How Orthodoxy is being sacrificed on the altar of “victory”

Eight months after the start of the invasion of Ukraine, we can observe a certain evolution in the ROC’s attitude toward the war. In February–March, the main themes in the rhetoric of Russian Church clergy were about a “common spiritual space,” overcoming alienation, and so on. But after mobilization was announced, the ROC dropped its false shame and fully sided with the Russian authorities.

Almost no one even mentions anymore that in Ukraine live Orthodox brothers, that every day of the war claims their lives and reduces their churches and homes to ruins.

A recent trend is the narrative that the war in Ukraine is religious, and that Russia itself is a kind of new Israel divinely appointed to wage battle against apostates – among whom Orthodox Ukrainians are also included.

Russia as the New Israel?

Among the most prominent supporters of the war is Archpriest Andrei Tkachev, a former UOC cleric who moved to Russia after the 2014 Euromaidan. Father Andrei speaks vividly, with imagery and emotion. He has a huge audience. His videos get hundreds of thousands of views on many social networks, demonstrating his powerful influence on both churchgoers and the religiously minded public.

His rhetoric would hardly be possible without the silent consent of the ROC leadership. Father Andrei has recently used his popularity and influence to promote a kind of Orthodox imperialism and a “holy war.” Tragically, he openly manipulates Scripture and Holy Tradition, building a religious justification for the war and actively encouraging participation in it.

For example, in his video blog “Holy Truth” on the Tsargrad channel, he quotes Deuteronomy, drawing a parallel between the Israelites emerging from the wilderness into the land given by God, and the Russian army in Ukraine. On his Telegram channel he directly writes that Russia is the New Israel and the war in Ukraine is religious:

“We are the New Israel, called to a special historical mission and, as before, full of disoriented commoners and corrupt leaders. And against us stand the modern heirs of Babylon, Egypt, and Rome, with their idols, sacrifices, and depravity; grown arrogant from stolen wealth and pride, convinced of their impunity. This is a religious war, if anyone is still too stupid to see it.”

One can ask many questions of this statement – historical and moral. In Old Testament times, God really did single out from all of humanity one people – or more precisely, one man, Abraham, who believed God and became the ancestor of the chosen people, Israel. This covenant was later confirmed with Abraham’s descendants, Isaac and Jacob. Jacob became the father of the twelve tribes of Israel.

The purpose of Israel’s chosenness was to preserve faith in the One God amid pervasive polytheism and idolatry, and so that from this people would come the Messiah, the Savior, Jesus Christ.

With the birth of Christ on earth and the emergence of the Church, there is no longer and cannot be any “chosen people” or, all the more, any chosen state. The Church of Christ is itself the new Israel: “where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free, but Christ is all and in all” (Col. 3:11).

Faith in Christ, not belonging to any nation, is what matters.

To declare in these New Testament times that any people or state is “chosen by God” logically amounts to denying Christ’s mission on earth and the founding of the Church. Otherwise, why would God need another “chosen people” in the form of Russians?

Whom are Christians fighting against?

In another episode, Fr. Andrei Tkachev says that war is “normal,” that “a Christian should not fear war because he is always at war.” He backs this by citing Ephesians, where the Apostle Paul compares a Christian to a soldier dressed in armor and bearing weapons. The priest lists all the “militaristic” details from the Epistle and concludes: “Here before us is an equipped soldier: kneepads, boots, helmet, shield, sword, chain mail.”

The question of whom Christians are fighting is very important, so it’s worth examining more closely.

The full quote from the Apostle Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians reads:

“Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (Eph. 6:10–17).

First, one cannot help but see that Paul uses military equipment only as images, immediately explaining what they actually mean: breastplate = righteousness, shield = faith, sword = the Word of God.

To conclude, as Fr. Andrei does, that the Apostle is talking about literal boots and helmets is like concluding from Peter’s words – “The day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night...” (2 Peter 3:10) – that the Lord literally resembles a thief (God forgive us).

Second, Paul very clearly and unambiguously states whom Christians fight: “Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.”

In the New Testament, no war except the battle “against spiritual hosts of wickedness” can be “holy” or “religious” in any Christian sense.

