Ioannis Lotsios
Abstract
The contemporary crisis within Eastern Orthodoxy cannot be adequately understood merely as an institutional dispute between ecclesiastical jurisdictions, nor can it be reduced to the questions of Ukraine, autocephaly, or canonical territory. Beneath these controversies lies a more fundamental ecclesiological question concerning the relationship between the Church, nation, culture, history, territory, and political power. This article examines the contemporary Russian Orthodox ecclesiological paradigm through the concept of Russkii Mir, or the “Russian World,” arguing that the significance of this concept extends beyond political ideology into the theological construction of ecclesial identity. The article maintains that when historical memory, cultural affinity, national identity, and geopolitical space are transformed into ecclesiological categories, the catholicity and synodality of the Church are placed under considerable strain. Particular attention is given to the Ukrainian ecclesiastical question, the concept of canonical territory, the relationship between ecclesiastical and geopolitical geography, and the broader phenomenon of Orthodox religious nationalism. The study engages both critical scholarship associated with the Volos Academy for Theological Studies and official ecclesiastical documents issued by the Russian Orthodox Church and the Ecumenical Patriarchate. It argues that the disagreement between Moscow and Constantinople should not be interpreted solely as a conflict of jurisdictions but as a confrontation between competing ecclesiological conceptions of territory, authority, and catholicity. The article proposes the notion of a “suffering ecclesiology” as an analytical category for describing an ecclesial reality that remains sacramentally and institutionally alive while experiencing a profound tension between catholic ecclesial identity and national-civilizational self-understanding. The argument is not that the Russian Orthodox Church has ceased to be Orthodox, nor that Russian believers should be identified with political ideology. Rather, the claim is that certain contemporary forms of Russian ecclesiological self-presentation exhibit symptoms of an ecclesiological pathology that calls for theological discernment, renewed synodality, and ultimately healing.
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