At the March 2024 congress of the World Russian People’s Council, orchestrated by Patriarch Kirill of the Russian Orthodox Church, a document was approved that was largely ignored by Western analysts. Church proclamations rarely call for violence or the seizure of foreign territories, but this document did both, mentioning Russia 53 times and highlighting the expanding ambitions of Putin’s regime. Using the Kremlin’s preferred description of the war against Ukraine as a “Special Military Operation,” the new Orthodox declaration emphasized that the conflict “is a Holy War in which Russia and its people are defending the single spiritual space of Holy Russia.”
The Russian Orthodox Church is making it very clear that it supports Putin’s goal of eliminating Ukraine’s independence and imposing direct Russian rule — a global scenario in which Ukraine will forcibly be made a part of the wider “Russian world,” which will be Russia’s exclusive zone of influence. There is no ambiguity in the position of the Orthodox leadership on this issue, a position summarized succinctly in this concluding statement: “The possibility of a political regime hostile to Russia and its people existing on this territory must be completely excluded.” Is it a surprise that Pope Francis warned Patriarch Kirill to avoid becoming “Putin’s altar boy”?
It is important for Western nations to remember that Ukrainians have struggled against Russian tsars and Communist Party leaders for centuries. Both of these ruling elites have repeatedly tried to eliminate Ukraine’s identity, language, and church life — and in each of these efforts to deny the right of Ukraine to exist, the Russian Orthodox Church has played a leading role.
Historically, the Russian Orthodox Church has been a strong supporter of secular authorities in Russia, especially after Peter the Great made the church one of the ministries in his government. After the Communist Party came to power in 1917, there was brutal persecution of all religious communities until 1943. When Putin became president in 2000 and focused on restoring the Russian Empire, the church once again become a partner with the country’s secular leadership. This dramatic shift was highlighted in 2012, when Patriarch Kirill called Putin the “savior of modern Russia” and described his reign as a “miracle of God.”
Putin’s increasingly autocratic government began to show signs of weakening when he returned to the presidency in 2012. He used his relationship with the leaders of the Orthodox Church to build his popular support, which he linked together with his vision for an expanding Russian empire and the strength of the Russian Armed Forces. This trilogy of nationalism, Orthodoxy and autocracy was the dominant imperial ideological doctrine of the Russian Emperor Nicholas 1 (1825-1855). Unlike Ukraine’s leaders — who are looking to the future with a passion for democracy, the free market, and religious freedom — Putin is attempting to strengthen his power base by looking backward for two centuries. The generation gap between Putin’s leadership elite, who are in their seventies and eighties, and Zelensky’s team, who are twenty to thirty years younger, helps give context to the contrasting backward and forward perspectives of these two groups of presidential “comrades.”
In partnership with Patriarch Kirill, Putin and his National Security Council members have turned the war in Ukraine into a struggle against the West, labelling this conflict as a larger spiritual battle against “Satanism.” The Kremlin’s media has helped to generate support, or at least acquiescence, from the Russian population. Not one of the 400 Russian Orthodox Church bishops has expressed any opposition to the war. More than 40,000 clergy have also been supportive, along with 700 university rectors who signed a public statement supporting the war.
The new Russian Orthodox declaration of March 2024 is very similar to statements by Islamic radicals who have a history of describing the United States and its allies as “Satanic” in order to justify their radical terrorist tactics. In addition to echoing the rhetoric of Islamic leaders, Patriarch Kirill has made another frightening statement, claiming that Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine would have their “sins washed away.” By defining the invasion of Ukraine in explicitly spiritual terms, the Russian Orthodox Church and its Patriarch are whitewashing war crimes that are a part of the Russian army’s terrorist tactics. These tactics are designed to break the spirit of the Ukrainian people, whose cities and towns are constantly being attacked while their unique culture is uprooted and their historical facilities demolished.
This entire document was approved by the Patriarch and unanimously endorsed by 488 delegates, including more than 30 bishops and 60 priests. It completely contradicts the teachings of the Gospel and basic Orthodox theology and seeks to justify violence, xenophobia, and genocide. There is no mention of the name of Christ and no references to the Gospel. In addition, the document states that the highest mission of Russia is to protect the world from evil. It does this by creating a new civil religion for Russia using medieval Christian terms that are boldly anti-Christian and anti-Gospel.
The stark contrast of King Jesus riding into Jerusalem on the colt of a donkey (Mark 11:1-11) and Patriarch Kirill and Orthodox priests blessing Russian nuclear weapons clearly shows how political ideology has become the Russia’s “new religion.” The following photos make this clear. If you want to see more evidence of this “new religion,” see Chapter 4 “Worshipping the Nukes” in Leon Aron’s new book, Riding the Tiger: Vladimir Putin’s Russia and the Uses of War.
Putin and his National Security Council cronies are in agreement that this war in Ukraine is really about Russia’s war against the United States and NATO and is not primarily a conflict between Russia and one of the USSR’s former republics. Again, it is important that our leaders understand this. The March 2024 declaration by the the Russian Orthodox Church should be a stark “wake up call” for all Americans.