There is a great deal of patristic commentary on this passage. Here is one from St. Luke (Voino-Yasenetsky), practically our contemporary: “What principalities, what powers? Of course, not the powers that govern the state. The Apostle Paul is talking about entirely different rulers, as he himself explains: ‘against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places’—against demons, against the angels of Satan, for they truly can be called the rulers of the darkness of this age.”

And Blessed Jerome of Stridon seems to answer Fr. Andrei directly, who has confused the Old and New Testaments: “Ephesians! What you read about Israel’s wars against other nations, e.g., Egyptians, Edomites, Ammonites and others—if you want to know the truth, it seems at first glance to concern flesh and blood, but it all has a figurative meaning (1 Cor. 10). It was written for us, on whom the ends of the ages have come, so that we should understand our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against certain spiritual and invisible forces.”

All these words can also be addressed to Bishop Antony of Volgodonsk and Salsk, who exhorted mobilized Russians with statements that the war in Ukraine is supposedly spiritual resistance: “Do not doubt that you are going to fulfill your duty, and there is great meaning in this. No matter what anyone says, this has long ceased to be geopolitical resistance. This is spiritual resistance. You are going to defend land that has been watered with the blood and sweat of the Russian people.”

Is death in war a ticket to heaven?

Bishop Pitirim (Tvorogov), in one sermon, urged Russians not to be fainthearted about “we might die” and to go to war: “Not everyone will die, and those who do will be heroes, and their families will be proud of them.”

The bishop claims that in the war in Ukraine “our soldiers are going to paradise” and that “mobilization is salvation for men who have lost their purpose in life and now can become martyrs.”

The most famous warrior saint is George the Victorious. But does this mean the Church glorifies him because of military feats? Did he get to heaven for that?

His hagiography says: “After fruitless attempts to make him renounce Christ, the emperor ordered that the saint be subjected to various tortures. They beat him with ox tendons, put him on the wheel, threw him in quicklime, forced him to run in boots with sharp nails inside. The holy martyr endured all this patiently. Finally, the emperor ordered him beheaded with a sword.”

As we see, his military rank has nothing to do with it. We honor St. George for his faithfulness to Christ in the face of torture, not for any military achievements.

Similarly with the widely venerated St. Demetrius of Thessaloniki. His death is recorded: “The emperor soon learned that Proconsul Demetrius was a Christian. By the emperor’s order, prison guards pierced Demetrius with spears in 306. His body was thrown to the beasts.”

The same with Theodore Stratelates: “He asked the emperor to leave the idols in his house overnight. The emperor agreed. Seizing the idols, St. Theodore smashed them into many pieces and gave the gold and silver fragments to the poor. Thus he exposed the vanity of worshiping lifeless idols and laid the foundation for Christian mercy. For this, Christ’s martyr was seized and subjected to cruel, sophisticated torture.”

When we study the lives of warrior saints, we see none was glorified for military exploits, only for faith in Christ.

Certainly, none of them was one of those “men who lost their purpose in life,” as Bishop Pitirim suggests.

Muslims – brothers in a “religious” war?

Every person has the right to their own faith; freedom of conscience is guaranteed by the laws of the state. From this perspective, we respect Muslims and Islam itself as a religion. But at the same time, we must acknowledge that from the point of view of Holy Scripture, “every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God” (1 John 4:3).

Therefore, we cannot say that Muslims and Christians are brothers in faith or that we can be on the same side in a “religious” war.

Yet Fr. Andrei Tkachev declared: “Our war must be religious. The Chechens and Dagestanis will help us in this, because they have exactly the same attitude about it. They pray in their own way, and they are buttoned up, mobilized inwardly. They approach this as men, so look at them and take an example.”

And Bishop Savvaty of Bishkek and Kyrgyzstan said that he and the local mufti serve God and the people of Kyrgyzstan together: “I read the Quran and the New Testament at about the same time. I can’t say I know the surahs and ayahs by heart, but I understand the general meaning. We believe in one God. The mufti and I have the same goal – to serve God and the people of Kyrgyzstan.”

It is rather strange to hear such things from an Orthodox bishop. After all, Christians believe in the Holy Trinity, in Christ – true God from true God, in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life. This is completely different from what is written in the Quran.

