Last week, Metropolitan Sawa of Warsaw and All-Poland, invited Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople to come to Warsaw, wherein he stressed to Bartholomew the urgent need for a synaxis of the Orthodox Churches.
From the looks of the photos, it appears to be far from a triumph for the Phanariote delegation.
Now, this raises an interesting question. Specifically, why wasn’t Sergei Dumenko, Bartholomew’s hand-picked choice to be the “Metropolitan of Keev and All-Ukraine” there? He should have been front-and-center; after all, it’s his country that is under attack. And according to the Phanar’s grant of “autocephaly” to Ukraine, he is the primate of that country’s Church.
In fact, where has Dumenko been throughout this whole imbroglio? Unlike Zelensky, who’s been seen every day dining with soldiers, rallying the people, and addressing foreign parliaments, the “Metropolitan of Keev” is strangely absent from the scene.
In other words, the optics, as far as the so-called Orthodox Church of Ukraine is concerned, are bad. If I were advising them, I’d have Dumenko at some refugee camp in Poland handing out baskets of food and toiletries to the hordes of Ukrainian women and children. Maybe even putting a child or two on his lap. How about this: serving an open-air panikhida for his nation? It didn’t work for Resident Biden but hey, he gave it the old college try.
Instead, judging by the photos of this event, the entire diplomatic mission of the Phanar was nothing more than a perfunctory affair.
Leaving all that aside, because neither Dumenko nor Bartholomew were out front-and-center, we can safely assume that (1) the refugees are not part of Dumenko’s sect, (2) they don’t particularly like Dumenko (or are oblivious to him), and (3) Bartholomew recognizes this. If so, we can assume that Bartholomew’s plan to create an “autocephalous” Church for Ukraine has also come to naught.
It’s also possible that Bartholomew recognized that his meddling in Ukraine only exacerbated the tensions in the suffering country. He’s an intelligent man and a hallmark of such men is to know when to lay low. Especially when their plans come to naught.
It’s also possible that he sees that the great Globalist Crusade against Russia is not going the way the globalist cheerleaders thought it would. Mariupol has fallen and thanks to atrocities being perpetrated against Russian POWs coming to light, public opinion is starting to turn against the Ukronazis. The fact that Zelensky (who is Jewish), has not seen fit to denounce them continues to raise doubts about his bona fides among many of his supporters in the West. I guess these are the “good Nazis.” (Somebody please help me out with this.)
In case you didn’t know, the Ukrainian government has put a stop to foreign recruitment; this means that they are running out of ammunition. The stars are definitely not aligning for the Ukrainians in other ways as well: Zelensky recently fired two of his top generals, calling them traitors. Both of these men were in the intelligence services. (As for the US Army, recruitment has fallen to catastrophic levels. We can thank Emma and her two moms for that.)
As for the ruble, it has rebounded stunningly. Last month, the ruble was acknowledged to be the world’s “most durable currency.” As for the sanctions, rather than angering the Russian nation, driving them into the streets and hopefully toppling Putin, it has catapulted his approval ratings to stratospheric levels, allowing him to consolidate power.
As for the atrocity-porn put out by Kiev, most people believe them to be hoaxes right off the bat. We can thank four yours of Russia Collusion and two years of Faucism for that.
Does this mean that Dumenko will be kicked to the curb? Possibly. More likely, he’ll just melt into the woodwork.
As stated above, Sawa recognized that Orthodoxy has severe inter-ecclesial problems. In accepting his invitation, Bartholomew is now forced to recognize this as well. Problems that can’t be rectified by the Robber Council of Crete which he convened in 2016. Nor by his (now blessedly defunct) proposal to decide these issues by calling for a synaxis of the “ancient patriarchates + Cyprus.”
Now, that latter idea was ridiculous from the start. It was so transparent that ordinary people saw right through it. We can thank Patriarch John X of Antioch for jumping into the breach and telling Bartholomew “this shall not pass.” And we can thank Sawa for implicitly calling him out on it and in doing so, putting the final nail in the coffin of that hair-brained scheme. For that alone, we can be thankful.
It’s impossible to predict how this will all play out. We do know that the Rada is doing the Phanar’s dirty work in propping up Dumenko. According to Orthochristian, there are two bills pending which would ban the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church: https://orthochristian.com/145481.html
So much for “freedom of religion.”
