The spiritual presence of the Russian Orthodox Church in Africa: recent situation, current risks and potential threats

Stenko Aleksandr Ivanovich ORCID: 0000-0002-0951-7597 Teacher, Institute of Foreign Languages, Peoples Friendship University of Russia 117198, Russia, Moscow region, Moscow, Miklukho-Maklaya str., 6 stenko-ai@rudn.ru

Introduction - The Mission of the Moscow Patriarchate in Africa at the center of the process of politicization of religion

      Since 2013, the trend of the consistent strengthening of the religious factor in the modern socio-political sphere, identified by M.M.Mchedlova, has been actively investigated in domestic and foreign political discourse on the basis of the two-pronged process of "politicization of religion and confessionalization of politics" ^[1]. It seems that over the past ten years, this phenomenon has moved from the format of a "fixed trend" to the category of a "generally recognized element" of both the domestic policy of many formally secular states and a significant part of international processes developing in the global arena.

      Often, especially during the extremely turbulent year 2022 for world politics, the multiplying examples of forced integration of religious and confessional subjects and objects into the fabric of global political processes remain not fully noticeable to an inexperienced observer. This trend can be clearly traced by the example of massive external opposition that the Russian Orthodox Church has faced in the framework of missionary activity on the African continent, which was also launched last year. We are talking about the growing external socio-diplomatic pressure of the ROC after the establishment of the Patriarchal Exarchate of Africa headed by Metropolitan Leonid (Gorbachev) of Klin at the end of 2021. The main "critic" of the activation of the Moscow Patriarchate's missionary activity in the region is expected to be the Alexandrian Orthodox Church and its primate Patriarch Theodore II (Choreftakis), who strongly opposes the new jurisdictional structure of the ROC.

Background of the issue

      The creation of the Patriarchal Exarchate of Africa was a de facto forced response to the earlier (November 8, 2019) recognition of the autocephaly by the APC of a non-canonical religious structure established against the will of the ROC (the "Orthodox Church of Ukraine" under the leadership of S. Dumenko, who was previously the "bishop" of another unrecognized confessional association - the "Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kiev Patriarchate"). Russian Russian Orthodox Church's Holy Synod decided at the end of 2019 to withdraw "the parishes of the Russian Orthodox Church located on the African continent from the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Alexandria and to grant them a stauropegial status, to transform the representation of the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia under the Patriarch of Alexandria into a parish of the Russian Orthodox Church in Cairo" ^[2].

      In September 2021, the reference to the journal of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church No. 61 indicated the following. "After the break of communication with the Patriarchate of Alexandria," numerous petitions for admission to the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate began to arrive in the Russian Orthodox Church from clerics of the Church of Alexandria who did not agree with Patriarch Theodore's decision to recognize Ukrainian schismatics and did not want to stay under his omophorion for this reason. The Russian Orthodox Church refrained from responding positively to such petitions in the hope that Patriarch Theodore would change his decision, and the bishops of the Church of Alexandria would not support the legalization of the Ukrainian schism. Unfortunately, this did not happen. On July 28, 2021, the Primate of the Church of Alexandria sent his official representative, Bishop Theodore of Babylon, to an event organized by schismatics in Kiev, who read out a greeting on behalf of the Patriarch of Alexandria. And on August 13 , 2021 , Patriarch Theodore visited Fr .Imvros (Turkey) and during the liturgy, which was led by Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, served with the head of the so-called "Orthodox Church of Ukraine", and then during a separate meeting with him assured him of his strong support. To date, none of the bishops of the Alexandrian Orthodox Church has expressed disagreement with the actions of Patriarch Theodore to support the schism in Ukraine" ^[3].

      In view of these circumstances, by the decision of the Holy Synod of December 29, 2021, 102 clergy of the APC from eight African countries were admitted to the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate, and the Patriarchal Exarchate of Africa was created, which included the North African and South African dioceses ^[4].

      Such institutionalization of the spiritual presence of the ROC in Africa instantly caused complete rejection and multidirectional opposition on the part of the church authorities of the APC. The very next day after the establishment of the African Exarchate, Patriarch Theodore expressed "the deepest regret over the invasion of the Russian Church into the canonical jurisdiction of Alexandria" ^[5]. Subsequently, the Synod of the APC, at a meeting on January 12, 2022, adopted a statement condemning Moscow's actions and describing them as "an immoral invasion of the Church of Russia, carried out... by unworthy methods", as well as as "an attempt to pervert Orthodox ecclesiology for reasons stemming from ethnophyletism, condemned by the Council of Constantinople in 1872, while the act of the Moscow Patriarchate shows signs of neocolonialism and claims to global dominance, which contradicts the Orthodox tradition" ^[6].

