It seems that the Antioch Church is now looking into the issue of recognition of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine. Such suggestions are prompted by the latest statements coming from Russia.
On December 21, Dmitry Sablin, coordinator of the Russian State Duma’s group for cooperation with the Syrian parliament, conveyed alarming comment of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The latter is warning the Church of Antioch with possible splits while assuring that the scenarios that existed in Ukraine cannot be applied to it.
“Assad has said that the Antioch Church will remain united and will be strongly supported by the Syrian leadership,” Sablin told reporters on Tuesday following a meeting with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Interfax-Religion reported.
According to Sablin, Assad noted that just as it is being done in Ukraine, there are efforts to allegedly sow a split in the Antioch Orthodox Church.
Syrian President Assad paid tribute to Patriarch of Moscow Kirill and Patriarch John X of Antioch and All the East, noting their wisdom and concern for the fate of the Churches entrusted to them.
In turn, State Duma MP and President of the Interparliamentary Assembly of Orthodoxy Sergei Gavrilov thanked Assad “for maintaining Christian presence on Syrian soil.”
Such intimidation of the schism means the process has been launched of recognizing the OCU by the Patriarchate of Antioch. This has already been the case with the Cyprus and Hellenic Churches. The most striking example is the Patriarchate of Alexandria, where the ROC declared hundreds of priests who were claimed to shift to the ROC in case the OCU recognition was not called back. However, as observed, no one has flipped to the ROC.
This scenario of a schism is constantly applied by the Kremlin but it does not seem to be very effective, judging by past precedents. Nevertheless, for some reason, Moscow continues to play this game, although it yields no results for them. It seems that Russian church diplomacy has reached a stalemate.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is an ally of Vladimir Putin (allowing the latter to deploy Russian military bases in his country), and accordingly, he will do everything to be nice to the Russian Orthodox Church. Just as the recognition of the OCU will be a move against the ROC, Assad has already launched “warning shots” at the Patriarchate of Antioch to please his partners in Moscow.
In October, religious expert Oleksandr Yefremenko suggested that Moscow would try to convene another Amman meeting, involving the Patriarch of Antioch.
Later, it became known that the ROC found no support for Amman 2.0, even from the Patriarchate of Antioch.
The Church of Antioch convened a Synod, at which a declaration of Christian unity was issued, which may indicate the condemnation of the ROC, which unilaterally severed Eucharistic communication with the Churches that have recognized the OCU. The statement was published on the website on October 8 and turned out to be so significant that on October 15, 2021, the ROC press service announced that the Council of Bishops (initially set to be held in November 2021) was being postponed until May 2022 due to “coronavirus concerns.”
Amid these vicissitudes, on October 26, the Patriarch of Antioch even met with representatives of the ROC. We speculated that Moscow assets were trying to persuade Patriarch John at this meeting to support the Amman anti-canonical initiative.
Now that Assad has voiced these comments, it is becoming increasingly clear that the ROC diplomacy has failed. All this shows that the ROC can no longer enlist the support of the Patriarch of Antioch until May 2022, when they will hold the Council of Bishops, so they are now engaging Russia’s state apparatus and, through it, the Syrian government to put pressure on the Church of Antioch.
Therefore it’s quite possible that the year 2022 may bring the OCU another recognition, this time by one of the oldest Churches – the Church of Antioch. It ranks third in the Diptych after the Churches of Constantinople and Alexandria, which have already recognized the OCU.
It can’t be ruled out that in the Antioch Church there will be some who would fall for Russian money or perhaps stick to the agenda imposed by the Russian World promoters. In any case, Moscow will act by the same scenario as with all other churches that have recognized the OCU. That is, they will do their best to support the pro-Russian wing in the Church of Antioch, splitting the church in two. At the same time, statements of concern for the “unity of world Orthodoxy” will further be voiced by ROC hierarchs.
Author: religious columnist Ivan Petrushchak
