Orthodox theologians and academics are appearing seemingly everywhere to argue Putin is fighting a “Holy War”, blessed by Patriarch Kirill and the Russian Church, against the whole West“…this time around, Kyiv is the new Berlin; Zelensky’s regime and NATO are the new Nazis; and the entire country is waging a holy war against godless aggressors from the West.” Patriarch Kirill’s sermons critical of Gay Pride parades and other degeneracy are referenced to buttress this analysis. We see additional charges like this in various media, “Putin and Patriarch Kirill have used Russian world ideology as a principal justification for the invasion.” It seems the Patriarch is providing a spiritual justification for “wiping out” the Ukrainian people and their state. The word genocide is now back in vogue.
This is complete bunk. To save some time, here is the answer to the question: this is not a “Holy War”. From the Russian perspective, this war has nothing to do with religion, and everything to do with Great Power politics. The US and NATO presented a Great Power with a perceived existential threat. The war was the result. Russia is behaving no differently than a non-Orthodox power, such as China or the US, would behave under similar circumstances.
Watch at least the first 15 minutes of the video below, if you want to understand the real reasons for this war. Notice something about the panelists? They are a political scientist, a former CIA head of the Russia desk, a former ambassador, a professor, and the granddaughter of the president who first warned us about the Military Industrial Complex. You notice what they are not? They are not theologians. They are not priests, or bishops, or monks. No one is wearing a cassock. They are not on this panel to discuss “Orthodox World” or any other religious concept. Why? Because the causes of the war are secular and the Russian objectives are secular.
If you don’t have the time to watch the video, then here is a synopsis from an expert on the causes of this war. We bolded some key points. Jacques Baud is a former colonel of the General Staff, ex-member of the Swiss strategic intelligence, and a specialist on Eastern countries. This is a long quotation from his recent article explaining the true background of the war and its current conduct:
In violation of the Minsk Agreements, Ukraine was conducting air operations in Donbass using drones, including at least one strike against a fuel depot in Donetsk in October 2021. The American press noted this, but not the Europeans; and no one condemned these violations.
In February 2022, events came to a head. On February 7, during his visit to Moscow, Emmanuel Macron reaffirmed to Vladimir Putin his commitment to the Minsk Agreements, a commitment he would repeat after his meeting with Volodymyr Zelensky the next day. But on February 11, in Berlin, after nine hours of work, the meeting of political advisors to the leaders of the “Normandy format” ended without any concrete result: the Ukrainians still refused to apply the Minsk Agreements, apparently under pressure from the United States. Vladimir Putin noted that Macron had made empty promises and that the West was not ready to enforce the agreements, the same opposition to a settlement it had exhibited for eight years.
Ukrainian preparations in the contact zone continued. The Russian Parliament became alarmed; and on February 15 it asked Vladimir Putin to recognize the independence of the Republics, which he initially refused to do.
On 17 February, President Joe Biden announced that Russia would attack Ukraine in the next few days. How did he know this? It is a mystery. But since the 16th, the artillery shelling of the population of Donbass had increased dramatically, as the daily reports of the OSCE observers show. Naturally, neither the media, nor the European Union, nor NATO, nor any Western government reacted or intervened. It would be said later that this was Russian disinformation. In fact, it seems that the European Union and some countries have deliberately kept silent about the massacre of the Donbass population, knowing that this would provoke a Russian intervention.
At the same time, there were reports of sabotage in the Donbass. On 18 January, Donbass fighters intercepted saboteurs, who spoke Polish and were equipped with Western equipment and who were seeking to create chemical incidents in Gorlivka. They could have been CIA mercenaries, led or “advised” by Americans and composed of Ukrainian or European fighters, to carry out sabotage actions in the Donbass Republics.
In fact, as early as February 16, Joe Biden knew that the Ukrainians had begun intense shelling the civilian population of Donbass, forcing Vladimir Putin to make a difficult choice: to help Donbass militarily and create an international problem, or to stand by and watch the Russian-speaking people of Donbass being crushed.