Having said that, it’s unclear whether these odious bills will pass. If they do, they will open up a whole other can of worms, one which, given Metropolitan Onuphriy’s massive popularity, will anger great swaths of the Ukrainian populace. Their anger may be so heated that it will make the division of Ukraine inevitable. As for the rest of the Orthodox world, it will not sit well, given Onuphriy’s immense moral stature. All of this will be to the detriment of Bartholomew and his neo-papalist schemes.
At any rate, when all is said and done, we may be able to pinpoint the turning point in the war. In my humble opinion, that will be attributed to Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, who, in a powerful essay three weeks ago, openly called out the degenerate West for instigating this war and declared Moscow to be “the Third Rome.”
If so, and if Metropolitan Sawa’s wishes are heeded (that a true and open synaxis of Orthodox bishops is called), Vigano should be given a seat at the table (or at least a special mention). Certainly, Sawa and John should be accorded due honors. Perhaps this council should be held in Warsaw? It would be very hard for the Phanar to rig such a council (like they did in Crete).
One thing is for sure, it won’t be held in Istanbul. We can thank Erdogan –who is inching ever closer to Moscow–for that, as well. So, if I had to guess, we can safely assume that Bartholomew will not convene such a synaxis, regardless of venue. The last thing he wants to do is sit in a council surrounded by other primates who have suffered because of his arrogant machinations. He certainly doesn’t want to sit in the same room with Patriarch Kirill or Metropolitan Onuphriy.
As for Geoffrey Pyatt, the Deep-Stater who helped engineer the destruction of Ukraine in 2014, who is now the American ambassador to Athens, I imagine he is wondering how he can put Humpty Dumpty back together again. I can’t help but think that the West is also reassessing the utility of the Ecumenical Patriarchate for their schemes.
George, thanks for your thoughts on Bartholomew’s recent trek to Poland. I was wondering the same thing about fake metropolitan Dumenko…why is he laying so very low?! And, I wonder if Bartholomew has a last-ditch backup plan? Perhaps dragging out ‘Patriarch’ Philaret and using him, again? Lord have mercy!
Yeah, but Jews are God’s chosen people, so what does it matter? He’s basically a Christian.
We could call it the Warsaw Pact.
In many ways, the ball is in Metropolitan Onuphry’s court right now. Will he keep his status as a permanent member of the Russian Orthodox Church’s Holy Synod? There are currently fissures in the unity of the UOC-MP, as some of its bishops are calling for autocephaly and directing clergy to stop commemorating Patriarch Kyrill:
https://orthochristian.com/144768.html
The same Orthochristian.com article points out that a full Local Council of all the UOC-MP bishops, clergy, representative monastics and laity would need to be held to request autocephaly, according to their by-laws. That was, in fact, what happened in 1991 when the UOC-MP unanimously requested it. Unfortunately, with the current war going on in Ukraine, such a Local Council may not be logistically possible.
At any rate, Metropolitan Onuphry is being patient. Perhaps he is simply hoping that the war will end soon and hoping to avoid any rash decisions. At the same time, the longer this war drags on, the greater the temptation will be for making rash decisions. Indeed, there have already been some voluntary defections to the OCU after Russia invaded, and we probably haven’t seen the last of it.
My guess is that various Orthodox Primates, like Metropolitan Sawa of Poland, are waiting to take a cue from Metropolitan Onuphry before they do anything. Metropolitan Onuphry did condemn the war in an official statement and pleaded with Vladimir Putin to end it. Afterwards, we saw similar condemnations and pleas made, such as by the Holy Synod of Poland and even by the OCA’s Metropolitan Tikhon.
Of course it’s impossible to know what will happen, but there’s also the possibility that the ball could simply be taken away from Metropolitan Onuphry’s court if he waits too long to act.