      During the following months of 2022, the Patriarchate of Alexandria continued its line of formalizing the "conflict" with the Russian Orthodox Church by making new confrontational decisions, culminating in the meeting of the synodals of the APC on November 22-25 in Cairo, which announced the severance of Eucharistic communion with the Moscow Patriarchate. In parallel with this, the Alexandrians took largely futile, but extremely resonant steps to torpedo the practical activities of the African Exarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church. So, in February, two clerics of the Moscow Patriarchate were summoned to Alexandria "for a church trial" (on charges of "illegally transferring African clergy and believers to a new jurisdiction"), and in December it was announced that the procedure of Metropolitan Leonid's "defrocking" was launched in the APC ^[7].

Actions of a key regional opponent of the ROC

      Consistently increasing the confrontational line in the bilateral dialogue with the Russian Orthodox Church, the Patriarchate of Alexandria systematically activates various and not always clean political methods to block the spiritual and missionary activities of the ROC in Africa. In July 2022, for example, Patriarch Theodore almost provoked a break in communication with the leader of the most important Christian denomination in North Africa, the Pope of the Coptic Orthodox Church Theodore II (Suleiman) after sending him a letter sharply criticizing the latter for the decision to cede the Coptic temple in Cairo for the services of the ROC in exchange for a similar step to provide one for the liturgies from Moscow cathedrals ^[8]. At the same time, the bishops of the APC accelerated the tools of "church diplomacy" in order to unite around themselves "anti-Russian allies" from among representatives of religious centers and secular authorities of different states. So, during the year, the Primate of Alexandria actively contacted the leaders of the Patriarchate of Constantinople and the Greek Orthodox Churches, using each such meeting for resonant statements about the alleged "anti-canonical actions of Moscow in Africa." A special "foreign policy" emphasis in Feodor's attempts to create an "anti-Russian church-secular front" around himself was placed on the development of dialogue with the US administration. Even taking into account the fact that most of these contacts took place in a non-public format, a number of them became public and were covered in the media - such as, in particular, the consultations of Patriarch Theodore of Alexandria with the senior staff of the American embassy in Egypt in March 2022 ^[9].

      The apogee of the efforts of the APC to attract Washington to its side is the official visit of Theodore to the United States in October 2022. As part of his trip to the United States, he held meetings with leading officials of the American administration, as well as personally with the current President Joseph Biden. According to press releases, the head of the APC largely devoted these meetings to the task of bringing to the interlocutors "details of the alarming development of the situation around the non-canonical invasion of the Moscow Patriarchate into the ecclesiological jurisdiction of Alexandria" ^[10].

      Although the US leadership refrains from publicly reacting to the assertive diplomatic onslaught of the Patriarchate of Alexandria in the context of the "question of the Russian Church," in general, it would be justified to assume that the White House will provide feasible, perhaps not fully open, assistance to the APC in its aspirations to torpedo the activities of the ROC in Africa. Such a step would logically fit into Washington's overall current course of universal containment of Moscow at the global level.

The political tools of the United States in the confessional sphere

      At the same time, it should be taken into account the fact that the American side among the key international players has accumulated to date the most significant arsenal of methods of involving the religious sphere in order to achieve its strategic priorities on the world stage. This circumstance makes it necessary to conduct a more detailed analysis of the system of connecting church and confessional instruments to the national hierarchy of state authorities implementing the foreign policy of the United States, which has finally been formed to date.

      Many researchers come to the conclusion that former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright was at the origin of the White House's modern approach to the active use of the religious factor to ensure its own interests in the world. On October 23, 1997, speaking at the Columbia Law School of the Catholic University in Washington, she stated that "the search for religious freedom and tolerance will ... play an important role in US foreign policy, since ignoring religious freedom or the threat of its violation can cause not only fear and clashes, but also cause a new world war". ^[11].