If he decided to intervene, Putin could invoke the international obligation of “Responsibility To Protect” (R2P). But he knew that whatever its nature or scale, the intervention would trigger a storm of sanctions. Therefore, whether Russian intervention were limited to the Donbass or went further to put pressure on the West over the status of the Ukraine, the price to pay would be the same. This is what he explained in his speech on February 21. On that day, he agreed to the request of the Duma and recognized the independence of the two Donbass Republics and, at the same time, he signed friendship and assistance treaties with them.
The Ukrainian artillery bombardment of the Donbass population continued, and, on 23 February, the two Republics asked for military assistance from Russia. On 24 February, Vladimir Putin invoked Article 51 of the United Nations Charter, which provides for mutual military assistance in the framework of a defensive alliance.
In order to make the Russian intervention seem totally illegal in the eyes of the public, Western powers deliberately hid the fact that the war actually started on February 16. The Ukrainian army was preparing to attack the Donbass as early as 2021, as some Russian and European intelligence services were well aware.
In his speech of February 24, Vladimir Putin stated the two objectives of his operation: “demilitarize” and “denazify” the Ukraine. So, it was not a question of taking over Ukraine, nor even, presumably, of occupying it; and certainly not of destroying it.
The dramatic developments we are witnessing today have causes that we knew about but refused to see:
- on the strategic level, the expansion of NATO (which we have not dealt with here);
- on the political level, the Western refusal to implement the Minsk Agreements;
- operationally, the continuous and repeated attacks on the civilian population of the Donbass over the past years and the dramatic increase in late February 2022.
In other words, we can naturally deplore and condemn the Russian attack. But WE (that is: the United States, France and the European Union in the lead) have created the conditions for a conflict to break out. We show compassion for the Ukrainian people and the two million refugees. That is fine. But if we had had a modicum of compassion for the same number of refugees from the Ukrainian populations of Donbass massacred by their own government and who sought refuge in Russia for eight years, none of this would probably have happened.
The ongoing attacks against Russians in the Donbass, and the escalation of them on 2/16, are usually covered-up by Western governments and media. The death and suffering in the Donbass, however, were very real. No government in Moscow could ignore the suffering of ethnic Russians in a neighboring country indefinitely. Read this carefully – the Donbass republics declared independence, the Kiev government was about to attack them in force, and Vladimir Putin invoked Article 51 of the United Nations Charter, which provides for mutual military assistance in the framework of a defensive alliance. From the Russian point of view, this is a defensive war.
The secular, and limited, nature of the war is further highlighted when you look at the Russian peace demands:
- No nukes – President Zelensky threatened to reacquire nukes shortly before the war. Russia will not allow nuclear weapons to be so close to Moscow.
- No NATO – This should have been taken off the table years ago. Formal NATO membership would allow for basing of troops and missiles on the Russian border. Russia has said consistently, since this idea was first brought up, that Ukraine in NATO was a red line. In response, the US armed Ukraine, provided NATO personnel to train Ukrainian forces, and refused to agree that formal NATO membership would never happen.
- A neutral Ukraine – Even though Ukraine is not in NATO, the Western world is arming it, funding it, and pursuing economic warfare against Russia in support of it. That is not neutrality. That is an alliance in all but name.
- Give up any claims on Crimea and the Donbass – Crimea is too strategically important to Russia to ever allow a hostile government to control it. Consider Crimea gone forever. Originally, ethnic Russian residents in the Donbass were willing to live with autonomy within Ukraine. 8 years of war changed that. They are now officially independent, and will stay that way or formally join Russia.
- Denazification – 40% of the Ukrainian military is comprised of Nazi paramilitaries. Nazis are in all levels of Ukrainian government, and are virulently anti-Russian. This goal is likely to be largely accomplished by Russian force of arms, in advance of a peace agreement. In fact, cleaning out the Nazis might hasten the peace process by eliminating an obstacle preventing Zelensky from negotiating in good faith.
