BY BERIL DEDEOGLU
STAR- Fener Greek Patriarch Bartholomeos and new Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill met in Istanbul last weekend. During his visit, Kirill expressed pleasure at the meeting, indicating a new era in which disagreements between the two churches will end. Many historical factors have fuelled these disagreements between the Fener and Moscow patriarchates in the Orthodox world. Although some have to do with faith, most of them actually concern administrative problems and power sharing. When states and their rivalries over regions of influence are considered, we can better see the political dimensions of the disagreements.
The simmering tension between the churches during the West's Cold War-era rivalry with the Soviets for influence in the Middle East helped keep the Moscow-Athens-Nicosia line together on the Cyprus issue, while the Istanbul church helped to block further Soviet influence in the Middle East. In sum, these differing political preferences alienated the two churches from each other, and the rivalry intensified in the post-Soviet era, when the church in Russia got new life.
The Fener Greek Patriarchate has usually expressed a balance with the European Union and Western tendencies, whereas the Moscow Patriarchate symbolized the former Soviet Union and Russian foreign policy. These two churches - one representing the minority in its region, and the other representing the majority - started to reflect Eastern-Western conflicts in different ways, along the lines of the latest disagreements over Georgia and particularly Ukraine.
The problem was about whether the Ukrainian Orthodox Church should be attached to Fener or Moscow. Moscow said the former was unacceptable, because it should never stray from Russia's axis. Although the Ukrainian Church chose to move away from Moscow, Fener has avoided doing anything that might sow tension with the Russian Church and Russia.
It seems Fener's careful relationship with Moscow, coming at a time of good Turkish-Russian relations, allowed the parties to reestablish dialogue. This shows that religious leaders are able to see global changes and possible new power balances, transformation processes based on social transition, and possible risks.
It's sad to see similar tendencies so pervasive among political leaders. Iranian President Mohammad Ahmedinejad has been vexing his US counterpart Barack Obama, and the French president has been doing the same thing to Turkey. Obviously, leaders who take seriously the two patriarchs' stance that 'we belong to the same world' will strengthen their hand in the emerging global balances, but others will lose their positions. While the US forges ties with its old foes like Russia, Argentina and Cuba, and Turkey does the same with Greece, Armenia and Syria, countries which endanger their existing relationships might one day find themselves as politically isolated as Iran, Israel, or North Korea. The Russian Orthodox Patriarch might not have come to Istanbul in vain.