by Stefano Caprio

The Patriarchate of Antioch is the only one of the fifteen autocephalous Orthodox Churches, and the only one of the five ancient patriarchates, that has always and in every situation supported the Russian Church. Moreover, it was precisely the Antiochians who inspired the establishment of the Moscow Patriarchate. And these ancient stories of the late Middle Ages find their relevance today in the face of the Russians' fear of losing their controlling role in the Middle East, after the victory of the Islamists in Damascus.

Patriarch Kirill of Moscow (Gundjaev) made it known that he ‘assists with fervent prayers’ his beloved brother, Patriarch Ioann X (Yagizi) of Antioch, together with all the clergy and faithful of the Church representing the entire Christian East.

The representatives of the Antiochian Patriarchate in Moscow, Metropolitan Nifon and Archimandrite Filipp, ensured ‘constant first-hand information’ on the evolution of events in Syria, which are of such interest and concern to the whole of Russia.

President Vladimir Putin has offered shelter to the now ex-dictator of Damascus, Bashar al Assad, in a luxurious flat near the Kremlin, and the deputies of the Moscow Duma are demanding that he be granted Russian citizenship immediately.

As the Patriarch's advisor, protoierej Nikolaj Balašov, pointed out, ‘the Antiochian Church has always represented the true patriotic spirit of Syria’, recalling Ioann X's words that ‘Christians are the true native inhabitants of these lands, all others came later’.

The Syrian Patriarchate is the only one of the fifteen autocephalous Orthodox Churches, and the only one of the five ancient ecumenical patriarchates, to have always and in every situation supported the Moscow Church, even in this phase of schism with Constantinople and the other patriarchates of Alexandria and Jerusalem, although the latter retains a fairly neutral position.

Moreover, it was precisely the Antiochians who inspired the establishment of the Moscow Patriarchate in the past.

In 1586, the then Patriarch of Antioch Ioakimos V arrived in Moscow in search of material aid to survive under the Ottoman Turks, and was welcomed by the Tsar's unscrupulous advisor Boris Godunov, with whom he fine-tuned the plan that would realise the dream of the ‘Third Rome’ at its supreme level, the religious and ecclesiastical one.

Ioakimos was hosted in Moscow as Assad is today, and prepared for the visit of his confrere Ieremias II (Tranos), the Patriarch of Constantinople, who himself came to the Russian capital in 1588 to ask for support.

He was housed in the most solemn rooms of the Kremlin, where Godunov imprisoned him for seven months, until he agreed to sign the decree establishing the Russian patriarchate, the first since ancient times to flank the apostolic ones, paving the way for a conception of ‘national orthodoxy’ and patriotism that today finds its splendour in the holy wars of Putin and his imitators.

Ieremias was then released, and on his return he stopped by the Russian Orthodox of Poland, suggesting that they create a Kiev Patriarchate to counterbalance Moscow's claims, the ancient capital of Rus' being the true source of Christianity in those lands.

The Polish king Sigismund III's loyalty to the Roman Catholic see, together with the powerful influence of the Jesuits, transformed this project into the Union of Brest with the Pope in 1596, generating the opposition between Moscow and Kiev that has been projected into subsequent history to the present day, between the two souls of Russian Christianity, the Eastern and the Western.

In the meantime, the Patriarch of Antioch and his successors found in Moscow the main point of reference of their own religious and national identity, going so far in the 17th century as to propose a ‘Russian papacy’ that would offer the former Eastern Patriarchs new seats around the capital.

In the current rediscovery of one's own ‘traditional values’, these ancient stories of the late Middle Ages rediscover relevance in the face of the Russians' fear of losing their role of control over the Middle East after the victory of Islamists against the pro-Moscow Syrian regime.

The patriarch's concern expresses the deepest feelings of the entire Russian political and military leadership, which is counterbalanced by the exultation of the Ukrainian leadership, which credits itself with having supported the Islamic revolution, in order to corner the Russians.