Which of these demands is about stopping Gay Pride parades? Or Western decadence? Or restoring the unity of the Holy Rus’? Or taking control of Kiev, the fount of Russian civilization? Or which church body (UOC or OCU) is the canonical church in Ukraine? Is there a single Russian demand linked to Orthodoxy at all? No? Then this is a secular war for secular, limited aims.
It is clear that Russia does not need to destroy Ukraine or occupy the majority of it to “win” its objectives. This may change as the war drags on, however. The Biden regime is committed to prolonging this war indefinitely, if possible. After all, for the American armaments industry, every day of this war is like Christmas. To make war mongers richer and bleed Russia, NATO will fight to the last Ukrainian. Biden has openly speculated about regime change in Russia. The Biden regime has even changed America’s nuclear posture and removed the “no first use” policy.
Russia believes it is facing an existential threat to its survival as a sovereign nation. Biden and NATO seem hell-bent on doing everything possible to reinforce that impression. The Ukrainians may be the first victims of that folly, but it is more than possible there will be hundreds of millions more.
NATO needs to go away, and let Zelensky negotiate peace. Otherwise, we may all perish.
Much of the World Backs Russia, and They Don’t Care About the Holy Rus’
Something completely ignored by most Westerners is that more than half the global population remains “friendly” to Russia. Countries not supporting sanctions include two major powers, China and India, major oil producers (Venezuela, Turkey), and other countries in the “Global South.” Hungary and Turkey are actual NATO members who do not back sanctions.
Do these nations care about the “Russian World” teaching of Patriarch Kirill? Do they care about the history of the Holy Rus’? Not even a tiny bit. The nations who refuse to participate in sanctioning Russia do so for one or more of the following, very secular reasons.
- Anger over Western Aggression – Since WWII, the United States and its allies have killed an estimated 20 – 30 million people around the globe in military “interventions.” The US reserves the right to attack anyone, anywhere, and any time of its own choosing. The “rules-based international order” does nothing to restrain the US from bombing, attacking, and occupying defenseless nations at will. Many Global South nations see the West as a rogue empire, funding and participating in wars all over the globe with disastrous consequences. Given these facts, much of the world sees NATO and US involvement in Ukraine as immorally provoking this war.
Abp. Theodosios is one of the most influential bishops of the Jerusalem Patriarchate and he sums up the opinion of the “Global South” very succinctly:
“The political system in the West is crying over Ukraine while it’s the one that created this crisis,” the Archbishop said. “Why do they mourn the victims of Ukraine but not those of the wars they started in various other places,” he asks.
“America and its allies destroyed Iraq and committed war crimes against its people, and we are witnessing what is happening in Syria and all the devastations of wars they created in the region,” His Eminence said strongly.
“These international double standards in our world clearly show the deep levels of the state of immorality and lack of human values many western regimes have reached,” the Jerusalem hierarch said.
- Desire to Overthrow American Financial Hegemony – The US controls the world financial system, and uses that power as a way to enforce its will on other nations. Currently almost 25% of the world’s population lives under some form of American economic sanctions. The US is currently unhappy with India’s refusal to sanction Russia. Suddenly, the US has become troubled by India’s human rights record and is talking about sanctions. Since WWII, no one has been strong enough to challenge the dollar’s standing as the world’s reserve currency. Now Russia and China are teaming up to do just that, and many countries are eager to participate. This is a way for nations to regain their own sovereignty, and get out from under the constant threat of US sanctions.
- Fear of Regime Change – The US and its allies rig elections, rig votes in parliament, and outright overthrow governments all the time. Step out of line, and the US will use its army of NGOs, global media dominance, and unlimited funding for bribes to take you out. The US did this in 2014 to the democratically elected government of Ukraine. Afterwards, the US made common cause with the ultranationalist right in that country and backed an 8 year war on ethnic Russians in the Donbass. Non-Western leaders draw a straight line from that coup to this war, while wondering when might the American hegemon come for them? Even now, the regime change agenda continues. Imran Khan blames his ouster from power in Pakistan on an American-led conspiracy. Whether the US is responsible or not in this case, everyone knows American involvement is plausible. We have done it many times before. The US, whether Americans like it or not, is seen by many governments as much more of a global menace than Russia.
