Moscow Church Faces New and Greater Threat in Lithuania, Belarus and Russia Itself

Moscow Church Faces New and Greater Threat in Lithuania, Belarus and Russia Itself

Publication: Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 20 Issue: 61

By: Paul Goble - April 13, 2023

The Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church, with Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin behind it, now faces a far more serious threat to Russia’s position in the post-Soviet space and the Christian Orthodox world than even that posed by the achievement of autocephaly for the Orthodox Church of Ukraine. That threat, based on the possible restoration of the medieval map of Orthodox church organization that Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew I is promoting, directly challenges Moscow’s pretensions of directing religious life not only in Ukraine but also in Belarus, the last majority Orthodox country outside of Russia. The Kremlin’s position will even be challenged in those portions of Russia that were subordinate in religious terms to Kyiv and Constantinople rather than Moscow until the 17th century. Lithuanian leaders, the Ukrainian diaspora in Lithuania and Belarus, as well as Belarusian religious activists and opposition politicians are enthusiastic about Bartholomew’s ideas, at least in part because they question the religious component of Putin’s much-ballyhooed “Russian world” (Russkiy mir) concept (Belsat.eu, September 10, 2019).

Following Bartholomew’s visit to Vilnius last month, Lithuanian officials expressed confidence that Constantinople will soon establish an exarchate there to support those Orthodox members who want to break with Moscow. That would create a situation in which Lithuania, similar to Estonia, would have both a national Orthodox church and a Russian one. Perhaps even more consequential, Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonytė says that this move would cement ties between her country and Ukraine and help restore historical justice in her country. Until the 17th century, Lithuania’s Orthodox community was part of the Metropolitanate of Kyiv; then, the Moscow Patriarchate, “in the best imperial traditions,” took direct control of both (Nezavisimaya gazeta, April 4). The ecumenical patriarch’s ideas would reverse that, effectively ending Russian dominance of Orthodox life in Lithuania and calling into question the current affiliations in neighboring Belarus and in parts of what is now the Russian Federation that earlier were part of the combined Lithuanian-Belarusian state.

At least initially, the impact of this shift inside Lithuania itself would be relatively small given that its population is overwhelmingly Roman Catholic and the Orthodox church there is small. Additionally, only five priests and no bishops from the Moscow church have signaled that they will subordinate themselves to the Lithuanian Orthodox Church. Nevertheless, it will certainly have larger consequences for Vilnius’ relationship with Ukraine and for the more than 70,000 Ukrainian refugees now in Lithuania as a result of Putin’s war against Ukraine who want nothing to do with a Moscow church that backs the Kremlin leader’s invasion. And it may very well have far larger consequences in Belarus and possibly in the western regions of what is now the Russian Federation.

Since the Orthodox Church of Ukraine gained autocephaly, Moscow church spokesmen have regularly expressed three fears about Christian Orthodoxy in Belarus: that the Orthodox church in Belarus may follow the Ukrainian example and gain autocephaly under Minsk’s control; that the faithful in Belarus may leave the church entirely and join the Roman Catholics, thus becoming an outpost of the West; or that it may dissolve with priests and laity deserting the Moscow church and Minsk’s control all at once. The first two fears have now been eclipsed by the third due to what is happening in Lithuania. That could prove a fatal threat to the Russian Orthodox component of Putin’s “Russian world” concept (Nezavisimaya gazeta, August 25, 2020; see EDM, August 12, 2021, December 8, 2022)

Moscow commentators are already worrying about these dangers. Russia’s “Christian Vision” Telegram channel says that Constantinople’s involvement in Lithuania is important not only for that country but also for Belarusians and Orthodoxy elsewhere because it will allow the faithful to follow their consciences and their church to develop naturally rather than on orders from abroad (Ahilla.ru, March 23). And in confirmation of that general hope has come the acceptance of two Belarusian priests, Georgy Roy and Aleksandr Kukhta, who have been forced to flee their country, going to Lithuania and having now been taken under the wing of Bartholomew I (Ahilla.ru, April 6). While only two Belarusian priests have completed this move so far, they form the nucleus of a Belarusian Orthodox Church that would be independent of Moscow and loyal to Constantinople.

