On October 8, 2023, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow delivered a sermon in which he once again tried to justify Russia’s war against Ukraine. In his speech, Kirill called on Russian monks to “pray for our Fatherland”, “visit our wounded” and “provide help to those who defend our Fatherland”. This is Kirill’s latest appeal to Russians to support aggression against Ukraine.
This was reported by the Spiritual Front of Ukraine with reference to the website of the Russian Orthodox Church.
Kirill is trying to use the authority of St. Sergei of Radonezh to legitimize Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine. The blessing of St. Sergey of Radonezh to Dmitry Donsky for the battle with Mamai came in the conditions when Russia was under threat of destruction by the Tatar-Mongol invaders. In today’s situation, with Ukraine being an independent state defending from Russian aggression, no saint dared to bless the crimes of the Russian aggressors and their full-scale invasion of a sovereign country.
Despite all that, Kirill is sure that the holy saints of God are now supporting Russia’s evil deeds: “The holy saints are with us, Saint Sergei is with us, the greatest tradition of Holy Russia is with us, and we cannot do otherwise.” The leader of the Russian Orthodox Church turns faith in God into a propaganda machine, a tool of the Kremlin. He distorts history by portraying the Russian Orthodox Church as the bearer of the “great tradition of Holy Russia”, which in fact historically was a multinational entity.
Patriarch Kirill emphasizes again and again that Russia is fighting “global evil”. While the Russian Federation is killing hundreds of civilians in Ukraine, shelling hospitals and schools, Gundyaev urges: “Pray for the Fatherland because it is currently resisting global evil.”
The statement is an attempt to discredit Ukraine and present it as part of “global evil”. The head of the Russian Orthodox Church demonizes the victim, not the aggressor, who is supposedly blessed by the saints.
In addition, Kirill lies about the war. The Russian Federation seized Crimea and now continues to illegally hold some parts of the regions of Ukraine, however, for the Patriarch of Moscow, this is a “struggle for the freedom” of the Russian “Fatherland”.
Kirill’s appeal aims at Russian believers to encourage them to support the war and trust the Russian authorities. In addition, the Patriarch of Moscow remains an authority for a part of the faithful from the UOC (MP), who will listen to his words. This is especially dangerous in the context that Russia already used religion to justify its war crimes before 2022, but is now doing so on a larger scale and rather openly. However, the Ukrainian authorities are trying to neutralize this lever.
The head of the Russian Orthodox Church directly calls for support for the Russian government and the “struggle for the freedom of Russia”, which is propaganda promoting the Kremlin’s aggressive foreign policy. However, the real threat to freedom today comes not from “global evil”, but from Russia itself, which unleashed a bloody war against Ukraine.
This speech by Kirill is a vivid example of the ideological support of Russian aggression by the leadership of the Russian Orthodox Church. It promotes ideas that threaten the independence and sovereignty of Ukraine. This should push the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine to adopt a law prohibiting the ties of any churches with the Moscow Patriarchate.