- Nothing Makes Ukrainians Special – Most wars in history have been over the placement of some border or another. Dozens of countries are cursed with irrational borders drawn by former colonial powers that lead to seemingly endless tragedy. Global South nations often struggle with ethnic conflicts, secessionist movements, and neighboring countries violating borders to protect their ethnic / tribal / religious brethren. These wars look very much like the conflict in Ukraine which began as a civil war then escalated through foreign intervention. Only the War in Ukraine is obviously special, because when these tragedies happen in the Global South, the West usually ignores them. No press show up. No one brings assistance. Nobody shows up offering military alliances. So why, many ask themselves, does the West care so much about Ukraine and not us?
- Self-interest – Two of Viktor Orban’s main promises in the recent election was to stay out of the war, and to keep Russian energy flowing to Hungary. Smart nations, like Hungary, look after their own people first, especially in a global crisis. On the other hand, the US and EU are asking the world to voluntarily suffer for Ukraine. What a pompous, First World, stupid thing to ask. Around the globe, many poor nations are full of people barely surviving as it is. These nations will not be signing up for food and fuel shortages to “Stand with Ukraine”.
Which of the above reasons for telling Uncle Sam to pound sand over support for Ukraine has anything to do with Orthodox Theology? None of them? The world has very practical reasons for sitting this out or even supporting Russia. None of those reasons concerns the legacy of St. Vladimir’s conversion to Orthodoxy. So why is religion supposed to be a major driver of this conflict if everything we talked about so far revolves around global politics?
Because NATO, the US, and Western, progressive Orthodox Christians need religion to play a major role for their narrative to work.
Why Must This be a Religious War?
None of the Russian peace demands are an “existential” threat to Ukraine. There are no Russian plans for genocide, or even for occupying the bulk of the country. There is no need for Ukraine to keep fighting. Peace is achievable, and on terms that both sides can live with.
However, the West does not want peace. The West sees this war as a chance to bleed Russia. To economically devastate Russia. Perhaps to even “regime change” Russia. Not to mention the billions in earnings for the Military Industrial Complex. From America’s perspective, this war has to go on. Since the West controls Zelensky, the death and destruction will continue, even though this war could end now.
To keep the war fever burning, the West had to recast a rather pedestrian war into something truly epic. By commonly accepted definition, a “Holy War” or “Crusade” or “Jihad” is existential in nature. One side is trying to wipe out the other in the name of God. If Russia is fighting a “Holy War”, Ukraine must “win” to survive, and the West must aid that fight with all resources at our disposal.
“Holy War” also provides a ready-made justification for accusations of “genocide” and Russian War Crimes. If the war is fought for limited, negotiable objectives, then it makes no sense for Russian forces to engage in systematic mass murder of civilians, rape, kidnapping of children, torture, indiscriminate bombing of civilian targets, etc. The West can do all those things in its wars in the Global South, because after the fighting stops Western forces withdraw to safety thousands of miles away. Russia is next door to Ukraine. Russia will always be next door to Ukraine. Such crimes only make negotiating and abiding by a lasting peace agreement more difficult if not impossible. Ukrainian Nazis may not think about the future, but Russian leaders, including Putin, definitely do.
Which is exactly why it makes no sense for war crimes to happen as a matter of policy. Shells or missiles can go astray. Miscreant soldiers can loot or harm civilians on the sly. A local commander may lose his marbles and authorize illegal actions, or turn a blind eye to them. However, to explain full-scale, genocidal actions as a matter of policy, one must convince the world that the Russians hate the Ukrainians and want to utterly eliminate them. Of course, “Putin is a monster” and “Russians are soulless Orcs” also work as explanations for many Westerners. For the more thinking set, blaming God provides a deeper, more intelligent seeming answer.
