Tyragetia (Dec 2020)
Moscow – Orthodox Vatican: a failed project
Abstract
The Soviet state struggling with religion did not cease to speculate with the authority of the Church in its own interest. In order to influence the Orthodox world, the Soviet authorities tried to implement in Moscow the project of a world center, of an Orthodox Vatican. To implement their plan, they revived the idea of Moscow as the third Rome, propagated in the time of tsarism. In the hope that the Russian Orthodox Church will receive primacy in the Orthodox world for the unification of Orthodox countries against the Vatican, in 1948 an All-Orthodox Conference was convened in Moscow. But out of 13 Orthodox churches, only 11 took part in the meeting, which called into question its pan-Orthodox character. Therefore, the conference could not make binding decisions for all Orthodoxy. The intention to form a movement against the Vatican failed. Moreover, in 1949, the new Patriarch of Constantinople called on Christians and Muslims to cooperate in the fight against communism. The subsequent attitude of the Soviets towards the Orthodox Church (after 1948 no Orthodox parishes were registered, new persecutions began) shows that the plans of Soviets to subjugate the Orthodox world with the hands of the Russian Orthodox Church failed.
