The Long Arm of the Russian Church

Some weeks ago I came across an article in the Wall Street Journal (subscription required) on the increasing ties between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Russian government, particularly under Vladimir Putin. Caesaropapism has a history in Russia, and while it has appeared in the Western Church, its greatest flourishing has been in the East, most notably in Byzantium and in Russia. The Journal’s article told of the return of an unhealthy unity between the church and the state, in this case manifested in a prison chaplain being defrocked for declaring a man under his care a political prisoner.

A few days ago in the New York Times , the unhappy resurgence of the Russian Church appeared again. In 1912, Czar Nicholas II helped to build a Russian Orthodox cathedral in Nice for the growing number of Russians vacationing on the French Riviera. The Russian government claims that Nicholas owned the property, which he leased for 99 years to the archbishop of St. Petersburg. The lease expired on December 31, 2007, and now the property should revert to the Russian state, successor to the kingdom of the czars. As one might expect, the archpriest of the cathedral, Fr. Jean Gueit, begs to differ. Aside from questions of whether the Czar actually owned the property, the church is now under different Orthodox jurisdiction and has been declared part of the French national patrimony. When experts in Russian art obtained a court order to perform an inventory of the building and contents of the church, Fr. Gueit denied them entry, and has made it clear since then that the Russian Orthodox Church has neither spiritual nor secular jurisdiction over the cathedral.

On the one hand, the Russian Orthodox Church fighting over the jurisdiction of souls and churches is nothing new, however unfortunate it might be. What’s troubling is that the Russian government is now getting involved too. And their arm is longer and stronger than that of the Church.