Further, a “Holy War” against “the West” can scare Western Europeans into thinking it is 1939 all over again. Putin is on the march. His goal is to defend Orthodoxy from Western degeneracy while spreading Orthodoxy by force. After Ukraine, Poland is surely next as Putin will never be satisfied until every Gay Rights Parade on the continent has been abolished. Objectively, that sounds ludicrous. Who would believe that? Unfortunately, more than a few Western Europeans will. Many of them are extremely secular with a deep distrust and fear of religion. Casting this as a “Holy War” plays into their existing prejudice that Christians are irrational, violent right-wingers just waiting to erupt. Western Europeans exist that are perfectly willing to believe Russian Orthodox fundamentalists will risk nuclear Armageddon just to get at the poor gays and their parades.
Portraying this war in religious terms also helps the western “Orthodox” progressives in their ongoing effort, centered around the Patriarch of Constantinople, to transform the Orthodox Church in the West into a globalist institution. The progressives in Orthodoxy support secularism, pluralism, green mandates, global governance, open borders, gay rights, CRT, abortion, group rights as opposed to individual rights, censorship, birth control, and transgenderism. By discrediting the ROC as merely a violent, “Russian nationalist” institution, they hope to also discredit Orthodox opponents of their plans by linking them to unjust war, heresy and irrational paranoia. More broadly, the globalist progressives want to link all their conservative opponents to political authoritarianism and religious extremism as embodied in “Putinism.”
On the Russian side, there may be some small minority that sees this war in primarily religious terms. We haven’t really found any, but they might exist. On the Ukrainian side, however, 40% of the Ukrainian Army is comprised of fanatical Nazis. They have made an idol of Ukrainian nationality, which they fervently worship. Jesus Christ is all good and everything, as long as he is Ukrainian. They and their clergy are definitely “blood and soil.” For the Ukrainian cultists, this really is a religious war. That fact seems to be of no interest to anyone for some reason.
With all that said, how do critics of Patriarch Kirill support their charges of blessing a kind of “Holy War”? Simple – they lie.
Spinning Lies Out of Whole Cloth
A major lie perpetrated in the West is to assign way too much importance to what a Church man like Patriarch Kirill has to say in the middle of a war. He does not speak for Russia as a country. Russia is officially a multi-confessional state. Russian law identifies Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and Buddhism as the country’s four “traditional” religions while recognizing the special role of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC). Does Patriarch Kirill speak for the Muslims in the Russian Federation? Of course not, that is the government’s job. Patriarch Kirill is not in charge of Russian foreign policy. He is not is charge of the military. He is not running this war. While Putin certainly welcomes the support of the Patriarch, he would do just fine without it. The War in Ukraine is more popular among Russians than either the Patriarch or the Russian Orthodox Church. More Russians support this war than consider themselves Orthodox. Whether true or not, the vast majority of Russians feel that this action is both defensive and justified.
A second great lie is that Patriarch Kirill justifies this war through the heretical use of Orthodoxy. This charge is supported by cherry-picking quotes from Patriarch Kirill and presenting them out-of-context. For example, Western critics of Patriarch Kirill seized on sections of his Sunday of Forgiveness sermon to prove that the war was all about battling Western degeneracy:
If humanity recognizes that sin is not a violation of God’s law, if humanity agrees that sin is one of the options for human behavior, then human civilization will end there. And gay parades are designed to demonstrate that sin is one of the variations of human behavior. That is why in order to enter the club of those countries, it is necessary to hold a gay pride parade. Not to make a political statement “we are with you”, not to sign any agreements, but to hold a gay parade. And we know how people resist these demands and how this resistance is suppressed by force. This means that we are talking about imposing by force a sin condemned by God’s law, and therefore, by force to impose on people the denial of God and His truth.
