I haven't commented on the Orthodox Schism in quite a while, in part because the pandemic acted to an extent as a "pause button" on that as on other conflicts. That has more than changed now, however, as in the last few months unprecedented steps have been taken that seem poised to solidify, for the foreseeable future, a permanent separation between two sets of antagonistic global Orthodox Churches.
These developments can be put into roughly two categories: (1) the solidifying of permanent schism between the UOC and ROC in Ukraine and (2) antagonistic moves of Moscow against other Orthodox Churches.
(1) is arguably less significant in global ecclesiastical terms, but very tangible in its effect on the many churches and believers involved. The hope of the Patriarch of Constantinople was that by granting Ukraine autocephaly, the long-standing schism between the "canonical" Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine and the various "autocephalous" bodies in communion with no one but themselves would be resolved by the merging of all bodies into a single united Ukrainian Orthodox Church. Early signs for this were very good, as the "Kyiv Patriarchate" and UAOC were dissolved and merged with the new body and numerous parishes elected to join the new UOC. This movement was aided also by the vocal support of then-President Poroshenko.
However, from the very beginning most of the bishops of the former ROC in Ukraine refused to go along. Despite this, the ROC in Ukraine suffered significant losses, such that some observers predicted their total or effective dissolution within a few years. To put it mildly, that has not happened.
With the defeat of Poroshenko at the polls and the election of a President whose policy aims at relative conciliation with Russia, the UOC lost the bulk of their legal and political support. The ROC in Ukraine, meanwhile, led by the energetic Metropolitan Onufriy, has fought back with not only vigorous theological denunciations of the UOC as a schismatic body lacking true baptism but also a legal, media, and publicity campaign emphasizing their alleged persecuted status and including mass protests against the visiting Patriarch of Constantinople. At the same time, a truly massive wave of funding from Russia has enabled an unprecedented building campaign in which the ROC has sought to rapidly replace all the parishes lost to the UOC. Thus, many many villages and towns that as of two years ago had only one parish church now possess two: a UOC parish and a newly-built ROC parish.
Lying behind this religious conflict are the same underlying ethnic and political conflicts present in many aspects of Ukrainian life today: the divide between ethnic Russian-speakers and Ukrainian-speakers, the divide between Eastern and Western Ukraine (where the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church looms large), the divide between Ukrainian nationalists and supporters of Russian imperialism and a vast middle of Ukrainians of various languages with varying degrees of hatred and love for Russia and attachment to their ecclesiastical leaders but also a highly understandable desire to avoid antagonizing whoever ends up controlling their country, which has been fought over and partitioned by various Empires for roughly the past five hundred years.
In this sense, there can be little question that Constantinople's plan has failed--though whether and to what degree that should be blamed on Constantinople itself, the Ukrainians, or active obstruction from Russia, is a question that will be debated for a very long time.
(2) is related to the situation in Ukraine, but more indirectly. The fundamental question about the new UOC was what degree of recognition they would be granted by the other independent Orthodox Churches of the world. The more successful the UOC, the more overwhelming the pressure to recognize them and deal with them. The less successful the UOC, the easier to ignore or even actively condemn them.
Half of Moscow's strategy, then, has been to prevent the UOC from succeeding. The other half has been to apply extreme, aggressive measures against any Orthodox Church found publicly recognizing the UOC.
Moscow responded to Constantinople's recognition by breaking communion with them and publicly denouncing them; it then did precisely the same thing with the other Orthodox Churches to follow Constantinople in formally recognizing the UOC.
This basic strategy has been reasonably effective, as an early wave of support has given way in the case of the majority of Orthodox Churches to a tense silence. This has not prevented, however, any number of informal contacts, sharings of communion, and so forth between many Orthodox Churches and the UOC, particularly as time has passed and their position has solidified. As I said at the beginning of these events, the most desirable path for most Orthodox Churches in this conflict as in others has been simply to keep their heads down, avoid taking sides, and remain in communion with all parties. This is, in essence, how almost all conflicts within Orthodoxy have been dealt with since the Fall of Constantinople.
Moscow, however, has been from the beginning of the present crisis the innovator of a radically different model of ecclesiastical conflict that has pushed things much farther than ever before.
One further step taken in recent years has been various attempts to call large gatherings of Orthodox primates aimed at achieving some kind of formal synodical condemnation of the UOC and/or of Constantinople. This has been almost comically unsuccessful, as essentially all major Orthodox Churches other than the marginal bodies affiliated with Moscow have refused to go along with these efforts, first by refusing to show up to initiatory meetings aimed at a "pan-Orthodox synod" called by the Patriarch of Jerusalem, and more recently by refusing to participate in another, smaller synodal meeting where it was rumored the Patriarch of Constantinople would be condemned.