The Russians had deployed their troops in Syria in 2015, investing hundreds of billions of roubles, and organising the most aggressive companies, those of the ‘Chechen butchers’ and the Wagner Company mercenaries, led by ‘Putin's cook’, the late Evgenij Prigožin, who then became the main actors in the Russian war in Ukraine.

In a way, Moscow's support for Damascus was the training ground for Russia's return to the role of a major player on the world geopolitical stage. In 2016, Russia even obtained the blessing of Pope Francis, who, meeting Patriarch Kirill in Havana in February, agreed on a joint ‘humanitarian action’ for Syrian Christians and refugees, which allowed the Russians to consider themselves officially in charge of controlling that territory, where the Roman pontiff himself had blocked the entry of Americans with prayer vigils the year before.

Of the five ancient patriarchates, apart from Antioch only Rome is today Moscow's interlocutor, in a convergence of attentions to the East still in search of a true definition. Now it is difficult to say whether Russia will be able to keep its military bases in Syria, and the Holy See has let it be known through the Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, that it is ‘impressed by the speed of events’, hoping that there will be respect for the Christian minorities and awaiting developments, a statement almost identical to those of Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov. It is not just a matter of fear of the choices of the new Islamist government in Damascus: remaining in Syria may prove to be a threat to everyone, Russians and Armenians, Orthodox Christians, Chaldeans, Protestants and Catholics.

The loss of Russian bases would also entail a serious logistical problem for the Kremlin, because of its contacts with its own groups in Africa, heirs to the Wagner Company's business, which rely precisely on Syria in the Mediterranean transit.

The Russians would be forced to expand their structures in Libya or Sudan, but this currently appears rather complicated, as there are no official relations with these states, which are themselves in search of a still very undefined stability; and the Russian military structures in Africa are not sufficiently developed to guarantee a satisfactory defence of the Kremlin's interests, as all commentators claim.

Russian planes bound for Africa have so far been moving on the air corridor over the Caspian Sea, Iran and Iraq, stopping in Syria on their way to Khartoum and from there across Africa, and now it is unclear how.

Syria is Russia's bridge to the Mediterranean and Africa, considering also the dispersal of the Black Sea fleet following the Ukrainian drone attacks, and now ‘there could be new uncontrolled uprisings also in African countries, which the Russians are struggling to control’, according to Novaja Gazeta correspondent Denis Korotkov.

It is difficult today to calculate how many Russians are still stationed in Syria: in 2018, there was talk of three thousand army soldiers, and two thousand Wagner mercenaries, while today, after three years of war in Ukraine, the estimate is no more than one thousand, including a hundred or so observers scattered throughout the country.

In addition to the soldiers, there are supposedly over seven thousand Russians throughout Syria, and the military (and non-military) structures are very varied, being confused with the state structures of the now fallen regime.

Formally, Russia had intervened in Syria to fight against the Islamic fundamentalists of Isis, which allowed Moscow to regain some of the international credit it had lost with the start of the hybrid war in Ukraine in 2014, then also escaping new sanctions.

A lot of water has passed under the bridge since then: Moscow has collected more sanctions than any other country in the world, in the war in Ukraine it has also (and above all) involved the Muslims of the Caucasus and Asian Russia, extolling them as ‘moderate and patriotic Islam’, the face that representatives of the jihadist group Hay'at Tahrir ash-Sham, in power in Damascus, now give themselves, who have managed to do in one week what the Russians have not managed to do in Ukraine for three years.

Putin cannot afford to throw away twenty years of efforts to restore Russia's strategic role in world geopolitics, to establish a ‘multipolar vision’ in place of Western hegemony, so he will try to find a way to stay in Syria.

After all, Syria has now largely passed under the control of Turkey, Russia's historical enemy for control of these territories, which today appears instead as the only possible ally in the search for new balances between the ‘Russian world’ and the ‘Turkish world’.

Erdogan's declared aim is the annulment of the autonomy of the Kurds in the north-eastern part of Syria, but it is clear that we have entered a new phase of subdivision of dominion over the vast border territories between East and West, between Moscow and Istanbul, as at the time of the formation of the Russian patriarchate, in relation to the Antiochian patriarchate.

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