Can someone explain why Patriarch Bartholomew is hated?

Discussion · 16

Opinions are anonymous retellings of real comments from the original discussion. The same colour marks the same participant.

Log in Log in or sign up to join the discussion.

• − opinion#2106 48 likes at the source

  There are three problems here. First, ecumenism. Some people freak out over the slightest contact with Catholics, but others are legitimately bothered that Pat. Bartholomew spends more time talking to the Pope than to his fellow Orthodox he has disagreements with. He seems more interested in good relations with non-Orthodox than in fixing disputes inside Orthodoxy. Second, power-grabbing. His idea of resolving disputes is to decide by himself and tell everyone else to obey. When they refuse, he stops talking to them (see above) and tells everyone his critics will eventually have no choice but to accept his decisions. This is probably the most infuriating part and the reason for the emotional reactions. Third, of course, Ukraine. It's connected to the other two: (1) the faction he backs in Ukraine is intensely pro-Catholic and holds joint events and services with the Ukrainian Catholic Church, and (2) his way of handling the schism there was... deciding by himself and telling everyone to obey, then refusing to talk to the side that didn't.

  • − opinion#2111 5 likes at the source

    fellow Orthodox he has disagreements with... except those were people who refused to attend a council that had been planned long in advance :(

    • − opinion#2116 7 likes at the source

      That council was never going to discuss the disagreements in question, it was about different topics. So it's a completely unrelated event. It's like saying I refuse to talk to you about a bridge possibly collapsing because you didn't show up to the music concert I organized last year.
• − opinion#2107 27 likes at the source

  For a certain crowd, there's been a decades-long vendetta against the Greek Church as compromising the faith, and he's just the latest whipping boy. This thinking was common in the Russian Church Abroad (most now in ROCOR), especially after they started hanging out with Greek Old Calendarists in the late 60s and absorbed their ideas. In that mindset, Greek Church = ecumenists, renovationists, innovationists, etc, no matter what they actually say or think, triggered by the calendar change and then other perceived accommodations. It's less common now but its influence shouldn't be forgotten. This is separate from other Greek vs Russian disputes/chauvinism, though correlated with it. There's also, independently, a kind of gutter political conservatism at work. The Patriarch says anthropogenic climate change is bad, and as loyal political conservatives that means he must be a liberal shill who's lying, so let's find any excuse to oppose him. People like going online and reading things to get angry about. There are real things to dislike about the Patriarch, I haven't listed them, but much of what people cite is common to all of Orthodoxy, things you can find Patriarch Kyril saying or doing, they just don't like the look of him.
• − opinion#2108 26 likes at the source

  I'll get downvoted, but here are a couple reasons: He has said in the past that the ecumenical patriarch should have broader authority over all Orthodox jurisdictions, which strikes many as too much like the Roman Pope. He, likely partly due to political pressure, pushed for and recognized the schismatic church in Ukraine as autocephalous, something the other churches haven't widely recognized since. There's a lot to unpack. Since then, the Ukrainian state has used that recognition to forcibly take property, including churches, from the true Orthodox Church in Ukraine, and forced its priests and deacons into military service, even through kidnapping. This was a direct overstepping of authority since the Ukrainian Church was under the Russian Church. They pretended three churches, the true one and two schismatic ones, all agreed to this arrangement, but really only the two schismatic ones and the government agreed. Now the True Orthodox Church in Ukraine (UOC) faces real persecution, officially sanctioned by the Ecumenical Patriarch. And redditors lap it up because of political bias against Russia.

  • − opinion#2112 8 likes at the source

    You could argue that it's actually Moscow holding the more papalist view of authority, not Constantinople. Look at 1970, when the Russian Church unilaterally granted autocephaly to the Orthodox Church in America over Constantinople's objections, without consulting other Local Churches. Constantinople still doesn't recognize it. So when Moscow did it, apparently fine. When Constantinople acted in Ukraine, suddenly it's the collapse of Orthodox ecclesiology. Moscow treats every Russophone Orthodox believer as under its care and claims Ukraine specifically as inalienable canonical territory. Kirill spent years calling Ukraine Russia's spiritual space, backed the 2014 annexation of Crimea, and warned African churches not to recognize the OCU. He demands consensus when Constantinople acts while claiming unilateral jurisdiction over 15 countries and the whole diaspora. That is papalism. On Ukraine, the UOC itself voted for full independence from Moscow in May 2022, with no Constantinople pressure. That was the Ukrainian episcopate walking away on its own because Kirill had invaded their country and blessed the army doing it. Kirill also spent years preaching against Ukrainian church independence, framing it as a geopolitical plot, and after the full-scale invasion gave sermons implying dying in this war washes away sins. Then in 2024 his council formally declared the invasion a…

