The Issue of Declaring Bishop Vladimir Kotliarov, Moscow Patriarchate Representative to the Patriarch of Antioch and All the East, Persona Non Grata in 1966

Abstract

The article analyses the history of relations between Russian and Antioch Orthodox Churches in the 20th century. The focus is on Bishop (Kotliarov) of Podolsk, the Moscow Patriarchate representative to the Patriarch of Antioch and all the East in 1965-1966. The article draws upon unpublished documents from the State Archive of the Russian Federation, some of which are still classified, and shows extreme conditions of the bishop's ministry in the context of political rivalry between the USSR and the USA in the Middle East. The representative of the Moscow Patriarchate became “hostage” of internal political situation in Syria and of the official post-war policy of engaging the Russian Church as an instrument of of Soviet foreign policy. The unprecedented action against the representative of the Moscow Patriarchate prompted some Church leaders to raise the issue of the Church's greater autonomy on international arena.