{"id":1554,"date":"2024-11-24T01:31:44","date_gmt":"2024-11-23T17:31:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/charlesray-author.com\/?p=1554"},"modified":"2024-11-24T01:31:44","modified_gmt":"2024-11-23T17:31:44","slug":"russian-orthodox-church-viewed-as-tool-to-spread-kremlin-influence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/charlesray-author.com\/index.php\/2024\/11\/24\/russian-orthodox-church-viewed-as-tool-to-spread-kremlin-influence\/","title":{"rendered":"Russian Orthodox Church Viewed As Tool To Spread Kremlin Influence"},"content":{"rendered":"
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File photo of Russia’s Vladimir Putin meeting with Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Kirill. Photo Credit: Kremlin.ru<\/h3>\n

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By\u00a0Africa Defense Forum<\/a><\/p>\n

he Russian Orthodox Church is quietly winning allegiance from priests and parishes from the Patriarchate of Alexandria in Egypt with offers of humanitarian aid, vaccines, infrastructure, schools, hospitals and spiritual patronage.<\/p>\n

Experts say this is a geopolitical strategy meant to help the Kremlin spreads its influence on the continent amid an ongoing battle within the Orthodox Church over the war in Ukraine.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost analysts of Russia\u2019s presence in Africa would miss this development,\u201d Bob Wekesa, director of the African Center for the Study of the United States at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa, told the Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI). \u201cBecause it is not the most publicized of Russia\u2019s strategy in Africa.\u201d<\/p>\n

Located in the Egyptian port city, the Patriarchate of Alexandria looks after the continent\u2019s estimated 1 million Eastern Orthodox Christians.<\/p>\n

The Russian Orthodox Church has for centuries been one of the most powerful bodies in orthodoxy and commands power beyond most religious denominations. It is closely linked to the Russian state and functions as a de facto arm of the government.<\/p>\n

J. Peter Pham, an ordained Episcopal priest with a doctorate in theology and a postgraduate degree in canon law, recently visited African churches and spoke with clergy from diverse denominations.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhenever I traveled in these areas where I\u2019d heard it was happening, I started looking into it. And it turns out it wasn\u2019t just one or two isolated cases,\u201d Pham, who has served as the United States special envoy for the Great Lakes Region and was the first-ever Sahel envoy, told Foreign Policy magazine.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a large number of African Orthodox clergy who had been part of the Patriarchate in Alexandria and had been recruited by the Moscow Patriarchate,\u201d Pham added. \u201cIt was very systematic.\u201d<\/p>\n

Patriarch Theodore II of Alexandria has said that his clerics have been paid $200 each for joining the Russian Orthodox Church.<\/p>\n

In 2021, Russia established the Patriarchal Exarchate of Africa in response to requests from African Orthodox clergy after the Patriarch of Alexandria sided with the Orthodox Church in Ukraine after the Russian invasion.<\/p>\n

The Russian Orthodox Church also opened more than 200 parishes in 25 African countries between December 2021 and July 2023, according to a report from the Russian news agency Interfax.<\/p>\n

The Russian church\u2019s expansion \u201cis becoming a key component of the Kremlin\u2019s exercise of soft power in Africa, promoting many conservative and anti-Western positions,\u201d Charles A. Ray, wrote for the FPRI.<\/p>\n

Patriarch Kirill\u00a0of Moscow claims that the Patriarchy of Alexandria will lead the body of believers into the Western sphere of influence, according to a Politics Today report, while his agenda reinforces Russia\u2019s ambitions in Africa and asserts that African nations can protect themselves from external pressures.<\/p>\n

Theodore II shuns any efforts to politicize the Orthodox faith. In 2023, he warned the Orthodox world of the danger of<\/p>\n

Moscow\u2019s political ambitions\u00a0in Africa. In an Orthodox Times report, he said Orthodox Africans are being \u201cspiritually poisoned by the Patriarchate of Moscow.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ray argued in the FPRI report that the Russian Orthodox Church\u2019s expansion in Africa cannot be looked at without considering its relationship to\u00a0Russian state interests. The church is financially supported by Kremlin-backed entities.<\/p>\n

\u201cIts expansion, in the wake of Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine, aims to challenge the existing Orthodox churches in Africa and to promote conservative, anti-Western alliances,\u201d Ray wrote. \u201cIt appears to be more about enhancing the Russian image and expanding state influence than religious conversion.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wekesa said the Russian church faces an uphill task if it wants to convert Africans.<\/p>\n

\u201cI deduce that the Russian Orthodox (Church) will aim to capture a small elite tied to the top echelons of governments in pursuit of opaque Russian interests rather than winning large congregations,\u201d he told the FPRI.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

File photo of Russia’s Vladimir Putin meeting with Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Kirill. Photo Credit: Kremlin.ru \u00a0November 22, 2024\u00a0 By\u00a0Africa Defense Forum he Russian Orthodox Church is quietly winning allegiance from priests and parishes from the Patriarchate of Alexandria in Egypt with offers of humanitarian aid, vaccines, infrastructure, schools, hospitals and spiritual patronage. … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Russian Orthodox Church Viewed As Tool To Spread Kremlin Influence”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[177,8],"tags":[119,317,151,318],"class_list":["post-1554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-writing","tag-africa","tag-eurasia-review","tag-fpri","tag-russian-orthodox-church"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8YXbm-p4","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/charlesray-author.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/charlesray-author.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/charlesray-author.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/charlesray-author.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/charlesray-author.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1554"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/charlesray-author.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1554\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1556,"href":"http:\/\/charlesray-author.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1554\/revisions\/1556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/charlesray-author.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/charlesray-author.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/charlesray-author.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}