MEETING OF PATRIARCHS
BERIL DEDEOGLU

Turkish Press
7/8/2009

STAR- Fener Greek Patriarch Bartholomeos and new Russian Orthodox
Patriarch Kirill met in Istanbul last weekend. During his visit,
Kirill expressed pleasure at the meeting, indicating a new era in
which disagreements between the two churches will end. Many historical
factors have fuelled these disagreements between the Fener and Moscow
patriarchates in the Orthodox world. Although some have to do with
faith, most of them actually concern administrative problems and power
sharing. When states and their rivalries over regions of influence
are considered, we can better see the political dimensions of the
disagreements.

The simmering tension between the churches during the West’s Cold
War-era rivalry with the Soviets for influence in the Middle East
helped keep the Moscow-Athens-Nicosia line together on the Cyprus
issue, while the Istanbul church helped to block further Soviet
influence in the Middle East. In sum, these differing political
preferences alienated the two churches from each other, and the
rivalry intensified in the post-Soviet era, when the church in Russia
got new life.

The Fener Greek Patriarchate has usually expressed a balance with
the European Union and Western tendencies, whereas the Moscow
Patriarchate symbolized the former Soviet Union and Russian foreign
policy. These two churches – one representing the minority in its
region, and the other representing the majority – started to reflect
Eastern-Western conflicts in different ways, along the lines of the
latest disagreements over Georgia and particularly Ukraine.

The problem was about whether the Ukrainian Orthodox Church should be
attached to Fener or Moscow. Moscow said the former was unacceptable,
because it should never stray from Russia’s axis. Although the
Ukrainian Church chose to move away from Moscow, Fener has avoided
doing anything that might sow tension with the Russian Church and
Russia.

It seems Fener’s careful relationship with Moscow, coming at a time
of good Turkish-Russian relations, allowed the parties to reestablish
dialogue. This shows that religious leaders are able to see global
changes and possible new power balances, transformation processes
based on social transition, and possible risks.

It’s sad to see similar tendencies so pervasive among political
leaders. Iranian President Mohammad Ahmedinejad has been vexing his US
counterpart Barack Obama, and the French president has been doing the
same thing to Turkey. Obviously, leaders who take seriously the two
patriarchs’ stance that ‘we belong to the same world’ will strengthen
their hand in the emerging global balances, but others will lose their
positions. While the US forges ties with its old foes like Russia,
Argentina and Cuba, and Turkey does the same with Greece, Armenia and
Syria, countries which endanger their existing relationships might
one day find themselves as politically isolated as Iran, Israel,
or North Korea. The Russian Orthodox Patriarch might not have come
to Istanbul in vain.