According to a second Moscow commentator, Bartholomew’s ideological moves leave Moscow Patriarch Kirill in a position similar to Mikhail Gorbachev during the parade of sovereignties at the end of Soviet times: “He formally rules but already has little influence” (The Moscow Times, March 23). And the editors of Moscow’s Nezavisimaya gazeta are, if anything, even more alarmist: They argue in a lead article that what Constantinople is doing could end not only with Moscow losing control over all Orthodox churches in the former Soviet republics but also in losing control over the churches in Russia itself (Nezavisimaya gazeta, March 22). That could happen, the editors suggest, if the Constantinople church in Lithuania promotes the restoration of Lithuanian Rus, which was subordinate to Constantinople and controlled much of Orthodoxy in what is now Russia up through the 16th century.

In such a scenario, the Moscow Patriarchate could find itself isolated both in its own country and in the wider Orthodox world, with Russia entering a period in which other faiths would grow at the expense of Orthodoxy. Furthermore, the outbreak of a new great schism in Eastern Orthodoxy is becoming more likely, this time between the Greeks and the Russians, with the Greeks, through Bartholomew I, controlling far more of the eastern church than the Russians and making Constantinople, not Moscow, the center of global Orthodoxy. The failure of the Moscow Patriarchate to respond forcefully to what is transpiring and the fact that the Orthodox world today, as well as the geopolitical world, have been upended by Putin’s invasion of Ukraine demonstrate that the old rules no longer apply and that new ones have yet to be established. At the very least, pressure for autocephaly in Belarus will increase, forcing President Alyaksandr Lukashenka to tack between an autocephaly he controls and one that Moscow does—no easy task as recent history has shown and one that may collapse in disastrous ways (Novayagazeta.ru, August 15, 2020; Window on Eurasia, June 11, 2021).

 Moscow Church Faces New and Greater Threat in Lithuania, Belarus and Russia Itself - Jamestown

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Progressive Democrat brings pitch to rural America

BY HANNA TRUDO -  - 04/22/23

DES MOINES, Iowa — Democrats have watched in dismay as voters in rural and old industrial strongholds say they want more of what the Republican Party is offering, resisting the establishment’s approach to win them back and raising questions about their party’s strategy. 

One progressive — a suited-up, camera-ready U.S. congressman from California — is determined to try a different approach to pique their interest.

Seated in a dimly lit hotel conference room in Des Moines, far from his hub in Silicon Valley and Washington, D.C., work base, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) believes there’s something Democrats get wrong about voters around here. 

“One of the things that is a stereotype in my view against rural Americans is this view somehow that they don’t understand what’s happening in the world,” Khanna told The Hill. “They get it. They understand what’s changing the economy. They understand we’re in an economy where technology really matters.”

There is a ton of demand for new kinds of jobs, and residents are dying to innovate. They want the education, training and skills that come from industries of the future, and they want to be compensated accordingly. They aren’t afraid of Big Tech. If Democrats can offer that, he believes voters will listen and the party will be rewarded at the ballot box. 

“In my district, when there’s a town hall, 80 percent of hands go up saying they’re optimistic about America. That’s not the case in many other communities,” Khanna said. “You know what they resent? That their kids don’t have the opportunity that the kids in my district do.”

Khanna’s been on a mission beyond the Beltway to change that. Elected in the district where tech giants dominate, the liberal House member sees his position, both geographically and politically, as unique. He’s a progressive who likes to use that label. But unlike some of his contemporaries on the left, he’s not crusading against the tech sector. He rather sees the industry as a key piece to restoring some of America’s most prized places to their original luster.

“If we bring economic opportunity, if we have a renewal of American production, if we make America a manufacturing superpower again, which we can with technology,” he said, “then we can start to bring this country together in ways that have fractured it.”

It’s an ambitious pitch. In places like Des Moines, politicians from both sides of the aisle fly in and out each presidential cycle, shaking hands and retailing with residents, but they don’t stay long. Khanna wants to leave a different kind of imprint — one that requires a strong presence from his district’s biggest strength. 

He’s not running for president this cycle and is supporting President Biden’s anticipated bid for re-election in 2024. Some locals wonder why a Democrat like him would even come here after the caucus is no longer expected to be the first voting state on the calendar.

Driving downtown, one Iowa resident remarked that he used to be a Democrat, but that the party left him, rather than the other way around. Democrats have struggled to pull those types of voters away from the GOP.  

