The Center for Countering Disinformation at the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine analyzes the church’s role in russia and how it affects state policy.
The Symphonia of the church and the state is a cornerstone in the russian federation’s construction of its alternate universe. The russian Orthodox Church has long been perceived as the state church in russia. The “russian world” does not consider international law, other states’ sovereignty, or the will of individuals. It goes without mentioning that this Moscow-inscribed “russkiy mir” ignores the rights and freedoms of each person.
Most of the theologians of World Christianity condemn the teachings of the “russian world” as heretical and violating the fundamental beliefs of orthodoxy. Yet, it is the russian orthodoxy that provides the ideological basis for the current war in Ukraine.
Patriarch Kirill blessed the russian troops for the war with a thesis: “Ukraine, russia, Belarus – together we are holy Russia.” And any external forces that want to prevent the capture of Ukraine technically interfere with establishing this unity.
To the call to stop hostilities and remember mutual forgiveness, Kirill responded: “forgiveness without justice is surrender and weakness.” He considers the war in Ukraine a “warfare of metaphysical significance” that occurs not only on earth but also in the spiritual world. And he assessed his own situation as a crucifixion.
Hundreds of clergy representatives turned to the Ecclesiastical courts to deal with the rhetoric of the Moscow Patriarch, who continues to support the war in Ukraine. Shortly, a summit of the five patriarchates (the five oldest churches of Eastern Orthodoxy: Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem) will be held in Constantinople. The harshest possible punishment for Kirill will be to declare him a heretic.
But the “russian world” is not only a heresy but also a neo-Nazi ideology: a specific totalitarian leader with rhetoric and politics based on chauvinism, fascism, racism, and xenophobic ideas.
The “russkiy mir” doctrine about the violent imperial expansion under the pretext of a sacred national right threatens all humanity. Therefore, the world community must condemn ideology and legally ban it as neo-Nazi, totalitarian, and extremist.
Moscow Patriarch, as if he were not a spiritual shepherd but an army political commissar, repeatedly voiced their goal common with putin: the elimination of Ukrainian identity, the extermination of all different from russians who consider themselves Ukrainians, a “reboot” and “new mentality of the Ukraine residents.”
At the start of World War II, some religious leaders also blessed Hitler for that war and laid a “spiritual ideological” and “civilizing” foundation for its justification. However, in Nazi Germany, 286 priests opposed the war – the so-called Confessing Church. But there was not a single voice against the proposed cannibalism in the leadership of the russian church.
Putin appealed to the doctrine of the “russian world” in his historic criminal speech on February 22. Similar attempts to unify several religious teachings and personal values already took place in Iran’s 3rd and 4th centuries and influenced the further development of occultism.
Magical thinking is essential for totalitarian systems. Putin’s mystical rhetoric and religious thought are based on the message that the carriers of this rhetoric need more space for their spiritual existence.
The so-called putin’s orthodoxy contradicts church traditions. In his opinion, Islam is closer to Orthodoxy than Catholicism. Putin’s attraction to numerology and dates with repeating numbers, such as 08.08.08 or 02.22.2022, cannot go unnoticed, as well as his dependence on parapsychologists and shamans.
Speaking at the “Crimean Spring” concert rally in Luzhniki stadium in Moscow, Putin quoted the Gospel: “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” (John 15:13). But knowledge of the Bible does not compensate for lack of faith!
So, the idea that we will be able to get to the same page with russians has no basis. Reaching a member of a destructive cult is like talking to a brick wall as they only listen to their leader putin.
The russian Orthodox Church and Patriarch Kirill’s position is the most misanthropic in this war. And the Moscow Patriarchate won’t fit the revived Ukraine anymore. Therefore, this church should be excluded from the World Council of Churches and the Conference of European Churches. We should also raise the question of personal sanctions against Patriarch Kirill.