There are signs, however, that Moscow is rapidly reaching a point where they will go through, with or without support from other Churches, with some kind of formal, synodical condemnation of the Patriarch of Constantinople and/or his allies as heretics and schismatics. If this move takes place, as is rumored, in May, it would likely herald a stricter and more explicit separation from the Orthodox Churches still in communion with Constantinople.
The second, and arguably more determinative move that Moscow has taken has been to actively instigate schism in those Orthodox Churches that oppose them. Those few Churches that have recognized the UOC have been met, not only with breaking off of communion, but also by active measures aimed at "dividing and conquering." This initially took the form of general offers to remain and further communion with those bishops and priests who would refuse to go along with their Primates' and synods' and Churches' recognitions of the UOC.
In the last few weeks, however, it has taken a much more overt and permanent form: the forming of an active Moscow-affiliated "counter-Church" out of the ranks of the Greek Patriarchate of Alexandria. After actively canvassing for support, Moscow accepted hundreds of priests who had broken communion and obedience with their own bishops and primates, and formed out of them a totally new, pan-African Church body directly subordinate to Moscow and headed by a Moscow curial official who had formerly served as ROC bishop in Armenia and "nuncio" to Alexandria.
It's hard to overstate how unprecedented and game-changing this move is: Moscow has directly signaled to all other Orthodox Churches that any Church opposing them will be, not just cut off from their communion, but actively divided and permanently "replaced."
These moves have been accompanied by remarkable theological, ecclesiastical, and ideological explanations emanating from Moscow. In his explanatory comments accompanying the move, Metropolitan Hilarion declared that by accepting faithful from the Patriarchate of Alexandria, the ROC was offering them the ability "to be in communion with a canonical Orthodox Church and to receive Holy Communion and other Sacraments from canonical priests." In other words, in the eyes of the ROC any Orthodox Church that recognizes and enters into communion with the UOC ipso fact becomes "uncanonical," and hence schismatic, and hence in immediate need of being superseded by newly-created ecclesiastical structures of Moscow's design.
On a broader theological level, appeals to principles of Church order and unity and hoary myths about "the pentarchy" have been replaced by appeals to the Great Schism and denials that ecclesiastical communion is of any great importance or that any particular Church has any particular permanent place within Orthodoxy. In recent talks, Metropolitan Hilarion has referred to the Patriarch of Moscow, in tandem with the Pope, as simply the leader of one of the two largest bodies of Christian believers in the world: the Russian Orthodox Church.
So far as Moscow is concerned, the Patriarchate of Alexandria and Patriarchate of Constantinople, two of the most important and oldest sees in Orthodoxy, simply no longer exist; and any Orthodox Church found joining them will go the same way.
At the moment, these tactics have only been applied to those Churches who have formally recognized the UOC. Then, too, the Greek Patriarchate of Alexandria, despite its descent from one of the three original Apostolic Sees of the Church, has always been a weak and marginal presence within Byzantine Orthodoxy; and one could argue that Moscow's extreme measures are caused in part by a sense of betrayal, as the Patriarch of Alexandria was one of the few Orthodox Primates to publicly side with the ROC and oppose the formation of the UOC prior to the actual act. For most Orthodox Churches, neutrality is still possible, at least for the moment.
Nonetheless, taken as a whole, it seems that Moscow's goal in the short to long term is to render such neutrality impossible.
If Moscow formally anathematizes the Patriarch of Constantinople and demands that all Churches break off communion with him, and applies these tactics against those Churches that do not do so, then in short order there will be, in almost every part of the world as in Ukraine, two Orthodox Churches not only not in communion with each other but directly antagonistic to each other.
In the context of such global ecclesiastical warfare, not only between but within individual Churches and individual dioceses, every Church, and almost every believer, will be forced to choose a side.
It remains to be seen whether these final, fateful steps will in fact be taken. The longer the present situation continues, however, the more Moscow continues to foment schism within other Orthodox Churches, the more pressure there is to recognize and hold communion with the UOC, the more bad blood Moscow summons up both from allies of Constantinople and from neutral Orthodox Churches angered by its aggression against other Churches, the more the gap will widen, and the more schisms will erupt. At this point a swift, clean separation may in fact be the least destructive option (short of a total surrender on the part of either party).
Prayers, as always, are in order.
RELEVANT RECENT LINKS:
The Moscow Patriarchate's English-language announcement of the move against Alexandria.
The "explainer" from Metropolitan Hilarion.
The encyclical letter of the Greek Patriarch of Alexandria in response to this move, labelling the Moscow Patriarchate Satanic wolves using "dirty money" to gain adherents.
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