“It’s sad to me that we’ve let Donald Trump take the manufacturing message when we have the real substance,” Khanna said.

Here and in places like Pennsylvania, where Khanna also recently visited as part of a multi-state tour, he hopes to connect with communities daring to ask for something they say the party’s not delivering.

It’s clear that a sizable group of people want something new. The state went for both Trump in 2020 and voted for Kim Reynolds, a Republican, for governor this November, cementing a trend that had been forming for years. 

“To some extent, Trump speaking about the loss of manufacturing jobs is what resonated in parts of the industrial midwest and the south,” Khanna said. “But what we need to say is: He had four years.”

Democrats, for their part, have focused heavily on social and cultural issues. The results have been up and down. They lost seats in some traditionally blue places like New York during the midterms, but also made headway in battlegrounds like Wisconsin over the issue of abortion, which has galvanized their base.  

“We’ve got to stop talking like technocrats, academics, social justice warriors or bland bureaucrats,” said Anthony Flaccavento, a rural development expert and author of “The Rural Progressive Platform.”

Democrats need to “start showing up much more than we have for the past few decades,” Flaccavento said, who lives in an Appalachian area of Virginia.

“That means year-round engagement, particularly doing helpful stuff in local rural communities,” he said. “Consistently showing up as good neighbors to solve local problems will help us rebuild trust, which is essential.”

Some Democrats are urging members of their party to emphasize more tangible things like showing ways to create generational wealth and building a strong financial future. They believe that with an economic message like that, voters can be persuaded to think differently about the party in power. 

That’s the hope for MD Isley, an educator who caucuses regularly for Democrats but sees holes in the party’s approach. Last primary, he was inspired by Pete Buttigieg, the former South Bend mayor who now serves as Transportation secretary, as a possible new direction for Democrats, but admits to being freshly inspired by Khanna’s progressive ideas.  

“It’s not just because he’s here with us today,” said Isley. “Democrats should be paying direct attention to the work Congressman Khanna is doing.”

“Rural Iowa is unique and valuable and core to our history of the state and the midwest. Metro areas within Iowa are also key, very important economic drivers,” he said.

Despite the obvious electoral ramifications, national Democrats are often puzzled by their party’s inability to bring more voters from rural and former manufacturing towns over to their side. Some critique flaws within their platform, arguing they need to offer voters more social safety net programs, health care, affordable housing, education and the like.  

Democrats “do not understand rural areas and buy into the argument that rural is hopeless, a downward spiral of dysfunction fueled by bigotry, xenophobia and outmoded thinking. This characterization is false, and it has helped Dems feel justified in either ignoring or denigrating rural people and places,” said Flaccavento. 

“Some of the most innovative new economic, civic, cultural and media strategies in the country are emerging in small towns and rural communities, but most Dems know nothing of it,” he added. 

Khanna’s alignment with the tech sector distinguishes him from progressives like Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who has been critical of the industry’s influence. While Khanna is clear-eyed about areas for improvement, such as privacy and data protection, he believes it offers the party opportunities as well. 

A glimpse into that vision for Democrats was recently on display, when several dozen young people engaged in a discussion around a new tech development and career training program. 

The initiative, dubbed the Techwise program in partnership with TalentSprint Inc., combines the hiring power of Google with students at Des Moines Area Community College and other community colleges in areas with less of a natural link to the tech world. It’s intended to propel students into specific early tech careers like software engineering after just 18 months.  

“This is a big step for us, we can be the first ones in our family to do this,” said Ryan, a 20-year-old student from Ankeny, one of many students participating across several schools nationally. 

Ryan, like other students here, wants a sustainable path toward economic prosperity. A political independent, he said he looks for growth messages when vetting candidates. “I want to feel secure in my future financially,” he said, adding that he hopes to hear new ideas that “would help me and hopefully my future family come up in the world, economically.”

He wants Democrats to focus on “more local communities. More people like me,” he said. 

Another student, 19-year-old Adam, a Republican, said he hopes the hiring discussion for jobs for the future goes beyond the bigger states like California and metropolitan centers. 

“There’s talent everywhere in the world,” he said. “You just have to go find it.”

