Introduction: The DeSovietisation of the Ukraine

The Soviet Ukraine was a creation of three bloody tyrants, Lenin, Stalin and Khrushshev, between 1922 and 1954. It is the decisions of these tyrants that the West has supported all these years. That Ukraine was always divided into three parts, Eastern, Central and Western. After the conflict there is over, quite possibly this year, the Eastern part (with the south), called Novorossiya, will return to Russia; the Central part and some of the Western part will become the New Ukraine, which we shall call Kievska Rus, a mirror image of the equally landlocked Belarus to the north; most of the Western part will return to Poland, Hungary (and perhaps Slovakia) and Romania, from where Stalin stole it. But what will happen to the Russian Church, deprived of several thousand churches and priests in Central and Western Ukraine? Having identified with the militant Russian nationalism of the Russian State, the Russian episcopate of the Russian Orthodox Church has lost the loyalty of Ukrainians.

The Defeat of Post-Soviet Centralisation and the Remedy of Autocephaly

Why would those Ukrainians continue to be subject to the Muscovite Church of Russians, who have killed or maimed their grandsons, sons, husbands and fathers? That Russian episcopate has in general renounced Non-Russian nationalities, whom it has in effect either ignored or else persecuted. It has renounced the Orthodox in Kievska Rus (mainly the old Central Soviet Ukraine), and in the west of that Soviet Ukraine. In the latter, Orthodox who live in areas which return to Poland will rejoin the Polish Orthodox Church, any who return to Slovakia will rejoin the Church of the Czechs and Slovakia, those who return to Romania will rejoin the Romanian Orthodox Church (some already have), and those who return to Hungary will have to be awarded Autocephaly in a new Hungarian Orthodox Church. As for the Orthodox who live in an independent Kievska Rus, they will also need Autocephaly, which they have already de facto had since 2022, thus creating an eighteenth Local Church.

Thus, that Russian episcopate has also renounced the multinational Russian Church of the emigration, which I served for 47 years, and its heroes like St John of Shanghai and his successor Archbishop Antony of Geneva. It has renounced all the others who carried the mission of the Church to Non-Russian nationalities, including the Estonian-born Patriarch Alexiy II, who in 2003 saw the Russian Church in Western Europe as the foundation-stone of a new Autocephalous Church there. That episcopate has therefore renounced the remains of the Russian emigration. The smaller part, based in Paris, is now destined to merge into a larger Non-Russian Orthodox Church of Western Europe (see below). The larger part, based in New York, completely out of control and unchecked by Moscow, has lost its way in uncanonical disorder, identifying with sectarianism, the pedophile warmongering Trump regime and the CIA, several of whose assets belong to its clergy.

Moscow has also renounced its own emigration, most of which is in Western Europe, but also in Northern America and Latin America. This is heavily dependent on Moldovans, especially so in Ireland and in Iberia and Italy, where both bishops are Moldovans. For Orthodox in Moldova are returning to the Romanian Church, some 300 parishes leaving Moscow so far. Once Russian troops arrive in Odessa, after which NATO, the EU and the UK will begin to collapse, that return to the Romanian Church in the face of Russian nationalism will turn into a rush. The Russian nationalist episcopate has also renounced Orthodox in the Baltics, who need independence (autocephaly). It is also renouncing the Orthodox in Belarus and in the five stans of Central Asia, in both of which some voices are asking for new autocephalies. This means that the Russian Church will be reduced from 145 million faithful to 105 million.

Virtually all of these will be living in the Russian Federation and in a Novorossiya reunited with that Federation. Just a few will be left living outside it, attached to Russian embassy and consulate churches in and around the capitals of the Western world, in Japan (20,000?), South-East Asia (20,000?) and in China (100?). As for those in Africa, Moscow will have to negotiate autocephaly for Africans with the Patriarchate of Alexandria, with the mutual exit of interfering and imperialistic Greeks and Russians alike. An African Patriarchate of Alexandria, with an administrative centre perhaps in Kenya, will follow. Thus, there will be autocephalies for Kievska Rus, Belarus, Central Asia, the Baltics, Hungary, Western Europe (under the majority – the Romanian Church), Northern America, absorbing the renamed OCA, and Oceania (both under majority Constantinople) and in Latin America (under majority Antioch).

Conclusion: The Defeat of the ‘Princes of the Church’

This will create twenty-four Local Orthodox Churches instead of sixteen as now, with two of those, the Patriarchate of Alexandria and the OCA, renewed and reconstituted. The eight new Autocephalies will cover Kievska Rus, Belarus, Western Europe, Central Asia, Hungary, Latin America, Oceania, and the Baltics. The Russian Orthodox Church will have been humbled, taking its place as one of the renewed Family of Churches. It will have lost its imperialist temptation to dominate all, just like discredited Constantinople. Both Patriarchates were contaminated by Imperialism. Both will have to accept that they are merely parts, however large, 50% of the whole Church, and however ancient, dating back to Constantine, of a Family of equals, a Commonwealth. This will see restored the Catholicity of the Church, a Family in communion with each other and the defeat of imperialist and nationalist centralism.