state-dominated Russian media. For their part, Bartholomew and his advisers say that Russia is using Soviet-style dark arts against him, including disinformation, and has tried to hack church emails.
An expanded version of this report appears at WSJ.com.
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