As the next presidential cycle ramps up and Democrats start fine-tuning their strategy, Republicans are eager to grab votes from the margins. They see messages around identity and culture wars as ways to attack the other side.

Khanna, along with other outspoken progressives in the House, also believes Democrats need to look beyond social issues. 

While he’s reluctant to pitch himself as the right messenger — or even the right person to give Biden a nudge on election strategy — others are increasingly looking to him.  

“Rep. Khanna, I hope, will highlight many of these innovative businesses and strategies,” Flaccavento said.

At 46, Khanna’s a lot younger than members of his party’s leadership. Biden is 80 and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), for whom Khanna served as a campaign co-chair in 2020, is 81. He’s also Indian American. 

Like Sanders, he’s not afraid to go where other Democrats have sometimes skipped over. Sanders won parts of the midwest against Hillary Clinton in 2016 — including nearly beating her in the Iowa caucus and pulling off a meteoric win in Michigan — by outlining a populist economic agenda that was previously more muted within the party. Khanna, too, believes it’s not enough to reach just Democrats, but rather to expand to other electorates searching for new kinds of jobs and chances to be forward-looking about their work.  

“People say, how can you be a Bernie Sanders co-chair and go on Fox [News] and have people listen to you?” he said. “It’s because I don’t go on there and just hurl insults.”

Where Sanders had economic populism and Trump had “America First,” Khanna has coined “a new economic patriotism,” a merging of the sort of upward mobility people strive for and the values that drive their lives at home.

And it’s not just the industrial midwest that many believe needs Democrats’ attention. Just hours after sitting down for a bowl of cajun gumbo at Bubba, a southern style restaurant downtown, Khanna and a close adviser were off to South Carolina, another hotspot for Democrats that is often lost to Republicans in general elections. 

Khanna fundamentally believes he has the right prescription for the moment. It’s not a midwestern thing or a southern thing, but rather a transferring of values that have somehow gotten lost in the mix.

“The Democratic Party has to speak loudly, boldly, clearly about that,” he said, listing off core values like making sure people have the right to vote and women have autonomy over their bodies and healthcare decisions, and that the judicial process is fair.  

“In addition to that,” he stressed, “we need to have a second sentence.”

“What are we going to do for folks to bring economic opportunity? What are we going to do to bring manufacturing back? What are we going to do to bring the technology and prosperity in my district to places that have been left behind?” he pressed. 

Next month, Khanna heads to New Hampshire, where top party officials know him as a regular. 

“Why I want President Biden to succeed is because that makes a progressive movement more possible,” he said. “And I do think that we’re going to see for the next 20 years, after Biden, progressive nominees of the party.”

Progressive Democrat brings pitch to rural America | The Hill

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The Hill.

Majorities don’t want Biden, Trump to run in 2024: survey

BY JULIA MUELLER - 04/23/23

Most Americans in a new poll don’t want former President Trump to run for the White House in 2024, and a majority doesn’t want President Biden to run for reelection, either, as he prepares for an expected campaign launch that could come as early as this week.

A new NBC News poll found that 60 percent of Americans think Trump shouldn’t try to retake the Oval Office — including roughly a third of Republicans. Thirty percent of those who think he shouldn’t campaign in 2024 cite the criminal charges he faces in New York as a “major” reason.

At the same time, 70 percent of Americans think Biden shouldn’t seek a second term — including 51 percent of Democrats. Forty-eight percent of those who said he shouldn’t run again cited his age as a “major” reason. 

The latest results are in line with other polls indicating low enthusiasm for either Trump or Biden as they ready for what could be a 2020 rematch. Trump launched his campaign back in November, just after the midterms, and Biden is expected to enter the race soon. 

A Yahoo News/YouGov poll found a 38 percent plurality of respondents reported they felt “exhaustion” over the idea of a Biden-Trump presidential race rematch. 

In the NBC News poll, Trump still comes in on top of a hypothetical GOP primary field, though, 15 percentage points ahead of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis — who hasn’t yet launched a bid — as Republican primary voters’ first choice. 

And 41 percent of registered voters overall said they’d definitely or probably vote for Biden in the general election if he does run, including 88 percent of Democratic voters.

Conducted April 14-18, the NBC News poll surveyed 1,000 US. adults and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

Majorities don’t want Biden, Trump to run in 2024: survey | The Hill

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