It is no secret that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was largely supported by the Moscow Orthodox Church. Its spiritual boss, Patriarch Cyril, shares with President Vladimir Putin the same nationalism and cult of hierarchy that prevails in the Kremlin.
But this is just the starting point for understanding the religious dimension of the war unleashed last February. The issue was discussed by five experts gathered by the Center for European and Russian Studies at the American UCLA (University of California at Los Angeles). The debate is available as a podcast.
The erudition of the participants was evident. But with an unfortunate omission to say the least. Namely: the faith was placed at the service of the State and the Armed Forces. Opposing the war became, for the Moscow Orthodox, a kind of heresy at once spiritual and political. Faith, I add, is a form of knowledge. It disputes space with rationality. It is by faith that, for example, we believe in the existence of God.
It is understandable that this is the path taken by the Patriarch of Moscow and his Orthodox hierarchy. Russian clergy, and I return to the UCLA debate, are as disciplined today as they were in the Middle Ages. Dissent is almost unthinkable. In opposition to these clerics, there are only a few very isolated priests in Russia, who are multilingual and exchange war-restricted messages via the social network Telegram.
The Ukrainian Orthodox — whose independence has not been recognized by the Russian Orthodox — are at risk of being seen as lacking a true relationship with Christ and God, said one of the panelists, in the only intervention that put faith in evidence.
Let’s see a little more how the structure of the church works, which is based in Constantinople, the former name of the current Turkish city of Istanbul. Each of those bearing the orthodox denomination, such as the Russian or the Ukrainian, has management autonomy. They also consider themselves, in theological terms, “autocephalous”—that is, they think with their own heads. But the Moscow branch does not accept this status for the Kiev branch, because it believes that the two countries, as was the case in the times of the tsars and communism, form a religious unity.
Less liberal clerics have accused Ukrainian bishops of taking an interest in the assets of a fragmented church or in the money for the split, allegedly sent by the US Orthodox community.
As an ideological background, the attachment to traditional values ​​prevails, such as marriage, which would be under threat from the atheists who would control the media in the West. “Putin is not a true orthodox in religion, but he takes advantage of an alliance that is, in every way, convenient for him,” says one of the experts, Roman Koropeckyj, a mediator of the debate and an expert on Ukrainian literature.
Another participant, Archimandrite Ciril Hovorun, an expert in ecumenism at Stockholm University, insists on the religious involvement of the military, who incidentally were gifted with a rich church in Moscow, dedicated to the Air Force. “You are warriors of glorious Russia,” a bishop told the troops, “in combat against the atheism of the Ukrainians.”
This verbal unceremoniousness obviously annoys Catholic, Jewish, Baptist or Islamic soldiers in the Russian army. The latter were 9% of the Russian population 13 years ago; are now 13%. They experience a remarkable demographic progression.
Sean Griffin, a professor at the University of Helsinki in Finland, recalled that shortly after the collapse of communism, the then patriarch gathered 5,000 officers in the Armed Forces and told them that religion alone would fill the political void they would feel.
Sociologist José Casanova of the Berkley Center says Putin has teamed up with orthodox religious to insist that Ukraine is part of Russia and the thesis that to deny this dependence on the neighboring country would be to succumb to liberal secularization and Western feminism. He also cited a surreal statement by the president when he annexed Crimea. “She’s ours,” he said, because a certain Russian prince was born on that Ukrainian peninsula.
By the way, the Kremlin did not participate in celebrations for the formal independence of the Orthodox from Ukraine. Alongside the Ukrainian patriarch and the leaders of other religions, the seat reserved for the bishop hierarchically linked to Moscow was empty.
Let’s say that the outcome of this war is linked to political and military issues that burn the eyelashes of specialists in diplomacy, politics and defense. Alongside these dimensions, the religion professed by the military and the civilian population coexists. It is on the periphery of this point that the UCLA debaters arrived. Which was more than enough merit.
