{"id":384163,"date":"2018-11-08T02:51:51","date_gmt":"2018-11-08T01:51:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/ukraine-russia-tensions-rise-in-church-row-consortiumnews\/"},"modified":"2018-11-08T02:51:51","modified_gmt":"2018-11-08T01:51:51","slug":"ukraine-russia-tensions-rise-in-church-row-consortiumnews","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/ukraine-russia-tensions-rise-in-church-row-consortiumnews\/","title":{"rendered":"Ukraine-Russia Tensions Rise in Church Row \u2013 Consortiumnews"},"content":{"rendered":"
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With an apparent nod from the U.S., the Ecumenical Patriarch\u2019s ruling from Istanbul severed 1000-year ties between Moscow and the Orthodox church in Ukraine, raising further tensions between Kiev and Moscow, as Dmitry Babich reports.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Moscow\u2019s Role in Ukraine Orthodox Church Ended<\/i><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

By Dmitry Babich<\/b><\/span>
<\/b><\/span>Special to Consortium News<\/i><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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The 1030-year old church is headed by Patriarch Kirill in Russia and the Russian church responded by severing ties to the Istanbul patriarch. Tensions have now been raised even further in the crisis between Ukraine and Russia that erupted after the U.S.-backed 2014 coup in Kiev that overthrew an elected president who tilted towards Moscow. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

In Washington, the events were reported in <\/span>The Washington Post<\/i><\/span> as part of Ukraine\u2019s struggle to <\/span>\u201cwithdraw from Moscow\u2019s control.<\/span>\u201d<\/a> In Europe, Italy\u2019s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior Matteo Salvini made the sober warning in the Austrian newspaper <\/span>Der Standard<\/i><\/span> that the religious interference in Ukraine could provoke a war.<\/a> <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Bartholomew\u2019s action is seen as a first step to giving full autonomy, known as \u201cautocephaly\u201d in the Orthodox faith, to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Kiev Patriarchate (KP), a heretical split-off that was created only in 1992 just after the dissolution of the Soviet Union and Ukraine\u2019s independence. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The KP church is headed by a self-styled leader named Mikhail Denisenko, who goes by the name Patriach Filaret. He is a defrocked former bishop in the Moscow Patriarchate of Ukraine.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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