The Russian Civil War will finally end on May 17, 2007.

On this day, Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Russia and Metropolitan Laurus, the First Hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (ROCOR), will sign the Act on Canonical Unity of the Russian Church and, for the first time, concelebrate the Divine Liturgy.

“So what?” a skeptic would say. Several hundred Orthodox parishes from various countries will now commemorate the Patriarch of Moscow during their services and there will be no barriers for mutual communion between them and members of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC). Even in the course of strengthening Russia's positions in the world these are fairly unimportant things.

What stands behind this unification? Why is it important not only for the Russian church members, but also for the majority of Russians, who only culturally associate themselves with the Orthodox tradition? What lessons can Russia’s civil society draw from the bases on which this unity has been achieved?

The History of Schism

The separation of ROCOR from the Orthodox Church in Russia started as a case of temporary self-rule, which was permitted by Patriarch Tikon (Belavin) to all bishops during the Civil War. The schism occurred when, under conditions of extreme duress created by Soviet terror against the church, Metropolitan Sergy (Stragorodsky) issued a document in 1927 declaring absolute loyalty to the Soviet state “whose joys and successes are our joys and successes, and whose failures are our failures.” Russian Orthodox clergy who stayed abroad and did not sign a declaration of full loyalty to the Soviet government were excluded from the jurisdiction of the Moscow patriarchate.

The boundary was set. ROCOR became an ultra-right wing, principled opponent of the Soviet Union, defender of Russia’s persecuted church, who’s raison d’etre was opposition to the “Sovietized” Moscow Patriarchate. It became the main institution of the first wave of Russian emigration and after World War II, remained central to the second wave of Russian emigres wanting to connect with their heritage.

The émigrés’ need to preserve themselves in a foreign and heterodox environment led ROCOR to self-isolation. It became staunchly anti-ecumenical. In this, it differed from the more liberal members of the Russian émigré community, who tended to integrate their Orthodoxy – and not just their daily lives – with the Western world. This more liberal group put itself under the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Constantinople and, in the United States, formed the Orthodox Church in America (OCA). The OCA reestablished communion with the Russian Orthodox Church in 1971. There were other Russians living abroad who remained loyal to the Moscow Patriarchate, on matters of principle.

The religious jurisdictional divisions among the Russian diaspora are a sad and painful part of its history. Similar to Civil War, these divisions separated families and childhood friends. The relationship between the Moscow Patriarchate and ROCOR primarily involved mutual sanctions, bitter accusations of schism, and accusations of collaboration with opposing secret services.

Path Towards Unity

During the 1980s and 1990s, religious life in Russia was granted more freedom, and the dream of an Orthodox revival in Russia, which had been cherished both inside the country and among émigrés, started to become reality. Reunification of ROCOR with the Russian Orthodox Church in Russia seemed near. But the inertia of the preceding decades was too strong, and the terms of unification – which side should make the first approach, which side should repent – appeared very differently to parties involved. Into this already difficult situation, ROCOR exacerbated the contradictions by accepting parishes inside Russia that had split from the Moscow Patriarchate for various reasons.

However, the meeting of church members after the fall of the Iron Curtain was not in vain. ROCOR traditions made a huge impact on the development of the church in Russia in recent decades. In the 1990s, the Moscow Patriarchate began the canonization process for the New Martyrs of Russia – those who suffered from the Soviet authorities. ROCOR had canonized them in 1981. This process took place independently of ROCOR, overcoming both public and occasional government resistance and marking a re-evaluation of the past. Ultimately, at the Jubilee Council of Bishops in 2000, the last emperor of Russia, Nicholas II and his family, along with more than 1,000 bishops, priests and lay people were canonized. Importantly, both those who accepted Metropolitan Sergy’s 1927 declaration and those who rejected it, were equally declared saints.

The same council adopted the ROC social doctrine, which de facto annulled the 1927 declaration. Effectively, the Russian church said that it sees its loyalty to the state power as not absolute, as before, but limited and conditioned by the actions of this power. “If the authorities force Orthodox Christiansà to reject Christ and His Church, as well as to sinful actions, which are dangerous for their souls, the Church should refuse to obey the state.”

