By ANDREW KORYBKO*
Kiev's plan to ban the Ukrainian Orthodox Church shows the insecurity that exists regarding its national identity
The Supreme Council of Ukraine (Rada) approved a law last week banning the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) until the middle of next year if it does not sever all ties with the Russian Orthodox Church. Kiev has accused the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of being under the control of the Russian Orthodox Church, despite the Ukrainian Orthodox Church having declared full autonomy from the Russian Orthodox Church in early 2022. Authorities envisage replacing the Ukrainian Orthodox Church with the Orthodox Church of Ukraine ( OCU), which was controversially recognized as independent by the Ecumenical Patriarchate in 2019.
Readers can learn more about this complicated subject in the in-depth article from RT last August about “The Last Crusade: How Conflict Between Russia and the West Fueled a Major Split in the Orthodox Christian Church”. However, enough for ordinary people to know is that the OCU is part of Western-backed efforts in post-2014 Ukraine to create an anti-Russian national identity, which includes restricting Russian language rights and arbitrary persecution of those who still speak it in public.
Vladimir Putin’s magnum opus of summer 2021 “About the historical unity of Russians and Ukrainians” is worth reading by those who would like to understand how Ukraine’s separate, though not originally radically anti-Russian, identity came about. Briefly, it was largely the result of the collapse of ancient Kievan Rus, after which its central area, now known as Ukraine, fell under Lithuanian and then Polish influence. Some Austrian, German imperial, Nazi and, currently, American influences also followed.
Over the centuries, linguistic differences developed between the autochthonous inhabitants of this part of the ancient state-civilization and its northeastern confines, from where the future Russian Empire emerged, which, combined with different historical experiences, formed a different Ukrainian identity. Instead of celebrating their closeness to Russia because of their common roots, the ultranationalists strove to exaggerate and even fabricate differences to form a “negative nationalism".
What is meant by this is that Ukrainian identity, both through the initiative of some local demagogues and, especially, as a result of the aforementioned foreign influences, has come to be defined by supposed differences in relation to Russia. This trend turned Ukraine and its citizens who adhered to this particular form of identity into geopolitical agents of foreign powers against Russia, with the associated process accelerating unprecedentedly with American support after “EuroMaidan”.
To be clear, Vladimir Putin is not against a separate Ukrainian identity in itself, as evidenced by what he wrote in his magnum opus on the subject: “Things change: countries and communities are no exception. It is clear that a part of a people, in the process of its development, influenced by a series of historical reasons and circumstances, can become aware of itself as a separate nation at a certain moment. How should we treat this? There is only one answer: with respect!”
However, he immediately added that this newly formed identity should not be used as a weapon against Russia, although, regrettably, this is what happened with Ukraine's. The most recent example of this is the law that was described at the beginning of this analysis about banning the UOC until the middle of next year under the false pretext that it is functioning as an extension of the Russian Orthodox Church in the country. The real reason, which the reader can now understand better after the preceding paragraphs, is Ukraine's insecurity.
Its leaders hate that a significant part of the population refuses to conform to the “negative nationalism” that they have aggressively imposed on them since 2014 with American support, continuing to attend the churches of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church instead of those of the OCU. Therefore, they suspect that their ideological mission has not been as successful as they publicly presented it to be and they fear that everything they have done in the last decade could be reversed if they lose power.
Basically, most Ukrainians do not believe in the obsession regarding their differences in identity with Russia, which does not necessarily mean that they are “pro-Russian” in a political sense, but they are also not ethnic Russophobes like the Azov Battalion. They may disapprove of the special operation and, at the same time, dislike his post-2014 regime. These so-called “moderates” do not want to fight for Ukraine against Russia, but they also do not want to engage in sabotage against their government.
Some may secretly wish that Russia would overthrow Zelensky, but they have also reconciled themselves to living under the rule of him and his successors if that does not happen. Their government considers them a threat precisely because they do not hate Russia, which authorities suspect is due to the Russian Orthodox Church's alleged influence of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which therefore indoctrinates them with “Kremlin propaganda.” The reality, however, is that these people arrived at their opinions autonomously.
However, Kiev is bent on destroying the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and then forcing citizens who attend its churches to go to the OCU, where they would be exposed to anti-Russian propaganda, in the hope that they will end up hating Russia. If this plan is not successful, Kiev will remain paranoid about the possibility of these “moderates” one day becoming radicalized, due to the regime's forced recruitment policy, deteriorating economic conditions and “Kremlin propaganda”, and rebelling.
What Volodymyr Zelensky and his clique can never accept is that these “moderates” embrace the original Ukrainian identity, which considers itself separate from Russia, but nevertheless friendly to it, while their regime defends the armed version that was artificially manufactured under influences demagogic and foreign. The very fact that the Ukrainian Orthodox Church remains the largest church in the country, despite everything Kiev has done in the last decade, proves the true popularity of the “moderate” version compared to the radical one.
*Andrew Korybko holds a master's degree in International Relations from the Moscow State Institute of International Relations. Book author Hybrid Wars: From Color Revolutions to Coups (popular expression). [https://amzn.to/46lAD1d]
Translation: Fernando Lima das Neves.
the earth is round there is thanks to our readers and supporters.
Help us keep this idea going.
CONTRIBUTE