The statement above was denounced as “unhinged”, as “justifying Russian aggression”, as making an “other” of the West, and more. The spin was incredible. What was even more incredible was that few commentators published the entirety of the Patriarch’s remarks. If you look further into the sermon, you will see the following as well:
Who is attacking Ukraine today, where the suppression and extermination of people in the Donbass has been going on for eight years; eight years of suffering and the whole world is silent – what does that mean? But we know that our brothers and sisters are really suffering; moreover, they may suffer for their loyalty to the Church. And so today, on Forgiveness Sunday, on the one hand, as your shepherd, I call on everyone to forgive sins and insults, including where it is very difficult to do this, where people are at war with each other. But forgiveness without justice is capitulation and weakness. Therefore, forgiveness must be accompanied by the indispensable preservation of the right to stand on the side of the world, on the side of God’s truth, on the side of the Divine commandments…
Today, our brothers in the Donbass, Orthodox people, are undoubtedly suffering, and we cannot but be with them, first of all in prayer. It is necessary to pray that the Lord would help them to preserve the Orthodox faith, not to succumb to temptations and temptations. At the same time, we must pray that peace will come as soon as possible, that the blood of our brothers and sisters will stop, that the Lord will incline His mercy to the long-suffering Donbass land, which has been bearing this mournful stamp for eight years, generated by human sin and hatred.
The Patriarch of Moscow is not a fan of sexual perversion and other sins. Nor is His Holiness a fan of the way the “West” sees fit to treat sin as a major export. However unhappy he is about such things, he is not justifying a war on that basis. The real casus belli in his sermon is the suffering endured by the people of the Donbass. In his sermon, the Patriarch is presenting this as a defensive war to protect other Christians, and he also says, “we must pray that peace will come as soon as possible, that the blood of our brothers and sisters will stop, that the Lord will incline His mercy to the long-suffering Donbass land, which has been bearing this mournful stamp for eight years, generated by human sin and hatred.” The Patriarch further calls on everyone to, “forgive sins and insults, including where it is very difficult to do this, where people are at war with each other.”
Warmongers, imperialists, and those bent on conversion via the sword do not talk in this manner. The Patriarch may be wrong. You can legitimately debate the facts of what happened in the Donbass over the past 8 years, but you can’t make this into something it isn’t. There is nothing new or novel or heretical in what the Patriarch is saying. Going to war to protect fellow citizens / ethnic kin under threat in other countries is quite common. Even the US has done this, more than once.
The other charge around “use” of Orthodoxy is that Patriarch Kirill is justifying this war under the teaching called Russian World. This is from a Declaration critical of the teaching of Russian World as published on Public Orthodoxy:
The speeches of President Vladimir Putin and Patriarch Kirill (Gundiaev) of Moscow (Moscow Patriarchate) have repeatedly invoked and developed Russian world ideology over the last 20 years. In 2014, when Russia annexed the Crimea and initiated a proxy war in the Donbas area of Ukraine, right up until the beginning of the full-fledged war against Ukraine and afterwards, Putin and Patriarch Kirill have used Russian world ideology as a principal justification for the invasion. The teaching states that there is a transnational Russian sphere or civilization, called Holy Russia or Holy Rus’, which includes Russia, Ukraine and Belarus (and sometimes Moldova and Kazakhstan), as well as ethnic Russians and Russian-speaking people throughout the world. It holds that this “Russian world” has a common political centre (Moscow), a common spiritual centre (Kyiv as the “mother of all Rus’’), a common language (Russian), a common church (the Russian Orthodox Church, Moscow Patriarchate), and a common patriarch (the Patriarch of Moscow), who works in ‘symphony’ with a common president/national leader (Putin) to govern this Russian world, as well as upholding a common distinctive spirituality, morality, and culture.
