© Alexei Druzhinin/Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via APPutin visits Athos in May 2016.
Comment: As Kovacevic writes further on in the article, "Geopolitically speaking, this may be the most dramatic event since the collapse of the Soviet Union and it is likely to have long-term consequences that will affect not only the balance of power in the Balkans and the Middle East, but also in Europe and Eurasia in general." Definitely something to keep an eye on.
The Christian church split in 1054 into the Western and Eastern branch. The Western branch with its center in Rome came to be known as the Catholic church (further splitting during the Protestant Reformation several centuries later). The Eastern branch with its center in Constantinople (Istanbul) was not able to maintain unity as long as the Western branch. Already with the fall of Byzantium and the conquests by the Ottoman Turks, it split into more than a dozen churches tied to the particular monarchs and nations. The Eastern equivalent of the pope, the ecumenical patriarch, remained a politically weak figure.
The same situation persists to this day. The leaders of the national Orthodox churches, 14 in number, are much more powerful in influencing the domestic and foreign policy agenda of their respective countries than the current ecumenical patriarch, Bartholomew I.[1]
Since the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and the unshackling of religious expression in the former Soviet political space, the Russian Orthodox church has tried to assert its authority within the community of Orthodox churches. Though this process already started during the last years of the tenure of the patriarch Alexy II (1990-2008), it attained its full public expression in the current mandate of Alexy II's successor, Kirill I. It has closely matched the strengthening of the Russian state and its geopolitical position in the world engineered since mid-2000s by Vladimir Putin.
Comment: It's really telling that al-Qaeda, a terrorist group, is trying to lift the siege on Aleppo, which is held by other al-Qaeda-affiliated groups. But even that isn't enough to break through the propaganda put out by the West. Just take a look at these tweets.
Even CNN is whoring itself out to al-Qaeda propagandists: