The Latvian parliament has declared the Orthodox Church in Latvia, a denomination previously under the control of the Moscow Patriarchate, to be autocephalous, an action, the editors of Nezavisimaya gazeta say, that hadn’t occurred to anyone else before and is an effective game changer as far as Orthodoxy on the post-Soviet space is concerned.
When Ukrainian Orthodox leaders sought autocephaly, their action was approved by the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, the editors point out, adding of course that the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate from which the OCU broke away declared its independence from Moscow because of Russian aggression (ng.ru/editorial/2022-09-11/2_8536_editorial.html).
But the UOC made that decision at a church council and notified the Moscow Patriarchate. At least officially, neither the Ukrainian government nor the Russian…