Before we go any further, let us consider two things. First, this idea of “Russian World” originated outside the Church. It was coined in the late 1990s by a group of thinkers associated with Gleb Pavlovsky, a famous Russian government advisor of the Yeltsin years. Second, this is not Orthodox dogma or doctrine or anything of the kind. This is an opinion. Even if the Patriarch holds such an opinion, it is still an opinion. Bishops alone don’t get to make dogma for the Orthodox Church. Even the Russian one.
Now, much of what is in the quote above is not true. If it were, the authors would have provided quotes and links to speeches from Patriarch Kirill illustrating their charges. What does Patriarch Kirill mean by the term “Russian World”? This is from a speech in 2014 called, “His Holiness Patriarch Kirill: The Russian world is a special civilization that needs to be preserved”:
“If we talk about civilization, then Russia belongs to a civilization wider than the Russian Federation. We call this civilization the Russian World. The Russian world is not the world of the Russian Federation, it is not the world of the Russian Empire. Russian world – from the Kiev baptismal font. The Russian world is a special civilization, to which belong people who today call themselves by different names – Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians. This world may include people who do not belong to the Slavic world at all, but who have accepted the cultural and spiritual component of this world as their own,” His Holiness added.
According to the Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church, the Russian world is a civilizational, not a political concept, no matter how anyone wants to misinterpret it. “The Russian world is both a spiritual, cultural and value dimension of the human personality. Russians, even those who call themselves Russians, may not belong to this world, because speaking Russian or understanding Russian is not the only condition for belonging to the Russian world. And we know that many people do not associate themselves with Russian tradition, spirituality, or culture, but live with different views, beliefs and lose touch with their own civilization,” His Holiness Patriarch emphasized.
“The religious dimension of the Russian world is the source of the peacefulness of our people. It is not easy to keep these values today. But you need to understand that without these values, neither the Russian, nor the Ukrainian, nor the Belarusian people will exist, and everything will be melted down in a kind of cauldron of civilizations. The preservation of civilizations, including the Russian world, is our common task. Not in order to recreate some kind of political structures, build new empires, create military blocs, not at all for that. But in order to preserve the greatest heritage that we received from our ancestors,” concluded His Holiness Patriarch Kirill
Where in the above quote does Patriarch Kirill endorse a “common political center” for the Russian world? The Patriarch specifically states that Russian World is a concept involving common cultural heritage, not a blueprint for a political, imperial, or military structure. Patriarch Kirill refers to all three ethnicities by name (not trying to deny their existence) and does not call for them to be united under one state.
Rather than a call to war, this is actually a call to cultural and ecclesiastical unity. While the Belorussian and Ukrainian Churches are self-governing, they are still united with the Russian Church under the Moscow Patriarchate. This unity has been maintained despite ethnic differences and the intervening national borders. The Patriarch is making the case that this is proper, and should continue. The Patriarch, far from endorsing “ethnophyletism“, is actually making a case to transcend ethnicity in favor of Church unity. Patriarch Kirill is not calling for multiple bishops in one territory, one for each ethnicity, but rather a united Church for everyone. Setting up multiple, competing bishops in Ukraine was actually what the Patriarch of Constantinople accomplished by giving a tomos of autocephaly to the OCU – an ultranationalist Church hostile to 17% of the inhabitants of its “canonical” territory who are ethnic Russians. The critics of Patriarch Kirill are actually the ones emphasizing ethnicity as the basis of church organization.
Fine, that was 2014. Perhaps something changed? Frequently mentioned by critics is the March 20, 2022 sermon of Patriarch Kirill at the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow. Let’s look at what the Patriarch said:
Today’s Gospel reading about how people brought the paralyzed Savior to their feet and the Lord healed him, doesn’t it help us to understand what the Russian Church is? The One Church that came out of the Kiev Baptismal font, which is in Russia, and in Ukraine, and in Belarus, and in many other countries, is it not similar to those who brought the paralytic to the Savior? After all, someone must pray for our united people, whom they want to make relaxed! Someone must defend God’s truth that we are really one people who came out of the Kiev Baptismal font! I know how the opponents of this people will now shout there, in Ukraine: “Again, the Patriarch says that we are one people.” But the Patriarch cannot say otherwise, because this is historical and God’s truth. And the fact that today we live in different countries, does not change this historical truth and cannot change it. We know that other peoples, including those in Europe, often lived in different countries for a long time, but never lost their common national identity. And in relation to our people I will say: we have not lost the single Orthodox faith.