Try approaching a Muslim and saying that God has a Son and the Holy Spirit! He will consider that blasphemy. But for us, this is a holy truth, without which there is no Church or Christianity at all.

One can also cite the Tomos of the Constantinople Council of 1180: “Anathema to Muhammad, [and to] his teaching transmitted in the Quran, in which he confesses that our Lord, God, and Savior Jesus Christ is not the Son of God.”

So in today’s war, believers of the ROC together with Muslims from Dagestan and Chechnya are killing Ukrainian citizens, including Orthodox Christians of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. And this is being called a “religious” war?

Conclusions

It is impossible to disagree with the claim that Orthodoxy today is under assault. We are witnesses to the fact that recently Orthodoxy has suffered two of its most powerful blows.

The first is the recognition by the Patriarchate of Constantinople of graceless schismatics. This is not only a canonical absurdity – granting “grace” retroactively to those outside the Church – but also a demonstration to the entire world of how contemptuous people within the Church itself can be toward its own teaching.

The second blow is the support of the war in Ukraine by the Russian Church. Any mantras about “defending the Fatherland,” so popular in the Russian Federation and the ROC, collapse in the face of one unalterable fact: it was Russia that invaded Ukraine, not the other way around.

It is in Ukraine, not Russia, that thousands of civilians and hundreds of children have already died. It is in Ukraine that entire regions are being destroyed. The fighting is taking place not only in the Donbas, as is constantly claimed in Russia. The suburbs of Kyiv have been destroyed, along with hundreds of settlements in Zhytomyr, Sumy, Chernihiv, Mykolaiv, Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, and other regions. By mid-October, a third of all energy facilities across Ukraine had been bombed, threatening the entire population with the complete absence of electricity, heat, and water in winter.

In this situation, to say anything in justification of the war is to go against the Gospel, the teaching of Christ. Tragically, the ROC – through its primate and many bishop-preachers – is doing exactly that. In doing so, it demonstrates loyalty not to Christ but to the Russian state and its policies.

This is a catastrophe not only for the ROC’s relationship with the UOC. It is a time bomb under the Russian Church itself. The attempt to present Russia as an Orthodox country, a “new Israel,” is an outright lie and manipulation of Holy Scripture. Russia is a multi-confessional state in which support for the ROC among the public is at a very low level, as even ROC clergy themselves admit.

In the 20th century, the Russian Church went through unprecedented persecution of faith by the Soviet state and produced a host of new martyrs and confessors. Thanks to their witness, until recently the ROC held very high authority in Orthodoxy as a confessing Church. But now it is rapidly losing that authority, taking on the features of a peculiar state apparatus acting in accordance with state interests.

This is why the distancing from the ROC observed not only in the UOC but in church structures of other countries is also driven by the desire to preserve themselves as the Church of Christ, not to follow state ambitions.

What lies ahead for the ROC?

According to the latest VCIOM poll, the majority of Russian youth under 35 consider the ROC’s involvement in public life “too active.” Will such people attend its churches? That is a big question. And this is the future of the country.

All this suggests that support for Orthodoxy in Russia may have very bleak prospects. And because of the explicit support for the war in Ukraine, it may collapse entirely. Meanwhile, the number of Muslims in Russia continues to grow steadily, simply due to the natural population growth in Muslim families.

Might it turn out in the end that Orthodox Christians in Russia will become like ahl al-kitab – people of the Book – whom devout Muslims will merely tolerate?

And in any case, if the ROC has now bound itself so tightly to the Russian state, what will happen to it when the state no longer needs it? When the principle of separation of church and state is actually implemented?

A century ago, before the October Revolution, the Russian Church was already part of the state and carried out its policies.

With the rise of the USSR, everything changed suddenly. It turned out there was a huge number of atheists in the country who zealously set about destroying churches and killing priests.

All this led to the purification of the Church, to the emergence of a whole host of martyrs and confessors.

We know that the Church is the Body of Christ; it cannot be destroyed. At the same time, we remember that history is cyclical. And so we must keep past events in mind and not repeat the mistakes of previous generations.