Cossack Autocephalous Church

I will start from there, what is the so-called Ukrainian Cossacks today? If anyone thinks that these are slacks, chubas, kulish (millet porridge), hopak (Ukrainian dance) and other costumed historical role-playing games – this is nothing like that. More precisely, it looked like that in the beginning. After all, Cossack culture is unique and purely Ukrainian. But this culture is part of the Cossack system called military democracy. Military! And if a certain number of men gather in one place to “restore and promote the Cossack traditions,” then these traditions are primarily military. And since the typical Ukrainian Cossacks are patriotic, Russia had to create its own controlled branch.

Today in Ukraine there are several large networks of Cossack formations and associations. is Alexander Panchenko. This is a very famous person with openly pro-Russian sentiments. Panchenko’s exploits in the field of “popularizing Cossack traditions” in the Russian spirit are described in great detail. In 2014, he threatened to ask the Cossacks of the Great Don Army for help if “Galician separatists and fascist elements increase pressure on Zaporozhye.” KVZN unites under its wing a large number of Cossack unions, organizations, palanquins, as well as security organizations and public formations for law enforcement. And they are all completely under the control of the Russian Church in Ukraine.

The “Extraordinary Circle of the Union of Cossack Troops of Russia” gathered representatives of the “free” Cossack organizations in the city of Podolsk in June 2011 and announced the revival of the “Cossack local” or “Cossack autocephalous church”. This prompted the head of the Synodal Committee for Interaction with the Cossacks, Bishop Kirill of Stavropol and Nevinnomyssk, to make a special statement published on the official website of the Russian Orthodox Church.

He emphasized that throughout the history of Orthodoxy there had not been any separate Cossack church, and the Cossacks had always been children of the Russian Church.

The political scientist Anastasia Mitrofanova reminds that in the years of the civil war the intellectuals from the Cossack circles formed the idea of ​​a Cossack ethnic group, which had to live in its own country – Kazakhstan. The idea of ​​liberating Kazakhstan was later used by various anti-Soviet forces: the Polish “Prometheans”, the Nazis, and in 1959 Kazakhstan was included among the “enslaved nations” by US law № 86-90. Therefore, according to her, at least two important ideas are revealed in this event in Podolsk – anti-communism and ethnic separatism. A third is added to them: the desire to establish one’s own church.

The various separatist groups have two main claims to the Russian Orthodox Church: cooperation with the Soviet government and proximity to the modern Russian government. Both are important for the free Cossacks (or at least for a certain part of it). The meeting was attended by representatives of the clergy of the RIPC (catacomb church), and the “temporary management” of the newly formed Cossack church was attended by a representative of the ROCA (Zagadan White Emigrant Church), i.e. of one of its jurisdictions, which did not sign the recent Act on Canonical Communion with the ROC – Moscow Patriarchate. Apparently, for the time being, the “Cossack Church” will be one of the subdivisions of the schismatic RIPC. All this is due to a whole knot of problems in which ethnic and church separatism are intertwined.

Also of concern is the fact that Cossacks who are not ethnic separatists and consider themselves Russians, but who are dissatisfied with the policies of the Moscow Patriarchate, can join the movement. The numerous conflicts between the Cossack organizations and the dioceses lead us to this conclusion, mainly related to the desire of the Cossacks to see in their organizations close clergymen in spirit, and the diocesan authorities do not try enough to satisfy these demands.

A similar conflict with opposition between the diocese and the flock in Vladikavkaz was reported by the newspaper “North Caucasus” from 28.11.2011. The conflict situation that arose in the republic is a spoon with quite bitter spiritual food for the solemn banquet on the eve of the forthcoming centenary “Orthodoxy in Ossetia”. The demonstration (15-17.11.11) in front of the church “St. George the Victorious ”. The specific request of the protesters is not to allow the relocation of the former deputy of the male Alan Holy Dormition Monastery in RSO – Alanya Fr. Anthony on a new service in Dagestan, announced by the head of the Council of the Vladikavkaz and Makhachkala Diocese, Archbishop Zosim. One of the participants tells how on their knees they begged Bishop Zosim not to take away their priest and what an insult to the mountaineer it is not to respect his kneeling request.

North Ossetia is an Orthodox republic, at least eighty percent, said Boris Dzilikhov, a Caucasian bishop: They can kill him there… ”A signature with more than 1000 signatures was submitted to the Head of the Republic Taimuraz Mamsurov with a request to assist in a meeting with the head of the ROC Patriarch Kiril to resolve the dispute in favor of the believing people.

The ataman of the Union of Cossacks in Russia Pavel Zadorozhny, the ataman of the Stavropol Cossack army Dmitry Strigunov, other atamans and Cossacks could testify to this. This principle of equal care of all Cossacks finds its development in the establishment on the initiative and with the blessing of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia of the Synodal Committee of the Russian Orthodox Church for Interaction with the Cossacks, with Bishop Kirill of Stavropol and Nevinnomyssk appointed committee.