    • − opinion#2117 9 likes at the source

      You can argue it, but I don't think it holds water. The Moscow Patriarchate doesn't claim to be "first without equal." Russia also isn't trying to grant autocephaly to churches outside its authority. The OCA wasn't under Constantinople's jurisdiction, it was Russian in origin, originally under Russia's authority. So it was Russia's to grant. Same with Ukraine. Why would they consult Constantinople? The UOC voted for independence in 2022, not claiming autocephaly. That's about 3 years after Bartholomew granted autocephaly to the schismatics, after the war started, after the persecution began. They basically made a statement that they weren't siding with Russia as a state against Ukraine as a state. Obviously under enormous pressure, and pretending otherwise is ridiculous. It's not hard to see Ukraine as a political tool of the west against Russia. I wouldn't say whether Kirill is handling the war correctly, given his own political pressures, but he isn't pretending to have authority over other jurisdictions. Constantinople is. You've said nothing noteworthy backing up the "papalism" charge against Russia.
  • − opinion#2113 4 likes at the source

    When the MP practically declares a jihad against Ukraine, it's not hard to see why it would be better for the Ukrainian Church to be autocephalous. Why do nations like the Bulgarians get their own Church but not the Ukrainians? And now the Bulgarians, the same ones who protested against the EP, celebrate their autocephaly, which was gained through an Ottoman decree (in 1870), while Constantinople accused the Bulgarian Church of being schismatic (in 1872). It was only recognized by the EP in 1945.
• − opinion#2109 14 likes at the source

  Is he? I really love him. It's probably because of Ukraine, otherwise I could imagine people who are orthodox because it's "based" wouldn't be big fans.

  • − opinion#2114 18 likes at the source

    this is it. ecumenism to them is worse than whatever's going on with kirill and his "blessed" nukes

    • − opinion#2118 7 likes at the source

      It's not just ecumenism, it's also backing schismatics against a Church Bartholomew himself considered canonical before 2018. In other words, to his critics, it looks like Bartholomew betrayed people who trusted him in order to switch sides in the Ukraine dispute. That's considerably worse than being on the opposite side from the start.
    • − opinion#2119 5 likes at the source

      I never understood that, because Moscow has been heavily engaged in ecumenism since Stalin decided it was advantageous to the Kremlin.
• − opinion#2110 10 likes at the source

  It's no coincidence that he is first among equals and has certain unique canonical privileges. The target isn't Patriarch Bartholomew the person as such but the institution of the ecumenical patriarchate, which some in the Church consider a problematic myth. With the patriarchate marginalized, the center of authority moves elsewhere and others get the power to make the entire Orthodox Church serve secular interests, even to the point of resembling a kind of Christian taliban blessing wars of aggression and murder. So they agitate through information warfare on social media, which, as you said, causes condemnation and division. Sometimes the attacks are outright fabrications, like the claim that the Patriarch took a $25m bribe or that he was going to hand the Church over to the Latins last year during the common date of Pascha.

  • − opinion#2115 10 likes at the source

    He does not have unique canonical privileges. That is, as you say, a problematic myth. And the goal of opposing that myth is not to "move the centre of authority elsewhere" but to abolish the idea of a centre of authority altogether. We, the opponents of the Ecumenical Patriarchate's power claims, don't want to replace it with some other patriarchate. We want decentralization. Nobody should be a "centre of authority". And yes, without one, some patriarchates will sometimes do bad things. But that's better than a centre of authority dragging the entire Church into error with it, which is what happened in the West. Decentralization is the guarantee that if one patriarchate falls into error, the rest won't be affected.

    • − opinion#2120 4 likes at the source

      The Church in the first millennium was never fully decentralized. The idea of a first among equals with no authority whatsoever was not the pre-schism Church's position. It's a more modern sentiment that developed in Orthodoxy as a reaction to papal supremacy (which Rome admittedly took too far).
    • − opinion#2121 3 likes at the source

      Obviously he does have special privileges, otherwise the ex-Metropolitan Tychikos of Paphos would never have taken his case to Constantinople twice last year. And since Bulgaria came up, that's exactly why he called a Pan-Orthodox synod back in 1998 to deal with the schism tearing apart the post-communist Bulgarian church. When I said 'authority' I meant it in a mild sense, not some supremacist one. The handful of privileges the patriarch has still operate inside the synodical framework. That's the system as it stands, one some local churches don't accept, and there's simply no way a protos could drag the whole Church into heresy. If you believe that, you've misunderstood something.