What’s happening in the Orthodox world today? The Ecumenical Patriarchate has created a “showdown” posture with the Moscow Patriarchate. ONE of the two is, necessarily, as admitted by all parties to the dispute, openly serving the interests of Satan.
But which of the two is it?
(a). Orthodox individualism.
According to Patriarch Bartholomew, the “Russian world” theology is “unholy and heretical.” (87) This theology is based on the idea that the “Russian people,” which includes genetically indistinguishable Ukrainians and Byelorussians, were dedicated by God to a special, sacred mission of building (and in the post-communist world re-building) “Holy Rus.”
A related aspect of the “Russian world” theology is that Eastern Orthodoxy defines a “transnational civilizational space” which is characterized by what many refer to as “Russian soul,” whether in reference to Serbians or Bulgarians or even non-slavic Georgians or Romanians.
Patriarch Bartholomew, on the other hand, can rightfully be called the center of “Western Orthodoxy.” At least 70% of Orthodox Christians in the USA are formally under his spiritual jurisdiction. (88) His native Greece, birthplace of Western civilization, is, constitutionally, officially an “Orthodox Christian” country. Yet as a political reality this is clearly no longer true. Greece can be compared at some level with Denmark whose “Christian” “state church” comprises 72% of the population, of which only 15% continues to believe in “divine power.” (89) (Discussed in post 16 “Oh say, does that banner that Jesus is holding yet wave?” and 20 “The Russian-Orthodox crisis in Copenhagen.”)
The salient feature that distinguishes “Western Orthodoxy” from “Eastern Orthodoxy” and the “Russian world” is the social context within which sinners struggling to be Orthodox Christians must work to BE their prayer and “love thy neighbor as thyself.” Bartholomew instructs the faithful that it is perfectly alright to “go with the flow” of Western “Reagan economic miracle” “mechanical capitalist” “cult-of-individualism” societies as they live out their lives on earth. His theology can reasonably be termed “Orthodox individualism.”
Patriarch Bartholomew’s “Orthodox individualism” is becoming increasingly popular in the USA, especially with young Americans (90). At first glance, this seems like a positive development. Americans have begun to realize that Orthodoxy is infinitely more meaningful and fulfilling than Protestantism. Yet in everyday life, outside the sacrament of the assembly, they “go with the flow” of “Reagan economic miracle” society, making little if any effort to heal the fundamental American spiritual illness – the “sense of personal space” (described in detail in post 22).
One of the central themes of this blog is “mechanical capitalism” and the “Reagan economic miracle” as a political and economic order that has acquired a satanic character. (For more details, see post 18, “Taking the hyphen out of Christian-Satanist”).
“Orthodox individualism” convinces sinners yearning for Christianity that in such societies one can truly acquire an Orthodox Christian heart by living SOMETHING OTHER than swimming against the current. This “other,” to use Bartholomew’s own term, is “unholy and heretical.”
(b). The “Russian world.”
In contrast, in the Eastern case, the social context within which sinners struggling to be Orthodox Christians must work is characterized by the mysterious spiritual phenomenon of “sobornost” which yet remains as part of the “social fabric” after 1000 years of Orthodox Christianity. (Discussed in post 21, “Sobornost” – the spiritual component of economy in Russian society.) I can personally attest to this. I myself am an American living in Russia as a self-styled “spiritual refugee” (i.e., political refugee who has returned home spiritually). “Sobornost” is the fundamental civilizational characteristic of the “Russian world.”
“Sobornost” has, by all accounts, been greatly diminished in Russia compared to what it once was in the pre-communist days of “Holy Rus” and even in the communist and early post-communist days. And indeed the ongoing “assault” on “sobornost” can mostly be attributed to the Western-style system of consumer capitalism that was forcibly imposed on Russia by the West after the fall of the communists.
But, at least for now, “sobornost” yet remains at a level sufficient to support sinners struggling to be Christians in the Orthodox Christian spiritual work as they “swim WITH the stream” of society. It is impossible to overstate the profound significance of this. “Sobornost” provides what I call a “blessed middle”—a “spiritual unity” that exists in the “space between” the “two worlds” of “male” and “female” that are defined by the “gravity of flesh” (i.e., the “passions of the flesh”). (Note that there are only “two worlds” and not 72, as is the case in Bartholomew’s “free and democratic” West with its tendency for what President Putin has termed “gender terrorism.”) I think, therefore, it is entirely possible to simply continue the “prayerful vigil” carried out from the “liturgical sacrament” into everyday life, onto the streets. In this social context, it is possible to live in peace and repentance, working to BE one’s prayer, and conquering the passions of one’s own flesh by “loving thy neighbor as thyself,” of course using different methods in the case of thy “female” neighbor compared with thy “male” neighbor. The result of this work is that one consciously arrives in the “blessed middle” and, in so doing, further strengthens the very “sobornost” that made this possible. (Discussed in post 17 “The ‘measure of yeast’ effect.”)
