In a small parish in northern Italy affiliated with the Russian Orthodox Church, believers, mostly Ukrainians who specialize in information technology, migrant workers, nurses and maintenance workers, decided to express their rejection in explicit support for the war in Ukraine expressed by Patriarch Cyril of Moscow.

The Patriarch of Moscow has repeatedly expressed his approval of the Russian Army.

For example, he presented a historic golden icon of the Virgin Mary to a high commander and described the war as a holy battle to protect Russia from situations he described as plagues of the West, such as gay pride parades.

He openly defended the president of Russia Vladimir Putinin return for which the Church has received extensively Sources of money.

“It became clear that the Moscow patriarchate was not engaged in theology, but its only interest was to support the ideology of the state,” said Archpriest Volodymyr Melnichuk of the Church of the Elevation of the Cross in Udine, Italy.

“In essence, the patriarch betrayed his Ukrainian congregation.”

So on March 31, the Ukrainian cleric wrote a letter in which broke the relationship with the Moscow Patriarchate.

Now that’s the eastern orthodox easter as of this Sunday, many similar tensions have spread to the Church’s more than 200 million believers, concentrated in Eastern and Southern Europe.

Around the world, the war is dividing national churches, parishes and even families as they examine their relationships with Patriarch Cyril and the Russian Orthodox Church.

In the United States, some believers have converted.

In France, the orthodox seminarians they asked their bishop to destroy relations with the patriarchate of Moscow.

Nasa Netherlands, police had to intervene at a church in Rotterdam when many parish members became angry over the war.

The war in Ukraine resulted in clashes between both fighters committed to the Moscow patriarchy and put the Ukrainian loyalists in a particularly unreliable position.

According to tradition, Orthodox worshipers pray for their patriarch at all services.

“How can you receive the prayer for the patriarch, if he will bless the soldiers who tried to kill your son?” asked Andreas Loudaros, editor of Orthodoxia.infowebsite with offices in Athens, Greece, covering church issues.

Doctrinal controversies and intrigues within the Eastern Orthodox Church typically last decades, or even centuries.

But at remarkable speed, the war expanded the divisions long hidden beneath the surface.

Unlike the Roman Catholic Church, which has a single undisputed leader, each of the 15 orthodox branches enjoys significant sovereignty.

Hot debate has erupted within the Eastern Orthodox Church in many countries about the possibility of openly relegating Patriarch Cyril and Russia.

The Moscow Patriarchate has attempted to designate itself as the true seat of the Orthodox Church since Constantinople, modern-day Istanbul, fell to the conquerors of Islam in 1453.

So Moscow has been in conflict for centuries with the ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople, who has always been the spiritual head of the Church.

The problem is that the difficult relationship between Cyril and the current Ecumenical Patriarch, Bartholomew, resulted in a clear conflict in the war.

“He shouldn’t get too acquainted with President Putin, and even said that Russia’s war against Ukraine is ‘sacred‘”The patriarch recently told a group of students.

“It has damaged the prestige of Orthodoxy as a whole, because the Orthodox Church does not support war, violence or terrorism,” Bartholomew said in an interview in Istanbul.

Ukraine has been a particular source of antagonism between the two leaders.

In 2019, Bartholomew granted freedom, called “autocephaly,” to a church that had previously been unauthorized in Ukraine and had been under Moscow’s control since 1686.

Later, the Russian Church severed ties with Bartholomew.

More than half of Ukrainian parishes rejected the decision and remained under jurisdiction of Moscow.

Of the 45 dioceses of Ukraine, consisting of nearly 20,000 parishes, approximately 22 have stop mentioning Patriarch Cyril during his prayers, reported Sergei Chapnin, a researcher on Russian religious issues and a frequent critic of the Church.

This was the first step towards secession from Moscow, although it was still not a formal rest.

Unfortunately, the controversy makes it difficult for many bishops of Ukraine to change their allegiances today.

Some faithful in Ukraine are questioning the silence of the bishops, and openly asking if they will be Putin’s supporters, will they bribed or extorted to keep quiet, or they would want to avoid trouble, in case Moscow won the war.

“The future of any church in Ukraine is not tied to Moscow unless it wins this war,” explains Christophe D’Aloisio, a visiting professor of Ecumenical Studies and Eastern Christianity at the University of Leuven in Belgium and an Orthodox priest. , to sign. , with more than 1300 Orthodox researchers and theologians, a declaration in March against the “Russian World” project.

“Unfortunately, this is a bad time to express yourself for or against.”

Patriarch Cyril of Moscow caused widespread outrage through a series of sermons and speeches, including saying the country was fighting the Antichrist, and urging Russians to support the government.

Cirilo avoided condemning the widespread documented attacks against ordinary citizens, many of whom were his patrons.

Most national churches did not condemn Cyril.

One possible reason comes from the website of the Foundation for the Support of Christian Heritage and Culture, which receives funding from Russian state nuclear power company Rosatom.

It features a list of church projects funded around the world in Bulgaria, Georgia, Poland, Serbia, and the United States, among others.

Some who received this help did not condemn the war.

“When you receive money in moscowit is not easy to express criticism, ”said D’Aloisio.

By all accounts, a serious division in the Church seems inevitable, but the course of the war will determine its depth and the scars it leaves.

On Palm Sunday, sitting in the atrium of an Orthodox church frequented by Ukrainians in Istanbul, Nadiia Kliuieva mentioned the horrific legacy of a conflict that Cyril sanctified, including the murder of children, rape of women and pain of Ukrainians for all. the world.

“I don’t know what kind of Ukrainian you have to be to maintain ties with the Moscow patriarchy,” he said.

“I think a lot of people opened their eyes.”

Neil MacFarquhar from Istanbul and Sophia Kishkovsky from Long Island, New York contributed.

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