      With the filing of Albright, the US Congress in November 1998 adopted the legislative act "On Freedom of Religion in the World” (International Religious Freedom Act – IRFA). The fundamental provisions of the IRFA justified the formation (at that time, in fact, mostly formally) of a system of specialized state institutions. Thus, the post of Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom within the Department of State was established in the State Department, and the post of Special Adviser on International Religious Freedom within the National Security Council was established in the National Security Council. The staff apparatuses necessary for the implementation of the activities of two new functionaries were also created. Moreover, in parallel, a bipartisan Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) was formed in Congress ^[12].

      At the same time (as some American political scientists do not exclude, largely due to the completion of Albright's ministerial career in 2001), the activities of these structures of the American administration after a "loud and ambitious institution" were quite formalistic for almost twenty years, and the problems of religious freedoms were relatively forgotten by the American diplomatic corps. However, the "new ideologue" for this direction of US foreign policy was one of Albright's successors – Secretary of State in the Republican administration of 2018 - 2021 Mike Pompeo.

      Pompeo, taking the work of the structures of "ensuring religious freedoms in the world" under personal control, not only breathed a second life into them, but also expanded their powers, and also became the "founding father" of the updated high-level international discussion platform - the International Religious Freedom or Belief Alliance ^[13]. One of the tasks of the structure formed in 2018 - 2020, which currently unites representatives of the ministries of Foreign Affairs of 37 countries (not representatives of religious denominations, but politicians), is to strengthen the tools of diplomatic influence of the United States and its allies on third countries. According to a number of researchers, including Montenegrin political scientist I. Damyanovich, the relatively recent processes of creating non-canonical Orthodox churches in Ukraine and Montenegro were largely carried out with the support of the US State Department and other structures in the American administration ^[14]. In addition, for example, already in the first days of the ongoing Ukrainian crisis, the International Alliance for Freedom of Religions, on the initiative of the United Kingdom, published an official statement "condemning Russia for unleashing military actions against multi-confessional Ukrainian democracy" ^[15].

In this context, it seems justified to pay attention to the practical aspects of the now well-established law enforcement practice of using the "religious dossier" in US foreign policy. By now, the main applied tool in this is the so-called "annual report of the State Department on the situation with freedom in the religious sphere in the world." This document has been regularly prepared for publication by the relevant experts of the State Department and Congress since the beginning of the 2000s. As a rule, during May of each year, special hearings are held on this report in the House of Representatives and the Senate, within which the development of the religious situation in different countries over the period of the previous calendar year is discussed ^[16].

      Those states, government agencies, legal entities and individuals who (in the opinion of Americans) "violate the rights and freedoms of various religious groups" fall into the category of "causing particular Concern" (Countries or Entities of Particular Concern). Moreover, inclusion in this "black list" formally opens the way for further applied steps by the US administration in order to "eliminate the identified religious violations." The "expanded nomenclature" of sequential actions allowed for these purposes has been legislatively approved. The corresponding algorithm at the first stage implies purely diplomatic measures - demarches, public statements and condemnations, cancellation of meetings and contacts with representatives of a country or organization violating "freedom of religion". In the future, the executive bodies of the United States administration are authorized to independently choose the scale and specifics of the applied political or economic restrictions - up to the imposition of sanctions against individual states ^[16].

Conclusion

      The legislative act "On Freedom of Religion in the World" approved earlier by the US Congress and the executive initiatives subsequently adopted by various administrations clearly show Washington's attitude towards creating an institutional and legal framework to support non-canonical movements in different regions of the world. The forced moral and ideological rapprochement of the White House with the Alexandrian Orthodox Church at the same time clearly carries the threat of a new confrontation between Russia and the United States in foreign policy, which is closely intertwined with confessional affairs. Religion in this case acts as a factor of soft power in the international arena, especially in the context of the increasing opposition of the so-called Western world to the Russian Federation, primarily in the context of the crisis in Ukraine.

      It seems that, at the suggestion of the Patriarchate of Alexandria, American government agencies specializing in the topic of "international freedom of religion" will focus their attention on the missionary activities of the Russian Orthodox Church on the African continent in the foreseeable future. In particular, it is possible that this "dossier" may also be reflected in the "annual report of the US State Department on the situation with freedom in the religious sphere in the world", which is being prepared for publication by the summer of this year. The implementation of such a scenario, in turn, will create formal and legal prerequisites for the implementation by the US government in the future of multidirectional diplomatic, political and administrative steps that can complicate the activities of the Moscow Patriarchate not only in Africa, but also in other regions of the spiritual presence of the Russian Orthodox Church.

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