The view from the “blessed middle” is humbling, awe inspiring, breath-taking. One becomes aware of the Creator’s love raining down on us in a prolonged experience of “liturgical time” in everyday life. In my experience, nothing remotely like this is possible in the USA because the level of spiritual coherence that this requires simply does not exist within the “cult of individualism” of Bartholomew’s West.
In my experience, the same spiritual work which takes me to the “blessed middle” swimming WITH the stream of Russian society requires a near-sisyphean struggle to “swim upstream” in the USA. And even then, one can only very briefly experience awareness of the Creator’s love raining down on us. (Discussed in post 5, “Being the ‘measure of yeast’ in carland America: The Prayer of I am in Christ in the chest.”)
(c). The triumph of peace.
The Ecumenical Patriarch claims to pray unceasingly for the “triumph of peace.” (87) One cannot help but wonder, if he had been old enough to know how to pray in 1941, when the Germans invaded the Soviet Union, for which side would he have prayed?
He openly prays for the side of NATO in what he terms the “Russian invasion of Ukraine.” And yet he does not find any fault with the USA (from which country virtually all of his funding is derived) which was perfectly well aware that IT was INTENTIONALLY provoking inevitable war in order to “extend Russia” (91) – an act badly miscalculated to have provided the means of collapsing the post-Yeltsin order in Russia.
Bartholomew claims to want only “the triumph of peace,” (87) even as his “showdown” with the Moscow Patriarchate has “fanned the flames” of the European march to war with Russia. Now, as the world sits on the brink of the collapse of the “Reagan economic miracle,” all the Western “Reagan economic miracle” societies have become more-or-less identical in governance character based on more-or-less meaningless “democratic processes.” All have highly unpopular (and desparate) governments. All are in lock step, championed by Britain’s King Charles, who openly calls for the US to prepare for the “showdown fight” with the evil Russians. (92) King Charles’ Britain is the same Britain that prevented “Holy Rus” from recapturing Constantinople from the Turks not once, not twice but three times (93). It is the same Britain that was instrumental in the destruction of “Holy Rus” through the overthrow of Tsar Nikolai II (93), in furtherance of its centuries-old enmity for Russia (94).
Bartholomew is clearly less troubled by the prospect of millions of young Europeans being sent to die fighting Russia than by the prospect that these same young Europeans might, instead, fight to be free from their own satanic political economic order – the same Western order which Bartholomew openly supports, encouraging the faithful to obey and “go with the flow” within in the practice of “Orthodox individualism.”
Bartholomew’s assertion is UTTERLY and I think almost certainly KNOWINGLY FALSE that Russian “ecclesiastical figures have adopted and echoed” the “Russian world” theology because they are “submitting to the dictates of political authorities.” (87) I can assert this with absolute certainty, from first hand, personal knowledge, living as I do in Russia and knowing very many sincere, humble Russian Orthodox priests who join the overwhelming majority of clergy in supporting this position.
No one can seriously claim that “the system” in Russia is good. It is not. It is clearly on the path to the same kind of “mechanical capitalism” that satanized the West. And it could potentially become even worse than the West in attempting to create communist-style control of the population without providing any of the very real practical benefits of communist society.
But what can be asserted is that “the system” in Russia CAN change course and reform itself after it has concluded defending itself from the West’s “unholy” effort to “divide and conquer” the “Russian world.” It is not yet too late to preserve “sobornost” in Russia. The effort to do so is a central theme of this blog. (Discussed in post 19 “Vanguard of the ‘Economy of Life’ – ‘Union of Workers within the Economic Body of Russia.’”)
87. “Ec. Patr. Bartholomew in TA NEA Weekend: ‘Why should I fear Russian propaganda?’”, Orthodox Observer, January 26, 2026.
88. “Unifying the Orthodox Church in America,” Ancient Faith Blogs, Sep. 30 2014
89. “Why are Danes and Swedes so irreligious?,” P. Zuckerman (2009) Nordic Journal of Religion and Society 22(1):55.
90. “Orthodox Church Pews Are Overflowing With Converts,” The New York Times, Nov. 19, 2025.
91. Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground, R. Cohen et al. Rand Corporation (2019)
92. “King Charles praises Nato and urges defence of Ukraine in key speech during Trump visit,” The Guardian, Apr. 28, 2026.
93. How the British Invented Communism (And Blamed It on the Jews), R. Poe (2024) ISBN-13 979-8990751002
94. “Charles III and Britain’s pathological obsession with Russia,” Alex Krainer substack, Apr. 29, 2026.
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