You do realize, Joseph, you are doing precisely what His Eminence Metropolitan Luke of Zaporozhye recommended against:
“There are different traditions in the Church. In some Local Churches, the clergy commemorate only the ruling bishop, somewhere they commemorate the primates of the Churches together with him. The point is not that, but that right now, when we must all pray together for the speedy establishment of peace in our long-suffering homeland, some clergymen, succumbing to emotions and proud passion, sow division. Is today the right time to have discussions on social networks about this or that? Is this our first concern at such a terrible time? Any war is the work of the devil. For me, not only as a bishop, but also as an Orthodox person, the most terrible thing is that people who came out of the same font, whose mothers pray in the same Church, on whose breasts the same crosses hang, kill each other. Both of them read the same prayers before the battle and turn to the same God. The heart of the Mother of God is rent, seeing all this madness of Her children! I call upon and ask the clergy of the Zaporozhye diocese: Stop sowing confusion among our flock; do not follow the devil’s lead. Remember, you will have to answer for every word before God! Today, more than ever, you must live up to your vocation—to show the image of Christ in this world: to pity everyone, to show mercy to everyone, to show sacrificial love, and not to get carried away with political games.”
Gail, the orthochristian.com article that we’re both referencing is entitled, A Number of Ukrainian Dioceses Call for Question of Autocephaly to be Raised . Metropolitan Luke doesn’t seem to agree with this call for autocephaly, at least under the present circumstances. He points out that the present call for autocephaly is causing fissures within the UOC-MP, and… incidentally, that’s exactly what I’m saying too.
If the present calls for autocephaly are causing fissures, maybe it makes sense to drop it.
Everything seems to be going fine. Of course, war is hell. No getting around that. However, the notion that some synaxis can have some positive effect does not impress me. Though there may be another Amman type gathering sometime in the future to deal with the developing schism, that’s about all I see on the horizon as likely.
Frankly there’s nothing left to be done except for Bartholomew to proclaim a Unia. He’s dragging his feet, scheming to find new ways to deceive those presently undeluded into joining with him. But the rest of Orthodoxy is moving on without him.
And most of the rest of Orthodoxy is the ROC. I saw an article today about kicking the ROC out of the WCC. Please, take my wife! It would certainly be a step in the right direction. This is the Great Pivot East. Russia is simply tying off any wounds and cutting ties, rejecting the West in its entirety as hopelessly corrupt and decadent. This is a reversal of Russian policy dating back to Peter the Great and before. It has only been facilitated by the decadence of the West, its arrogance and the miraculous development in the East.
Eurasia is becoming an alternative civilization, or a collection of allied alternative civilizations (to be more precise). Europe is descending into economic stagnation and the US may well follow. What is happening in the Ukraine is simply a fault line of a much larger earthquake.
Per Samuel Huntington, the East Slavic Civilization, the Sinic Civilization, as well as the Indic Civilization, are all rising. Bartholomew and Co. have harnessed their wagon to a loser. Even given a Trump comeback, America will be looking increasingly inward and Europe will be left to its own devices. They are ideologically challenged and cannot handle the burden. So Bartholomew has lost his precious OCU and, in being tied, nay identified, with the American State Department, he has no gravitas with anyone that matters outside the West and its satellites. And even there he is a known agent of Foggy Bottom.
The West is collapsing in corruption and the Phanar will go down with the ship. The RCC is the “church of the west” and that’s where he and his minions belong.
Monk-martyr Nicon and 199 disciples, in Sicily
Dear George,
Please do not give the OCU any ideas how to improve their public image. They might just run with it and fool more people. Btw another interesting article keep up the fight!
I am deeply saddened and concerned that this war will further the enmity and divisions between many in that region. Regardless of the rightness or wrongness of the war itself.
On a side note is it not time to change the name of the blog? Your not alone with Gail at your side! : ))
Wishing you, and Gail and all your readers Καλή Σαρακοστή! A good and joyous lent!
Antoine
Thank you, Antoine! Glad to have you on board.
Maybe Metropolitan Epiphanius is and has been where he most appropriately belongs, with his people in Ukraine.
Leaving aside that fact, politesse demands that it should be he, the ostensible primate, who should be front & center. Not the eastern pope (Which we don’t have.)
The English historian David Starkey devotes his You Tube channel to talks on English history but lately he’s ventured into contemporary history. An example of this is the video attached below. I didn’t think so much of his views of Putin (which he persists in pronouncing “Pyutin} but this latest effort was fascinating because he has accurately seen the big picture. The picture he paints begins at about the the 11:30 mark. Putin has indeed won “the war of ideas”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FofS0aNQSnE