Patriarch Kirill’s Polish tour
Last Sunday Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia ended a four-day visit to Poland. The main goal of this visit, which had been in preparation since 2009, was to sign, together with Metropolitan Jozef Michalik of Przemysl, a Joint Message to the Peoples of Poland and Russia. Yet some analysts are convinced that, paying this visit, the patriarch tried to assuage European concern over the Pussy Riot scandal and find allies against “the onslaught of spiritual impoverishment and secularism.”
“After World War II and the painful experience of atheism imposed on our nations, we are embarking today on the road of spiritual and material renewal,” the message to the Poles and Russians says. “The Russian and Polish nations are united by the experience of World War II and a period of repression generated by the totalitarian regimes. Guided by the atheistic ideology, these regimes struggled with all forms of religiosity and waged especially bitter struggle with Christianity and our Churches.” This rhetoric and change of priorities for the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) looks very interesting, for Kirill called last year the break-up of the Soviet Union the “collapse of historic Russia,” almost repeating Vladimir Putin’s notorious statement he made years ago.
With by far the most tragic history in Europe, Poland is known all over the world as a country where the Roman Catholic Church wields a great deal of clout. The Orthodox Church was granted autocephalous status as long ago as in the early 20th century, but the Polish government systematically forced the Orthodox population to convert to Catholicism. Suffice it to recall, for example, the notorious events of 1918 and 1938, when 400 Orthodox temples were handed over to the local authorities, only to be converted into Catholic churches, plundered, or even ruined altogether. According to Russia’s Nazavisimaya gazeta, the ROC seems to have very aptly chosen the time for rapprochement.
The media report that on the first day of the visit Kirill conducted a service and met Metropolian Savva at Warsaw’s Orthodox Cathedral. Later, the Moscow delegation had a brief meeting with the presidium of the Polish Episcopal Conference. On Saturday and Sunday, Kirill visited the Orthodox-populated north-eastern regions of Poland and Gora Grabarka, the center of Polish Orthodoxy. The patriarch also went to the town of Bialystok, which he had visited in 1988 as Archbishop of Smolensk and Kaliningrad.
Although the Patriarch of Moscow came to Poland on the invitation of the Polish Orthodox Autocephalous Church, it is noteworthy that he was received by the topmost statesmen – President Bronislaw Komorowski and the Senate speaker.
Well before the arrival of the ROC head, Gazeta Wyborcza, one of the most influential publications, reminded him of links with the KGB and the tobacco business that fetched him 4 billion dollars. Polish society met Kirill’s visit with mixed feelings. Many are inclined to view Kirill as a messenger of Putin and his visit as another show of Russia’s imperial ambitions. Besides, they also recalled the Smolensk air crash. “A part of society is convinced that Russia’s secret services are behind the plane crash, and so Moscow is deliberately delaying and confusing the investigation. And the visit of Patriarch Kirill is, in their opinion, another attempt to increase Russia’s influence on Poland, so he must not be allowed onto our land,” the BBC quotes journalist Zygmunt Dzieciolowski as saying.
By contrast, the other part of Polish society took quite a positive attitude to the goal of Moscow Patriarch’s visit. This is what Piotr Koscinski, deputy international affairs editor of the newspaper Rzeczpospolita, said: “The Catholic Church plays a very big role in Poland, even a more important one than the Orthodox Church does in Russia. So if the two churches work for Polish-Russian reconciliation, this will produce a good result.”
In the opinion of Myroslav Marynovych, political writer, religion researcher, Vice-Rector of the Ukrainian Catholic University, the very fact of the signing of a reconciliation agreement between the Polish and Russian churches is a “right step.” “I would like it to be the first in a series of next steps,” Marynovych told The Day. “Undoubtedly, also on the agenda is reconciliation with the Greek Catholic Church which has more than once extended a hand of peace to the Moscow Patriarchate, only to get silence or an arrogant message in reply.” Marynovych says he will only believe in the ROC’s sincerity in Poland when it makes the same offer of reconciliation and appeasement to all the other of its opponents.
It would so far be naive to say that Patriarch Kirill went to Poland to make peace. It is about politics rather than about reconciliation. For in Russia itself, scandals that involve the patriarch and the ROC are still rife. The less privileged clergy also supply fuel for scandals. For example, the Internet is awash with reports that a few days ago a posh foreign-made car driven by a drunken ROC priest hit to death two passers-by in Moscow and fled the place of accident.
During his trip, the patriarch was trying to keep away if not from these scandals then at least from politics. “In Russia, perhaps for the first time in the post-revolutionary history, the principle of separation between the church and the state is now being adhered to quite correctly. We do not interfere into one another’s affairs and highly value this autonomy,” the patriarch said in an interview with the Polish media… against the backdrop of the Pussy Riot trial. Experts and religion researchers have long been regarding the ROC as a serious foreign-policy player. “The ROC very steadily follows lead of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s policies and has even concluded a number of agreements with it to this effect,” Viktor Yelensky, president of the Ukrainian Association of Religious Freedom, told The Day. Besides, in his view, Kirill wants to go down in history as a person who has done some things for the first time, such as the first visit, as patriarch, to Poland, etc.
Also important, in Yelensky’s opinion, is the subtext of Kirill’s tour. The Moscow Patriarchate accuses the Roman Catholic Church of proselytism, i.e., establishment in the former Soviet Union of facilities to attract the new faithful. This creates a serious tension between the two churches. “Another problem is the Greek Catholic Church. The ROC cannot resign itself to the fact that it has lost Galicia, where most of the parishes either belong to the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church or have declared independence from Moscow,” Yelensky adds.
Myroslav Marynovych, too, thinks there is not a hint of reconciliation between the ROC and the Greek Catholic Church in Kirill’s visit. “Rather, it is just the contrary. It is a way to seek an ally in the struggle against the Greek Catholic Church. The Moscow Patriarchate’s anti-Ukrainian attitude and the idea of annexing Ukraine by building the ‘Russian World’ remain in force,” he said in conclusion.
