Things haven't been all plain sailing for the Patriarch
Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, during his 10-day trip to Ukraine.
The question being debated in Ukraine
and beyond is whether it really is unity between the Russian and Ukrainian churches
that Kirill wants, or whether it's subservience, as Ukrainian nationalists
argue.
Writing in "The Guardian," Adrian Pabst argues
that Kirill, rather than doing the Kremlin's bidding, really does want a
unified and independent Orthodox Church.
(There's a pretty good debate about his motives in the
comments section of "The Guardian" piece.)
Kirill's visit got off to a rocky start earlier in the week
when he was leading prayers at a monument to St. Vladimir. Nearby, Ukrainian
nationalists protested and shouted slogans: the more restrained, "Get Out
Moscow Pope!" and the more extreme, " Kirill-Pedophile."
But the patriarch has some serious protection, with a
Cossack colonel in Kirill's entourage telling RFE/RL's Russian Service that
he's carrying "the traditional Cossack weapon," the "nagajka"
(a kind of whip), in the "traditional Cossack defense" of the "Holy
Orthodox Church" and that he will use it on anyone chanting "Kirill-Pedophile."
But as one of my Russian colleagues pointed out, history has
shown that whenever Russia
relies on the Cossacks, for instance in the Civil War where they fought on both
sides, things tend to end rather badly.
But the Cossack officer hasn't lost hope: "Protecting
the patriarch is second only to protecting the tsar, which we don't
have for the time being. But we don't lose
hope."
