Recently, there has been a tendency for the kremlin to use the religious factor in positioning the “special military operation” as a “holy war” against the “separatists” of Orthodoxy in Ukraine and the West.
The use of the church for the consolidation of society in critical periods for the country is a tactic practiced since the time of the Soviet government. Thus, in 1941, when the Germans were under moscow, stalin changed the terror of Orthodoxy in the 1930s to the partial legalization of the russian Orthodox Church in exchange for the patriotic stance of its believers. The patriarchate and the synod were restored, bishops’ councils, parish dioceses were allowed, many parishes and churches were opened, monasteries were allowed, and the relics of some revered saints were returned to the churches. At the state level, religious organizations of the russian Orthodox Church were supported in the occupied territories, where, by the way, the Germans often did not prevent church revival. However, after the war, stalin dealt with believers according to his usual perfidious scenario, and moderate legalization was quickly replaced by a new round of repression.
Nowadays, when the russian federation is “engaged” in the war with Ukraine, religious topics are again on the agenda. This time, the informational operation on a religious basis is intended, on the one hand, to unite the peoples of the russian federation under a religious banner to achieve “their” goals, and on the other hand, to accuse Ukraine of religious intolerance and unleash religious enmity within our society. The main narrative of the kremlin propaganda is the promotion of the image of a liberating warrior who performs a “sacred mission” in Ukraine to cleanse the Orthodox Church of “godless Ukrainians.”
The Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the moscow patriarchate (UOC mp) was chosen as the main instrument of the russian hybrid war on religious grounds.
❗️UOC mp is an element of the russian Orthodox Church (ROC) in Ukraine subordinate to the kremlin. Its adherents supported russia’s invasion of Crimea and Donbas in 2014, and in 2022, russian soldiers used UOC churches as military depots, garrisons, and even combat positions. Metropolitan P. Lebid of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church did not hide his connections with russia, repeatedly insulted the religious feelings of Ukrainians and called to pray for the moscow patriarch.
Against the background of the targeted campaign launched by the kremlin to accuse the Ukrainian government of persecuting the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, russia itself is carrying out real religious purges in the occupied territories and the systematic eradication of “unwanted” religious organizations.
Since the full-scale invasion, the occupation authorities have forcibly transferred at least 26 religious buildings of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU), killed or captured at least 29 clergymen or religious leaders, and deliberately destroyed at least 13 religious sites. In addition, the russian occupation authorities are eliminating services in the Ukrainian language. It also became known that the russian Orthodox Church plans to send its priests to the occupied territories of Ukraine, and Patriarch Kirill called on the clergy to “mobilize” parishioners to collect money, things and food for the occupiers. What’s more, the SSU reported the suspicion to the russian archpriest of the Kyiv diocese of the UOC mp a. tkachev. It was he who called on russian soldiers to kill Ukrainians and to put religious inscriptions on russian projectiles, which the aggressor uses for rocket attacks on Ukrainian cities. By the way, the moscow cleric turned out to be a graduate of the special propaganda faculty of the military institute of the ministry of defense of the ussr in moscow.
Except UOC, the russian occupying forces also persecute other denominations that are culturally Ukrainian. In particular, members of the Protestant minority are repressed, calling them “American spies”, “sectarians”, “enemies of the russian Orthodox people”. They are threatened with extermination in the same way that russian forces did to the Muslim Crimean Tatar population after occupying the peninsula in 2014.
❗️Therefore, russia will continue to use the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and religion as a weapon to inflame social tension in Ukraine and influence hostilities. Therefore, further strengthening of the campaign of religious repression and the destruction of religious organizations that are not dependent on the control of the kremlin is predicted in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine. However, an attempt to correct the situation at the front under the banner of defending Christianity or Christian values and accusing Ukraine of religious intolerance is doomed to failure.
