Michail V. Škarovskij: Konstantinopol’skij patriarchat i Russkaja Pravoslavnaja Cerkov’ v pervoj polovine XX veka. Moskva: Indrik, 2014. 230 S. ISBN: 978-5-91674-303-6

Michail V. Škarovskij: Konstantinopol’skij patriarchat i Russkaja Pravoslavnaja Cerkov’ v pervoj polovine XX veka. Moskva: Indrik, 2014. 230 S. ISBN: 978-5-91674-303-6.

The latest volume by Michail Škarovskij, a well-known church historian, surveys relations between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople during the first half of the twentieth century. Straightforward and clearly organized, the book’s main strength is its research base consisting of Russian, Serbian, Bulgarian, German, United States, and Turkish archival sources. The chronological narrative is divided into two major parts: 1) Relations of the Patriarchate of Constantinople with the Russian Church in the First Half of the Twentieth Century, and 2) Russian and Bulgarian Communities and Monasteries in the Canonical Territory of the Church of Constantinople. The book covers a tumultuous period when the existence of the Eastern Orthodox Church was in peril. The general impression is of significant worsening of relations between Constantinople and Moscow, due mainly to the splintering of the church after the Russian Revolution of 1917.

The First and Second World Wars changed the world dramatically. In the ideological conflict that ensued, religion played a complex role, as typified by the Russian Orthodox Church, the prevailing religious confession of Eastern Europe. Škarovskij charts the immense complications that the continuum of the Great War, the Russian Revolution, and the Greek-Turkish War created for the Eastern Orthodox leadership. New entities such as the Living Church, the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, and the Orthodox Churches of Poland, Finland, and Estonia broke from the Moscow Patriarchate. In Constantinople, Patriarch Meletius IV (1921–23) responded by extending the jurisdiction of the Mother Church to émigré communities. Under Patriarch Basil III (1925–29), Constantinople established closer links with the Balkan churches. According to Škarovskij, the Phanar sympathized more with the diaspora than with the Russian Orthodox Church, which suffered intense persecution. During the relatively long reign of Patriarch Photius II (1929–35) relations between Greece and Turkey improved, but Moscow’s attempts at reconciliation with the Russian Orthodox Exarchate in Western Europe foundered.

The Second World War brought the Russian Orthodox Church into a new position: a change of attitude occurred after Stalin sanctioned the appointment of Metropolitan Sergei as the Russian Patriarch in 1943. From that point, the Russian church became involved in the political expansion of communism to neighboring countries. Meanwhile, Hitler’s Third Reich aimed to manipulate the Orthodox populations of the regions under its control. Škarovskij’s account of German occupation policy illuminates the fascinating story of religious survival during wartime. Also absorbing is the discussion of Stalin’s revived plan for Panslavic solidarity in the Balkans. Remarkably, by the end of the war, relations between Constantinople and Moscow had improved.

In the post-war period, the Russian Patriarchate began to challenge the spiritual jurisdiction of Rome and Constantinople. With the support of the Soviet regime, the Moscow Patriarchate – touted as the Third Rome – sent delegations abroad. The pan-Orthodox Slavic conference held in Belgrade in 1946 and the celebration of the five-hundredth anniversary of the autocephalous Russian Orthodox Church in Moscow in 1948 reflected Stalin’s flexibility in disseminating the Marxist message. Patriarch Alexei undertook a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and attempted to bring the region under Russian influence. A senior delegation led by Russian Metropolitan Nikolai to London, Paris, and the United States in 1945 sought to extend control over the diaspora. Soviet leadership also employed religion in its foreign policy when dealing with regions within its vicinity. For example, the Polish Orthodox Church was compelled to recant its autocephaly, and the Latvian and Estonian Churches were forcibly incorporated under Russian jurisdiction. Thus, the expansion of the Moscow Patriarchate mirrored the extension of the political ideology of communism.

Škarovskij’s reporting of the relationship of the Ecumenical Patriarchate with the Bulgarian Orthodox Church and the Bulgarian community within its territory demonstrates the generally amicable relations between Sofia and the Mother Church in the period under review.

In the last subsections of the book, Škarovskij describes the construction of various Russian Orthodox churches, hospitals, and monastic establishments within the Ottoman Empire, on Mount Athos, and within modern Turkey. The heritage of the Russian church in the heartland of the Orthodox commonwealth is emphasized.

Although the book lacks a general thesis and contains little analysis, the author is to be commended for a lucid survey of an important period of recent Eastern Orthodox Church history. Major personalities and complex events crowd the narrative, which includes descriptions of the smaller Orthodox churches in Eastern Europe, diaspora communities, as well as Mount Athos. Most importantly, the study provides serious researchers with a useful guide to unpublished sources.

Lucien Frary, Lawrenceville, NJ