And may the Lord help us, as a paralytic, to gain strength, and may all those who are likened to unknown people who brought the paralytic to the feet of the Savior, all those who are ready to work today to preserve the spiritual unity of our peoples, to preserve the unity of our Church, do not hesitate and they do not doubt the rightness of the chosen path, just as those who brought the paralytic to the feet of the Savior did not hesitate. May the Lord protect the Russian land, the peoples who today inhabit this land, Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, because all of us, representatives of these three peoples, are also connected by a single Slavic culture and practically a single history. May God never forget our common roots, may God always pray for each other. And the most important prayer should be that the devil does not let that terrible moment when a brother raises his hand against a brother. Therefore, we must all pray for peace, for the well-being of the holy Churches of God, for our united people, who today live in different countries, but who came out of a single Kiev Baptismal font, which is united by a common faith and a common historical destiny.
Nothing different here from 2014. The Patriarch acknowledges the different ethnicities among the people who are successors to the Rus’ civilization, and the fact that the members of the Russian World live in different countries. Even some of his staunchest critics have admitted that Patriarch Kirill has never questioned the existing state borders. He does not call for either the ethnicities or the countries to be erased or subordinated to Russia. The only way to turn this into an endorsement of war is to misrepresent what His Holiness actually says.
For example, Patriarch Kirill says that all three ethnicities are “really one people,” even though “we live in different countries today.” Therefore, the Patriarch will continue to pray “for our united people, who today live in different countries.” In an an appeal to the Council of Primates of Ancient Eastern Churches, clergy of the UOC interpreted the Patriarch’s words thusly:
All these statements are quite consonant with Russian state propaganda, which rejects the very fact of the existence of the Ukrainian nation and Ukrainian culture, and therefore does not actually recognize the right of Ukrainians to their own statehood. Thus, the “Russian World” doctrine, which Patriarch Kirill has been promoting for many years, today contributes to justifying Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine.
No evidence is presented that Patriarch Kirill has ever denied the right of Ukrainians to their own state. However, if you read the Patriarch’s statement in light of “Russian state propaganda” as these clergy do, then you can criticize it for not recognizing explicitly enough (in the opinion of the authors) the right of the Ukrainian nation to its own state. The fact that the Patriarch recognized the existence of Ukraine as a state, while disavowing any political or military component to the concept of Russian World, is deemed insufficient and is presented, misleadingly, as such.
Again, Russian World is an opinion held and defended by Patriarch Kirill. Anyone is free to challenge it, call it full of crap, podcast about how wrong it is, and even write a book about all the ways it abuses history. Enjoy. What no one is free to do is raise it to the level of a heresy or claim the Patriarch is using it to justify an “aggressive war.”
Based on his actual words, it is clear that Patriarch Kirill supports this war under the justification that it is defensive in nature – both for the Donbass and for the Russian Federation itself. It is also clear that the Patriarch prays for all, and wishes for peace. The Patriarch is not treading any new theological ground here in service to Russian imperialism. Orthodoxy already has a concept of justifiable use of force. Orthodox Christians are not pacifists, and accept that war can actually prevent worse consequences from occurring.
Justified or not, the War in Ukraine is a tragedy that should end as soon as possible in a negotiated settlement. However, if we are to end this war, then we must understand what the conflict is really about. The Ukrainians are not fighting an existential battle. Russia is not waging war on the entire West. This is a limited war for limited objectives. The US needs to shut up and let Russia “win” in order to save lives. Fighting to the last Ukrainian to serve American goals and interests is completely immoral.
Nicholas – member of the Western Rite Vicariate, a part of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese in America