Under pressure from an anti-ecumenical movement in Russia, which grew in part influenced by ROCOR’s ideas, the ROC reconsidered its attitude to non-Orthodox churches. The Moscow Patriarchate reformed the decision making process in the World Council of Churches (WCC), so that all its main decisions are based on consensus. At the same time, the ROC stopped the practice of common prayers with heterodox and confirmed its rejection of the theory stating that the Orthodox Church is just one of several equal “branches” of Christianity. But the Russian Church did not give in to the anti-ecumenists’ demands to withdraw from the WCC, emphasizing the importance of bearing witness to Orthodox Christianity in the outside world and the need to cooperate in the social field.

In this context, and after President Vladimir Putin’s meeting with the ROCOR Synod in 2003 and a 2004 visit to Moscow of a ROCOR delegation headed by Metropolitan Laurus, the negotiations started. The Kremlin's encouragement of this process may have been a necessary, but certainly not sufficient, reason for the success. According to the negotiators, the talks were on the brink of failure several times due to differences in the parties’ views of the path to unity not to mention the large cultural gap. Not all of the contradictions were reconciled. But human division, the habit of separate existence, was overcome. Instead of declaring some to be right and some to be wrong, the churches began to speak about rights and wrongs in their tragically divided common past. The way to mutual forgiveness and recognition of full unity in faith was open. ROCOR would retain an autonomous status; its bishops will run their church life independently, but will take part in ROC councils and in the work of its synod. ROCOR leaders will elect their own First Hierarch, who will only be confirmed by Moscow.

Of course, not everyone is happy. Some ROCOR members, rooted in their self-conscious opposition to Moscow and believing that only they are the true Orthodox, are today going into schism; there are Orthodox liberals concerned with strengthening the traditionalist trend in the ROC. However, unlike home-grown traditionalists, who sometimes try to reinvent their lost tradition and are often subject to absurd extremes, ROCOR is a church of uninterrupted tradition capable of development – especially now it is coming out of isolation. As for the unity of the Russian Orthodox Church, it is too early to make firm conclusions: Parallel to the reunification with ROCOR, the ROC’s relations with the Patriarchate of Constantinople and its Russian parishes are worsening, while the schism in the Ukrainian Orthodox Church is far from a resolution.

But nonetheless, even the furious propaganda campaign against the unification that evolved on the Internet in the past months bears witness first and foremost to the importance of this historical event.

The Experience of Unity

After the many tragic, bloody divisions during horrible 20th century, we are witnessing the first unification in the Russian realm.

The foundations on which the reunification of the two parts of the Russian Church has been achieved are very similar to the grounds that split Russian society in general: divisive attitudes towards the state, the treatment of the Soviet past and perception of the outside world.

The church was able to attain unity on the basis of a common continuity with pre-revolutionary Russia and not with the Soviet Union, on the basis of limited loyalty to the state conditioned by the character of its activity: Neither total servility nor unconditional opposition.

In assessing the Soviet past, unity was achieved through venerating the victims of the Soviet terror. On Saturday, Patriarch Alexy and Metropolitan Laurus will together consecrate the Church of the New Martyrs of Russia in Butovo, which is located at the former NKVD shooting range just outside of Moscow, where tens of thousands of our compatriots were shot and buried in mass graves. In any normal country, this would be a site of massive and official veneration. In Russia, unfortunately, it is remembered only by the church. In the meantime, this veneration does not take anything away from May 9th – Victory Day – which is sacred to the vast majority of Russians and honors the sacrifices made in World War II. The memory of the victims of this war was sanctioned by both the Soviet government and the Russian government of today. The memory of the victims of repression, however, has not attained a similar status, however it should. And remembering these victims could temper Russia’s relations with its neighbors in a manner that empowers Russia’s integrity and sovereignty.

As far as relations with the outside world are concerned, Russians should understand that the outside world is unlikely to help a resurgent Russia, but at the same time we should retain the channels of communication and identify areas of cooperation that do not undermine our self-determination.

Whether one likes it or not, this is the first unique model of Russian unity. It is unlikely to be a universal prescription, and it is probably unacceptable for some people. But it would certainly be useful for the nation, which is tired of disunity.

Andrei Zolotov, Jr. is the editor and publisher of Russia Profile. The Russian version of this comment first appeared in the newspaper Vedomosti.